FACTS, FICTION…MY OPINION (The Entertainment Industry)
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY OF FILM? (In the Entertainment industry.)
Bruce Bisbey
Executive Producer / Partner Dumb Dog Productions — Media Arts International Film Corporation
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY OF FILM? (In the Entertainment industry.)
What is Philosophy of Film?
The philosophy of film is a branch of aesthetics within the discipline of philosophy that seeks to understand the most basic questions regarding film. Philosophy of film has significant overlap with film theory, a branch of film studies.
“Philosophy of Film” is often used to describe a few different kinds of work. Two are most important. We should distinguish between philosophy in or through film, and the philosophy of or about film. When one does philosophy through film, one seeks to either illuminate some philosophical idea or to make progress on some philosophical issue through a discussion of a movie. One might even attribute the philosophical work to the film. We might call this philosophy in film. In contrast, the philosophy of film is the philosophy about film. It asks about the nature of film, our experience of it, how it works its magic on us, and what limitations it might have. The analytic philosophy of film is principally issue driven. One of the issues concerns the philosophical limits of film, whether philosophy in film is possible. This mid-level category is home to both kinds of work, philosophy through film and the philosophy of film.
Although philosophers were among the first academics to publish studies of the new art form in the early decades of the twentieth century, the field did not experience significant growth until the 1980’s when a renaissance occurred. There are many reasons for the field’s recent growth. Suffice it to say here that changes in both academic philosophy and the cultural role of the movies in general made it imperative for philosophers to take film seriously as an art form on a par with the more traditional ones like theater, dance, and painting. As a result of this surge in interest in film as a subject for philosophical reflection, the philosophy of film has become an important area of research in aesthetics.
History
The earliest person to explore philosophical questions regarding film was Hugo Münsterberg. During the silent film era, he sought to understand what it was about film that made it conceptually distinct from theater. He concluded that the use of close-ups, flash-backs, and edits were unique to film and constituted its nature.
Rudolf Arnheim, with the beginning of the era of sound for film, argued that the silent film era was aesthetically superior to the “talkies”. He held that by adding sound to previously silent moving images, the unique status of film had been removed. Instead of being a unique art form that could carefully study bodies in motion, film had become merely a combination of two other art forms.
André Bazin, contrary to Arnheim, held that whether or not a film has sound is largely irrelevant. He believed that film, due mainly to its foundation in and relationship with photography, had a realist aspect to it. He argued that film has the ability to capture the real world. The film Waking Life also features a discussion of the philosophy of film where the theories of Bazin are emphasized. In it, the character waxes philosophical that every moment of film is capturing an aspect of God.
American philosopher Noël Carroll has argued that the earlier characterizations of film made by philosophers too narrowly defined the nature of film and that they incorrectly conflated aspects of genres of films with film in general.
Aspects of Bazin’s realist theories have been accepted by philosophers in spite of Carroll’s critique. The transparency thesis, which says that film is a medium transparent to true reality, has been accepted by Kendall Walton.
References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, History Channel, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School,
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