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JINHEE CHOI, A Philosophy of Cinematic Art by gaut, berys, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 69, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 235–237, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2011.01465_3.x
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Gaut, Berys. A Philosophy of Cinematic Art. Cambridge University Press, 2010, 324 pp., b&w illus., $99.00 cloth, $30.99 paper.
Berys Gaut's long‐standing contributions to the philosophy of film, which has been one of the most prominent areas of study in aesthetics over the last two decades, have culminated in his recent book A Philosophy of Cinematic Art. His careful and thorough study engages with a wide range of central issues in the philosophy of film: cinema as art, cinema as language, realism, authorship, interpretation, narration, emotional engagement, and the specificity of the cinematic and digital medium. With all of these topics, Gaut nuances the debates to properly explain relevant film practices and phenomena in the field. As an advocate of medium specificity, Gaut acknowledges his debt to classical film theorists, who were preoccupied with cinema's distinctive potential as an art form. However, through a brief survey of the technological history of the invention and development of the cinematic medium, Gaut underlines the contingency of the relationship between cinema and its material manifestations; in Gaut's words, “Movies are not necessarily photographic” (p. 7). Émile Reynaud's hand‐drawn images, for instance, could have replaced the photochemical base for cinema. Such a hypothetical history underscores both the multiplicity and the circumstance of the cinematic art form. This may lead the reader to expect Gaut to adopt a position contrary to the medium‐specific view developed by the classical film theories. Nevertheless, Gaut proposes a weak version of medium specificity, localizing the claim to the medium's “differentia” (pp. 224, 291) rather than to exclusive, unique features of the cinematic medium.
Most chapters can more or less stand alone, in part because they were previously published. But this is also because of the methodology undertaken. The goal of his book is not “theory construction” (p. 93). Gaut shies away from building an overarching and coherent theory of each topic discussed, let alone a theory of film art. The patchwork theory proposed acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon in question, be it authorship or interpretation, which often escapes the scope of a single, unified theory. In each chapter, Gaut categorizes previous theories in terms of conceptual affinities and distinctions rather than following a chronological order along which each theory has developed. A section is often allotted at the end of a chapter for the discussion of digital media and the extent to which the changes in technology and material have an impact on our understanding of, and engagement with, the cinematic medium. In film studies, a similar nonchronological approach is taken in Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener's recent book Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses (Routledge, 2010), which attempts to reexamine film theories in the light of shared metaphors. Instead of adopting an A‐to‐Z method, from classical to contemporary film theories, Gaut teases out an implicit dialogue, for instance between Roger Scruton and Rudolf Arnheim, whose theories emerged within differing historical contexts with differing theoretical preoccupations. On this regard, Gaut's book will provide a useful conceptual tool to the novice. If, for instance, Scruton advances what Gaut names as the causal challenge against the possibility of photography and, in turn, cinema as being an art, then Arnheim adequately, yet not fully, defends cinema from the reproduction challenge. Gaut's characterization of Arnheim's theory is simplified at times, especially Arnheim's argument against the employment of sound and color (p. 41). It is not merely the expansion of the reproductive capacity of cinema along with the development of technology that Arnheim views as hindering film's artistic potential, but also the lack of “homogeneity” in color film. However, Gaut's dehistoricized conceptual analysis is certainly valuable. That is, although the two challenges mentioned are often interrelated and presented together, they are conceptually distinct with each problematizing, respectively, the lack of intentionality (thus cinema's inability to express thoughts) and the aesthetic divergence from the profilmic reality (thus cinema's incapacity to artistically transform the filmed subject).
Gaut's organization of the book is countered by a pitfall at times, that is, a lack of strong connection between the issues within a chapter or between chapters. Film as language and realism are uncomfortably housed together in chapter two. A short introduction to the chapter does not do full justice. Gaut claims that both address the representational capacities of cinema. However, both examine the relationship between the photographic image and the profilmic event, of which representation constitutes only a part. Despite the fallibility of arguments of a semiotic bent, the pursuit of the analogy between film and language in film studies is intended to underscore the signification process of the photographic image along with cinematic conventions in addition to the representational capacity inherent to the medium. Furthermore, Gaut misrepresents a principal semiotic approach. There is hardly anyone in film studies who argues that the relationship between a photographic image and its referent is completely arbitrary; it is “iconic” for Peirce and “motivated” for Metz (Christian Metz, Film Language[University of Chicago Press, 1974], p. 108). Analogical reasoning that film is a kind of language does not presuppose a complete identity between the analysandum and analysans at the level of the basic unit, semantics, and syntax. Metz acknowledges that there is a difference between the linguistic unit and the cinematic unit. Rather, the question is whether there are salient similarities that would help us to understand how the filmic image and cinematic conventions connote.
Gaut is unwilling to grant even a weaker claim that certain cinematic conventions operate like language. Take, for instance, parallel editing. Gaut claims, “Parallel editing is not best thought of as being like the word ‘simultaneously’” (p. 54). Gaut argues that the word ‘simultaneously’ has a meaning independent of the context, while parallel editing does not. Gaut's construal here seems inadequate, since there is a difference between the claim that a cinematic editing convention signals “simultaneity” and that editing pattern “works like the word ‘simultaneously.’” Parallel editing works more like connective, ‘and’ or ‘while,’ in the way it links objects, concepts, and events manifest in shots. Consider a sentence, ‘On the table sit a pot of lavender and a cup of tea,’ in contrast to a sentence, ‘I water the pot of lavender and drink a cup of tea.’ The function of ‘and’ in these two sentences, like parallel editing, depends on the context, spatial proximity, and temporal continuity, respectively. These, according to Metz, constitute nonchronological and chronological syntagma, of which parallel editing is an instance. Another short introduction to the section on realism is still unsatisfying in its explanation of how the two parts of the chapter (language and realism) are connected: “we should not look to the study of language to cast light on the notion of cinematic realism” (p. 61), equivocating representation with realism. Indeed, it is certainly not, because the analogy between film and language is not set out to explain realism.
