Film Media

How can one make sense of our current political, ecological and technological dilemmas through the lens of Grant Sputore’s I Am Mother (2019)? Well-received, the film has been commended for its account of the increasing role and impact of artificial intelligence and its relation to our ongoing ecological dilemmas and potential catastrophe. While these issues are played-out through the on-screen relationship between robotic mother and human daughter, the film can also be used to help shed light on our current ideological (...) predicaments. With a narrative that steers towards our preference for cynical detachment, apathy and resignation, this review draws upon Lacan’s notion of the big Other, and its relation to the subject, in order to provide further discussion on the film’s ambiguous ending and the deeper sense of impotence that it accurately portrays with regards to our current political malaise. (shrink)

Film perception and cognition research, as interdisciplinary research lags behind the curve on issues, methods, and trends found important by its adjacent disciplines, such as film, communication, and psychology. It provides a scientific perspective for exploring the fundamental analysis issues to evaluate the film’s endogenous structure and exogenous power in the audience. It will mount the position of Chinese film research around the world by integrating the multidisciplinary theories and practice. 对目前中国电影研究学科性反思的提出，不仅是一种学术研究的重新审视，也是面临世界电影格局重组的根本应对策略。面对经济和文化等方面的冲击，中国电影研究需要顺应发展趋势：从传统的理论性研究汇入创作实践与理论 体系交融的大方向，从单一的学科研究转向到跨学科的探索。电影感知研究正是解决电影跨学科问题的最佳研究方法，它将传统电影研究与其他学科的现实经验相结合，可以从根本上推进中国电影研究以及实践在世界电影产业舞 台上的位置。.

In this article the public-theological motives in the film As it is in heaven is analised to demonstrate the film producer Kay Pollack's ideal to communicate through the film that people should live their lives here and now authentically without seeking excuses for being happy. In this article the principles of narratology is applied in the analysis of the film's plot, characterisation, plotted time and narrated spaces. It is also argued that the protagonist in the film can be regarded as (...) a 'Christ-figure' and that the film conveys a 'Christ narrative' in a secularised context. Societal issues such as emotional abuse and violence against children, women, people with disability and animals constitute building blocks of the narrative. Ecclesiastical hypocrisy and outdated sexual values endorsed by the institutional church are replaced by a choir consisting of common people which leads a whole world to sing in harmony. (shrink)

The ubiquity of gender-bending and sexually ambiguous imagery in the media seems to herald a post-gay era. But are LGBT/Q identities and representation politics really a thing of the past? Inspecti...

Philosophy of Film: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge) provides a critical overview of the literature on eleven different issues in the philosophy of film, from "What is Film?" to "Can Film Do Philosophy?" It aims to provide an objective overview of the principal arguments on each side of the issues. The set of issues includes all of the most important topics as well as some that are less well represented in the discipline, such as whether the power of cinema derives from (...) its similarity to dreams. (shrink)

The word ‘genius’ is often associated with the idea that artistic creativity is entirely a matter of an involuntary sort of inspiration visited upon the individual artist. My aim in referring to cinematic genius is not, however, to defend that dubious thesis, but to direct attention to the remarkable artistic achievements that some film-makers, working individually or in collaborative teams, have managed to bring about in their intentional and often painstaking creation of cinematic works. Genius, as I understand it, is (...) the exceptional ability to do something difficult, such as the intentional making of an innovative and valuable work of art. My central claim in what follows is that our longstanding and legitimate interest in manifestations of this kind of skill has important implications for a number of interrelated issues in the philosophy of art, and in particular, for some of the questions taken up in the ever-expanding literature on the ontology of works of art. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt was a jurist, political philosopher, and a devoted student of Thomas Hobbes. Schmitt lived from 1888 to 1985 in Germany, and for a time enjoyed with Martin Heidegger the right to create under Hitler a new spiritual German state. Both men shared enduring veneration, admiring pilgrimages, and remain sources of political and philosophical discussions and interpretation. Recently, three of Schmitt’s books were added to the one already available in English, The Concept of the Political. Most of Schmitt’s books (...) are pamphlets addressing particular subjects, which were important at the time they were written. The interest we have in Schmitt today could not be easily evaluated if we were to turn to his books for historical information. He has written on topics that would interest the constitutional jurist and the political philosopher, but they are not vital books and, if lost, there would be little weeping. We write about Schmitt because we want to show the danger of every political philosophy that claims for its hypothesis scientific data. His theory of humankind is reduced to the problem of evil and his concepts of reality claim that realism, the analysis of what is, is eternally timed and fatefully structured. We read such realists with pleasure because they seem to satisfy our need to see our fellow human beings in the most dismal light. We read them with disdain because we are naturally idealistic and believe that we are condemned to no given condition, and that ideals are not absent from reality, but are the source of its evaluation and the power of its transformation. We read Hobbes and find him perceptive and insightful, for example when he tells us: “I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death”. We seem to find much that is true and valuable. There is much that is absent if we believe that people and communities have always believed that reason and the reasonable force them to find differences between the good and the evil, between the truth and the lie, between the just and the unjust. The deepest difference lies between the philosopher of reason, or the speculative philosopher, and the political thinker who refuses to draw a distinction between what exists and what should exist, i.e., the thinker who absolutizes the given and values only what is suitable to it. (shrink)

Patroni, Steve Review of: Oh! What a lovely war, directed by Richard Attenborough.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between German Expressionist film and Hegel’s system of aesthetics. Through an analysis of the aesthetic qualities of Hanns Ewers’ The Student of Prague and F.W. Murnau’s Faust, I believe we have evidence to believe that the subjectivity that German Expressionist film sought to capture is aligned with the ‘interiority’ that Hegel believes Romantic art expresses. Further, I will consider whether these two films indicate that film as an artistic medium falls (...) within Hegel’s characterization of Modern art. I believe that because both Student of Prague and Faust use elements of Romantic art in an effort to convey the melancholy spirit, and that the melancholy spirit is reflection and product of a uniquely modern Germany, these films indicate that film as a medium fulfill the requirements Hegel sets for Modern art. (shrink)

Amy Coplan argues that recent work in the philosophy of the emotions suggests that film is more effective that literature in inducing non-cognitive affect. Derek Matravers replies to this, and suggests reasons for scepticism.

