Philosophy and Cinema

Cinema offers us an intellectual and philosophical experience based on what I called cinematic travel, an experience that made us understand the nature of human perception by comparing it to the angle and movement of the camera, because the camera is the eye, and when we see, we calculate, think, and make assumptions, just as the camera movement does in cinema.

This is the introductory chapter to a book on Philosophy and Philippine Cinema entitled "Martin Heidegger's 'Being and Time' & Manuel Silos' 'Biyaya ng Lupa'", published by the University of the Philippines Press (December 2018). 
A close reading of both Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, considered one of the most significant times of the twentieth century for putting the question of being back on the philosophical roadmap, and Manuel Silos’s Biyaya ng Lupa, hailed as one of the finest gems of Pinoy cinema for standing above and beyond the formulaic works of its era, the late 1950s, the pairing hopes to provide a better appreciation and understanding of both texts—each one, in its own way, embodying the spirit of experimentation. This book seeks to bring the study of philosophy outside of the “academic sandbox” with the alignment of these two timeless masterpieces.

Resumen:
En esta tercera contribución dedicada a Love Affair (1939) nos centramos, siguiendo la terminología de Martin Buber, en el proceso de trasformación que va a llevar a Michel Marnay y a Irene Dunne a pasar de regirse por el Yo-Ello a descubrir el Yo-Tú. McCarey nos sitúa el personaje de Michel Marnay (Charles Boyer) clara y destacadamente en el Ello. Es una figura pública del mundo del corazón, que tiene su espacio propio en los medios, en las revistas.
No podría arrancar la película mostrando a Michel Marnay como un Tú desde el primer instante. Necesitamos comenzar desde la coherencia en el espacio y el tiempo que da el Ello.  “Los momentos-Tú aparecen… como prodigiosos episodios lírico-dramáticos, de un encanto seductor”. Pero eso los hace “peligrosamente arrebatadores hacia lo más extremo… tan inhóspitos como indispensables.” La potencialidad del cine —al menos de las películas en el personalismo fímico de McCarey, Capra, Ford, Leisen, la Cava, Borzage… — es que es capaz de poner en la pantalla esos momentos disruptivos de encuentro con el Tú.
McCarey va preparando que el encuentro con Terry McKay (Irene Dunne) tiene que ser otra cosa radicalmente distinta y bastante sorprendente para el espectador que vea la película por primera vez. Un proceso de verdadera de trasformación de quien parecía no tener más manera de reconocer su Yo que a través del Ello, de la mundanidad. Nuevamente Martín Buber nos inspira para leer bien a McCarey. Nos dice que “el espíritu en su humana manifestación es la respuesta del ser humano a su Tú… [que] no está en el Yo, sino entre Yo y Tú.”.
El encuentro con Terry McKay será el de un progresivo desvelamiento de su realidad. Sus jugueteos iniciales no pueden evitar mostrar los anhelos de su personalidad más radical. Ambos serán progresivamente conscientes de que la relación que comienzan a tejer es muy distinta a cuantas han tenido hasta ahora, y claramente lo es con respecto a sus parejas habituales. Sin embargo, sobre todo a Terry, les da miedo perder la seguridad de lo que conocen y ella  no parece muy dispuesta a dar más pasos comprometedores. No quiere que se les asocie y eso pueda llegar a oídos de su amante. Reclama una separación. Pero esta tendrá un contenido paradójico.
En estos tres primeros fragmentos del texto filosófico-fílmico de Love Affair McCarey ha ofrecido los primeros pasos de un cambio del vivir desde el Yo-Ello a vivir desde el Yo-Tú. Esto supone una tensión entre la necesidad de vivir las creaciones objetivas y la llamada del espíritu a vivir más en plenitud la propia humanidad.
El magistral dibujo de McCarey en Love Affair es conseguir representar esa misma dinámica. Plantea la necesidad de salir del Yo-Ello, de sentir la necesidad del Yo-Tú. Pero al mismo tiempo que el tránsito de una situación a otra no es fruto de un golpe de voluntad. Se produce a través de un proceso de transformación, que comienza por encontrarse con la verdad de uno mismo.
