Projections

Since the 1970s with Stanley Cavell's work, and later with contributions such as those by Noël Carroll, George Wilson, Gregory Currie, and Berys Gaut, film has become a respectable object of philosophizing among Anglo-Saxon philosophers. Still, when it comes to the relationship between film and philosophy, the focus is mostly on how philosophy can help better understand film with little or nothing on how film studies can contribute to philosophical aesthetics. This special issue is aimed at encouraging a more balanced interaction between analytic aesthetics and film studies.

When watching a film, we are seeing-in moving images. Film's visual experience is therefore twofold, encompassing a recognitional (the scene presented, the story told, etc.) and a configurational fold (editing, camera movement, etc.). Although some researchers endorse twofoldness with respect to film, there is also significant resistance and misrepresentations of its very nature. This paper argues that the concept is central to an understanding of the basic apprehension and the aesthetic appreciation of film. It demonstrates how twofoldness could play a more substantial role in a new cognitive film theory and a naturalized aesthetics of film. By discussing recent theories of our motor engagement with cinema it shows how referencing to the interplay of two filmic folds could inform such a theory.

This article surveys some of the major criticisms of mirror neuron explanations of human behavior within neuroscience and philosophy of mind. It then shows how these criticisms pertain to the recent application of mirror neuron research to account for some of our responses to movies, particularly our empathic response to film characters and our putative simulation of anthropomorphic camera movements. It focuses especially on the “egocentric” conception of the film viewer that mirror neuron research appears to license. In doing so, it develops a position called “serious pessimism” about the potential contribution of neuroscience to the study of film and art by building upon the “moderate pessimism” recently proposed by philosopher David Davies. It also offers some methodological recommendations for how film scholars should engage with the sciences.

Noël Carroll's influence on the contemporary debate on the horror genre is hard to overestimate. His work on the topic is often celebrated as one of the best instances of interdisciplinary dialogue between film studies and philosophy of art. It has provided the foundations for the contemporary study of horror in art. Yet, for all the critical attention that his views on horror have attracted over the years, little scrutiny has been given to the nature itself of the emotion of horror in the genre. This article offers a critical understanding of the nature of the emotion of horror for Carroll, with a view to informing future investigations into the nature of horror in film (and beyond).

The appreciation of form is a common preoccupation in aesthetic analyses of films. The concept of form, however, has traditionally troubled philosophers of art, and although its meaning and significance have been debated throughout history, a common understanding is not always easy to discern. This article reviews certain ambiguities regarding “form” in film aesthetics through an examination of the uses of the word, especially in relation to content, medium, and style. Through this discussion, both the significance of the word is explained, but also the type of analysis it allows for.

Analyzing moving images is one of the fundamental practices in our attempt to understand the medium. Building on Noël Carroll's functional theory of film style, this article attempts to define a taxonomy of functional elements of shot composition in order to establish a clear methodology for the analysis of a moving image. Carroll criticizes forms of stylistic analysis that limit themselves to a few pre-selected aspects of the moving image, for example, genre motifs, individual filmmakers’ personal traits, or broad studies of film movements. Numerous writers have presented breakdowns of component parts of a moving image, often in wider discussions of film form. However these lists are often incomplete or do not have a clear methodology. This article identifies the key components of a moving image that could serve a functional purpose in individual films.

This article investigates the relationship between philosophical accounts of criticism, largely within the analytic tradition, and the practice of criticism. Specifically, I am interested in the performative, subjective, and often idiosyncratic nature of such a practice and in the advantages it can deliver in the understanding of works of mass art, in the inquiry over the nature of aesthetic judgments, and in initiating aesthetic appreciation. Promoting such a connection is also, in turn, a way of at least partially bridging the divide between analytic approaches and the kind of work more typically conducted by scholars in film studies.

Andrew Klevan, Aesthetic Evaluation and Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), 256 pp, $22.95 (paperback). ISBN: 978-1784991258.

Mario Slugan, Noël Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture (New York: Bloomsbury Academic), xi +218 pp., $103.50 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-78831-229-5.

Wheatley, Catherine, Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, vi +307 pp., $118 (hardback), ISBN: 9781350113220.