This collection fills a gap in the current literature in philosophy and film by focusing on the question: How would thinking in philosophy and film be transformed if race were formally incorporated moved from its margins to the center? The collection’s contributors anchor their discussions of race through considerations of specific films and television series, which serve as illustrative examples from which the essays’ theorizations are drawn. Inclusive and current in its selection of films and genres, the collection incorporates dramas, (...) comedies, horror, and science fiction films into its discussions, as well as recent and popular titles of interest, such as _Twilight_, _Avatar_, _Machete_, _True Blood_, and _The Matrix _and _The Help_. The essays compel readers to think more deeply about the films they have seen and their experiences of these narratives. (shrink)

A critical review essay dealing with three major publications in the field of philosophy of film published during 2009.

_Why is the moving image so important in our lives? What is the link between the psychology of Jung, Freud and films? How do film and psychology address the problems of modernity? _ _Visible Mind_ is a book about why film is so important to contemporary life, how film affects us psychologically as individuals, and how it affects us culturally as collective social beings. Since its inception, film has been both responsive to historical cultural conditions and reflective of changes in (...) psychological and emotional needs. Arising at the same moment over a century ago, both film and psychoanalysis helped to frame the fragmented experience of modern life in a way that is still with us today. Visible Mind pays attention to the historical context of film for what it can tell us about our inner lives, past and present. _Christopher Hauke_ discusses a range of themes from the perspective of film and analytical psychology, these include: The Face, The Shadow, Narrative and Story, Reality in Film, Cinema and the American Psyche, the use of Movies in the Psychotherapy Session and Archetypal themes in popular film. Unique to Visible Mind, six interviews with top film professionals from different departments both unlocks the door on the role of the unconscious in their creative process, and brings alive the reflexive critical thinking on modernity, postmodernity and Jungian psychology found throughout Visible Mind. _Visible Mind_ is written for academics, filmmakers and students who want to understand what Jung and Freud's psychology can offer on the subject of filmmaking and the creative process, for therapists of any background who want to know more about the significance of movies in their work and for film lovers in general who are curious about what makes movies work. (shrink)

This book discusses the role of the trickster figure in contemporary film against the cultural imperatives and social issues of modernity and postmodernity, and argues that cinematic tricksters always reflect psychological, economic and social change in society. It covers a range of films, from Charlie Chaplin’s classics such as _Modern Times_ and _The Great Dictator_ to contemporary comedies and dramas with ‘trickster actors’ such as Jim Carrey, Sacha Baron-Cohen, Andy Kaufman and Jack Nicholson. _The Trickster in Contemporary Film_ offers a (...) fresh perspective on the trickster figure not only in cinema but in Western culture in general. Alongside original film analyses, it touches upon a number of psychosocial issues including sovereignty of the individual, tricksterish qualities of the media, and human relationships in the mercurial digital age. Further topics of discussion include: common motifs in trickster narratives the trickster and personal relationships gonzo-trickster and the art of comic insurrection. Employing a number of complementary approaches such as Jungian psychology, film semiotics, narrative structure theories, Victor Turner’s concept of liminality and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of film, as well as anyone with an interest in analytical psychology and wider critical issues in contemporary culture. (shrink)

Italian neo-realism has inspired film audiences and fascinated critics and film scholars for decades. This book offers an original analysis of the movement and its defining films from the perspective of the cultural unconscious. Combining a Jungian reading with traditional theorizations of film and national identity, _Filming the Nation_ reinterprets familiar images of well-known masterpieces by Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica and Luchino Visconti and introduces some of their less renowned yet equally significant films. Providing an illuminating analysis of film (...) images across a particularly traumatic and complex historical period, _Filming the Nation_ revisits the concept of national identity and its ‘construction’ from a perspective that combines cultural, psychoanalytic and post-Jungian theories. As such this book will be essential reading for all students and scholars of film and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Since _Jung and Film_ was first published in 2001, Jungian writing on the moving image in film and television has accelerated. _Jung and Film II: The Return_ provides new contributions from authors across the globe willing to tackle the broader issues of film production and consumption, the audience and the place of film culture in our lives. As well as chapters dealing with particular film makers such as Maya Derren and films such as _Birth, The Piano, The Wrestler _and _Breaking (...) the Wave_, there is also a unique chapter co-written by documentary film-maker Tom Hurvitz and New York Jungian analyst Margaret Klenck. Other areas of discussion include: the way in which psychological issues come under scrutiny in many movies the various themes that concern Jungian writers on film how Jungian ideas on psychological personality types can be applied in fresh ways to analyse a variety of characters. The book also includes a glossary to help readers with Jungian words and concepts. _Jung and Film II_ is not only a welcome companion to the first volume, it is an important stand- alone work essential for all academics and students of analytical psychology as well as film, media and cultural studies. (shrink)