Palabras clave:
Yo-Tú, Yo-Ello, Leo McCarey, Martin Buber, relacionalidad, personalismo filosófico, personalismo fílmico, paradoja, transformación, espíritu.
Abstract:
In this third contribution dedicated to Love Affair (1939) paradox, we focus, following Martin Buber’s terminology, on the process of transformation that will lead Michel Marnay and Irene Dunne from being governed by the I-It to discovering the I-Thou. McCarey places the character of Michel Marnay (Charles Boyer) clearly and prominently in Ello. He is a public figure in the world of the heart, who has his own space in the media, in magazines.
I could not start the film by showing Michel Marnay as a You from the very instant. We need to start from the coherence in space and time given by the Ello: «The Thou-moments appear… as prodigious lyrical-dramatic episodes, of a seductive charm». But that makes them «dangerously rapturous towards the most extreme… as inhospitable as they are indispensable.» The potentiality of the film – at least of the films in the filmic personalism of McCarey, Capra, Ford, Leisen, la Cava, Borzage… – is that capable of putting on the screen those disruptive moments of encounter with the Thou.
McCarey is preparing that the encounter with Terry McKay (Irene Dunne) must be something else radically different and quite surprising for the viewer who sees the film for the first time. A true process of transformation of one who seemed to have no other way of recognizing her Self than through the Self, through mundanity. Again, Martin Buber inspires us to read McCarey well. He tells us that «the spirit in its human manifestation is the human being’s response to his You… [which] is not in the I, but between I and You.»
The encounter with Terry McKay will be that of a progressive unveiling of his reality. Her initial playfulness cannot help but show the yearnings of her more radical personality. Both will become progressively aware that the relationship they begin to weave is very different from any they have had so far, and clearly so with respect to their usual partners. However, especially Terry, is afraid of losing the security of what they know and doesn’t seem very willing to take any more compromising steps. She doesn’t want them to be associated and that might reach her lover’s ears. She demands a separation. But this will have a paradoxical content.
In these first three fragments of the philosophical-filmic text of Love Affair McCarey has offered the first steps of a shift from living from the I-It to living from the I-Thou. This involves a tension between the need to live the objective creations and the call of the spirit to live more fully one’s own humanity.
McCarey’s masterful drawing in Love Affair is to succeed in depicting that same dynamic. It raises the need to get out of the I-It, to feel the need of the I-Thou. But at the same time, the transition from one situation to another is not the result of a stroke of will. It is produced through a process of transformation, which begins by encountering the truth of oneself.
It is a process of transformation, which begins by encountering the truth of oneself.
Keywords:
I-Thou, I-Him, Leo McCarey, Martin Buber, relationality, philosophical personalism, filmic personalism, paradox, transformation, spirit.

Christian Metz is remembered today as having almost single-handedly transformed the culture of film studies. This widely held view was summarized by one commentator, who wrote that “with Metz a new research paradigm is born, as well as a new generation of scholars. The ontological theories are followed by methodological theories.” According to another, “Metz exemplified a new kind of film theorist, one who came to the field already ‘armed’ with the analytic instruments of a specific discipline, who was unapologetically academic and unconnected to the world of film criticism.” Of course, Metz didn't just surge like a meteor on the scene of film studies. His arrival was “prepared” by the filmologie movement spear-headed in Paris by Gilbert Cohen-Séat and by two early film semiology essays published by Roland Barthes in La Revue internationale de filmologie. Yet it is Metz who is rightly remembered as the figurehead of film semiology.

