Anthologies are often a dipper’s
delight, and this one is no exception. However, it is also strengthened by an
impressive thematic development that allows the reader, whether a beginning
student, an experienced scholar or an interested layperson, to follow and
consider some of the critical issues in film studies.

The anthology is distinguished by authors from a
wide range of backgrounds, not all of them particularly associated with film
studies. Roger Scruton, for example, perhaps best known as a philosopher rather
than film theorist, has the first essay in the collection, and considers the
nature of photography and representation. From this initial point, of what the
camera does and does not, can and cannot capture, the whole book, in some form
or another, deals with film, art, representation and truth. Scruton argues that
photography is not actually capable of representing anything, and by extension,
neither is film. The worth of a film is found not its representative accuracy,
but in its dramatic value. A good drama may make a great film, but a great film
is not possible without a good drama. Scruton argues that the cinema has been
devoted to the creation of fantasies, and this is not a good thing. It is for
him, too beguiling in its intimacy, too ready to impose a view rather than
allow for interpretation. Film, he says, can never really be art; it is always
pornography in that it can only present what exists and never symbolize itself.
This is a view very much steeped in the British tradition of film which
dominated until quite recently; one which saw film more as a literary
exposition than a independently creative process.

Fortunately, not everyone agrees
with Scruton’s 1983 essay. Dominic McIvor Lopes refutes Scruton and argues for
a deep aesthetic sense in film and photography. Films are indeed moving
pictures, linked and coherent. They are not, except in the most reductionist
sense a collection of still photographs, and within that movement and flow,
within the multiple points of view and the engaging of the empathy of the
audience, and within the multi-sensory experiences of sound and vision, films
can create a vision and interpretation of the world that is affecting and
profound. It is perhaps those multiple perspectives of empathy that render film
such a powerful psychological medium. We all know the dread of Bernard
Hermann’s Psycho soundtrack. We also
know the conceit played by John Nash’s hallucinatory life in A Beautiful Mind, or the protagonist’s
perspective in David Cronenberg’s Spider.

If and when it can be conceded that
film is something more than the moving photography of a dramatic representation,
the editors move the reader to consider what kinds of film there might be, and
in particular, how to regard documentary film. Is it simply a case of setting
up the camera and recording, unedited, what is in its view? Or is there a clear
and interactive sense of a view of reality that is presented has aslant, has a
point of view, is an interpreted reality. Is Andy Warhol’s eight hour study,
unedited and uncut, Empire quite the
same as Ophul’s The Sorrow and the Pity
or the more recent films of Michael Moore? All are in some sense documentaries,
but the editing and the intention and the relation to the audience are all
quite different. Has anyone ever sat through Empire in one uninterrupted sitting? And if not, perhaps that is
part of the point. Life and art are not the same. War and Peace takes a lot less time to read or watch than to live.
One is reminded of the Borges story of the creation of a full-scale map; a map
that was as large as the landscape it represented, but it was still a representation.
Art does distill and crystallize moments of metaphorical and literal truth, and
so does film.

The anthology continues to explore
significant subjects including the use of narrative, the way films engage the
emotions and the ethics of film in a series of separate but coherent sections.
Within each section there are a number of contrasting essays, often debating
the same topic but from a different perspective. There are important
considerations of the immoral subject, not just in Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, an expected but
still highly relevant subject, but also the case of pornography and the
creation of social norms, expectations and values.

Taken as a whole the anthology is
an excellent addition to the literature. It includes both previously published
and yet unpublished essays from a range of authors and scholars. It argues
convincingly that there is a significant philosophical study of film and motion
pictures, and given their enormous reach and cultural currency it can seem both
narrow-minded and arrogant to ignore them. But perhaps the final word should be
left to the philosopher, and sometime cinemagoer, Henri Bergson who said,
"Going to the cinema turns out to be a philosophical experience".
Always, Henri, always.

© 2005 Mark Welch

Mark Welch, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the Faculty of
Nursing at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta and Co-Director of the
PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing & Mental Health.

Categories: Philosophical