Abstract
This article reviews the situation-specific nature of documentary filmmaking that invites an ethical practice distinct from moral discourses about visual representation. It offers a philosophy of ethics and communication perspective on the distance between viewer, viewed, the experience of viewing, and the visual semiotics of overcoming that distance. The article is a revised and updated version of an invited lecture delivered at the Jerusalem Center for Ethics, part of the first Seminar on Documentary Ethics held at the 28th Annual Jerusalem International Film Festival, Israel, July 12, 2011.
About the author
Garnet C. Butchart (b. 1972) is an assistant professor at Duquesne University 〈butchartg@duq.edu〉. His research interest is the philosophy of communication (semiotic phenomenology). His publications include ``The uncertainty of communication as revealed by psychoanalysis'' (2013); ``An excess of signification. Or, what is an event?'' (2011); and ``The exceptional community: On strangers, foreigners, and communication'' (2010).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
