2018 - 2019

0851-6150-01
  Film and Philosophy: Interconnections                                                                
FACULTY OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
Shai BidermanMexico - Arts213Tue0800-1000 Sem  2
 
 
University credit hours:  2.0

Course description

What, if anything, makes film philosophical? The tensions pervading this interrelation are obvious and immediate: so much so, in fact, that it might well be, and has in fact been, asked if there even is any meaningful connection between them at all. Film is experience and entertainment unfolding in sight and sound, concerned with particular stories and emotional engagements; philosophy is reasoning and contemplation unfolding in language, concerned with abstract problems and universal principles. Film employs “action and appearance”; philosophy demands “reflection and debate.” Philosophy engages in “sitting and thinking”; film embraces “going and seeing.” Film promotes the particular, while philosophy deals with the universal. Film exhibits the concrete, while philosophy works with concepts and abstractions. Film operates in sight and sound, appealing to the imagination; philosophy works in words and speech, appealing to rational considerations. Thus, the two enterprises seem entirely estranged from one another. A meaningful collaboration between film and philosophy thus appears quite unlikely.

The central aim of this course is to investigate and refute this appearance. In so doing, we will show how each of the two makes an independent contribution to the practice of the other. A proper appreciation of these contributions entails a transformation in how we understand film and philosophy, away from certain dominant conceptions of both endeavors.

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