Later chapters (chapters three, four, and five) provide better continuity and connection compared to previous chapters and thus deserve mention. Many discussions on authorship, interpretation, and intentionalism have sprawled to the extent that they have clouded the main goal and object of interpretation. Through his fine‐grained distinctions for each concept, Gaut carefully examines the motivations behind, and tests the validity of, each theory and strategy discussed. The object of interpretation should include both an action (that is, the art of making) and its product (that is, the artwork). The goal of film interpretation is to understand the artwork's meaning and value in a broader sense that requires both an external explanation of how an artwork came about and an internal explanation of how it operates. If so, the scope of previous approaches such as the single authorship thesis and intentionalism, both actual and hypothetical, are certainly inadequate: the former cannot properly explain prevalent filmmaking practices (that is, its collaborative nature), while the latter falsely attributes meanings of a work only to either an external or internal source.
Gaut proposes multiple authorship without committing to the actual intentions of the filmmakers and crews. Film, especially mainstream cinema, is a product of collaborative activities, and thus one cannot rule out the possibility that a film's meanings and values can be the product of happy accident. Credits play an important role in favor of Gaut's argument proposing multiple authorship. Gaut cites Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy: “Have a good look at the credits” (p. 118). Single authorship cannot fully grant the collaborative nature of filmmaking practice. In Gaut's view, even the most plausible candidate for single authorship, such as a Perkinsonian idea that the author controls the relationship between elements within a film, does not properly grant agency to film crews who in turn control the “relationship” and “pattern” of stylistic aspects at local levels. If what counts is the “relationship,” the cinematographer and composer as much as the director are coauthors of the work. Furthermore, Gaut claims that tension in a contradictory text, which registers artistic conflicts among filmmakers and crews, can sometimes yield as much aesthetic significance as unity, which is often used as grounds to justify the singularity of authorship. The conflicting interpretations of the Sal character by director Spike Lee and actor Danny Aiello, for instance, add subtlety to the portrayal of racism in Do the Right Thing (1989). A section on interactivity and new media is particularly illuminating (section 3.9.2), as it sorts out the perplexing notion of interactivity. Many have valorized interactivity as a distinctive feature of digital media. However, according to Gaut, a gamer's participation should not be confused with artistic performances or the collaboration among filmmakers and crews. The gamer is not a coauthor of a work, in that she does not contribute to the creation and individuation of the work as a type. She may be so in a weakened sense in that she coauthors the instantiation of certain properties of a work in a particular game played (p. 145).
Despite the subtlety of Gaut's approach to authorship, interactivity, and interpretation, a few questions arise. As a colleague pointed out to me, why does Gaut need recourse to the concept of authorship, with its risk of implying unwanted connotations? First, authorship still misleadingly connotes the analogies, which Gaut wants to avoid in earlier chapters, between literature and film, film as language, and meaning as a linguistic property, even if he broadens the scope of meaning. Second, a conflated sense of authorship will yield conceptual inconsistency. Is it possible that an actor is not the “author” of his performance in a film, but a coauthor of that film? Given Gaut's oscillating definition of ‘author’ (that is, between ontological and evaluative senses), it seems possible. In Gaut's discussion, the author is an agent who contributes to the constitution of a work type and an expressive agent, who creates an artwork, something to be judged artistically and considered in its own right. Consider a contradictory text that Gaut often appeals to in order to refute intentionalism: a bad performance in a particular film does not threaten the performer's status of coauthor, since his specific performance, good or bad, will partially determine the work's individuation. But is that actor an author of the film as an artwork in an evaluative sense? To make a case more complex, consider a film that is an amalgam of a play, with each act recorded during successive performances over a few days, rather than a recording of a single performance on one night. The film is not a mechanical recording of a play; certainly there is recourse to the differential capacity of cinema to put together spatially and temporally discontinuous performances (as tokens). An actor is, in this case, not a coauthor of the theater play recorded, since he only instantiates, but does not constitute, a work type. But is he a coauthor of the film, since his performance partly determines the work's individuation and meanings? The ontological status of performance becomes very murky. Perhaps the notion of author in Gaut's argument (that is, artist, or an intentional producer of an artwork) would be better captured by an alternative notion such as creative alliance or artistic collaboration, the term that Gaut actually employs throughout his discussion, rather than ‘author.’
Gaut concludes his book by returning to the medium specificity thesis, a weaker version that he sets out to defend in the beginning. He distinguishes three versions of the medium specificity thesis, all of which he claims applicable to the cinematic medium. Medium specificity in its evaluative (MSV), explanatory (MSX), and formative (MSF) senses certainly figures in our appreciation, explanation, and distinction of the cinematic medium and an art form. However, given the major goal of this book, it would have been more useful to fully incorporate how all three dimensions of medium specificity are embedded in the discussions of the topics allotted to each chapter instead of the rather quick summarizing of how each chapter in one way or another is tied to the three versions of medium specificity.