Este articulo plantea una nueva lectu­ra de la pelicula Fresas salvajes (Smultronstallet; Ingmar Bergman, 1957) a traves de la exploracion narratologica de dos procedimientos fundamentales en su cuerpo textual: el flashback y la metalepsis. La union de estos dos recur­sos origina el fenomeno del flashback metaleptico, cuya particular naturale­za pone de relieve, en tres escenas cru­ciales del relato, la influencia de los con­flictos del presente en la reconstruccion del pasado: si bien en las dos primeras las cualidades metalepticas de las re­gresiones adoptan un sesgo excluyente en lo relativo a la clase de inscripcion del sujeto recordatorio dentro de las mismas, sera en la ultima remembran­za cuando, una vez el personaje prota­gonista ha resuelto la crisis existencial que padecia, el sesgo se torna definiti­vamente inclusivo, indicio de la recon­ciliacion efectuada con respecto a sus experiencias preteritas. The Embodied Spectre: Semantic Implications of the Metaleptic Flashback ...

1] Edward Yang (in Chinese 楊德昌, 1947-2007) is one of the most renowned Taiwanese directors, whose works raise criticisms of modernity. Since the New Culture Movement in the 1910s and 1920s, Chinese literati have queried the place of traditional Chinese culture, especially Confucianism, on the road to modernization. This paper gives an account of Yang’s understanding of modernization and the Confucian tradition as illustrated in his work, A Confucian Confusion (1994). We argue that, though he despised politically endorsed Confucianism as ideology, without sufficient justification Yang nonetheless reserves the possibility of taking Confucianism as a supplement to modernity.

D'après l'anecdote platonicienne sur Thales qui, regardant les étoiles, tombe dans le puits pendant que la servante de Trace se moque de lui, l'on pourrait affirmer que, depuis Thales, la philosophie s'est traditionnellement méfiée de la vie, elle l'a toujours tenue a distance et c'est précisément sur cette mise a distance qu'elle a constitue son identite, considerant la vie comme «non-philosophie». En revanche, se rapporter a la «non-philosophie» la reconnaissant comme l'envers de soi-meme plutot que comme son propre oppose: voila ce que Merleau- Ponty appelle «a-philosophie» dans l'un de ses tout derniers cours. Dans ces cours ainsi que dans ses écrits contemporains, il cherche a donner une formulation précisément a-philosophique de la mutation des rapports entre l'homme et l'Etre qu'il voit à l'oeuvre a notre epoque. A l'intérieur de cette tentative, l'on sait que la notion d' «idee sensible», tirée du roman de Proust

Le avventure della dialettica è stato definito il "libro maledetto" di Merleau-Ponty. Nulla di strano: si sa che chi precorre i tempi deve attenderne l'arrivo in condizioni scomode, come si sa che i libri maledetti sono spesso precursori. E' senz'altro il caso di questo, pubblicato per la prima volta in Francia nel 1955, i cui approdi-dichiarando finita la credibilità dell'ideologia comunista senza dover neppure attendere, diciotto mesi dopo, la rivolta d'Ungheria e la sua sanguinosa repressione da parte sovietica-anticipavano di trentaquattro anni la caduta del muro di Berlino. Ma attenzione: Le avventure della dialettica non si limita a precorrere ciò. Più ancora, esso cerca d'impostare i problemi che si sarebbero aperti proprio con la caduta del muro di Berlino, ovvero quei problemi che la fine della credibilità dell'ideologia comunista non cessa di porre a chi, in tale fine, non si convince a leggere la confessione storica dell'insuperabile bontà del sistema capitalistico. Infatti, crollato oggi il castello di tali trionfalistici annunci, ecco tornare l'esigenza di quell'interrogazione filosofica della storia e di quell'interrogazione storica della filosofia che Merleau-Ponty magistralmente pratica in modo complementare nelle Avventure della dialettica. Perciò la riflessione sull'epoca presente può trovare in questo libro il dono di un pensiero per lei sorprendentemente prezioso. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), giudicato il più importante filosofo francese d'indirizzo fenomenologico e uno dei più originali del XX secolo, ha insegnato all'Università di Lione, poi alla Sorbona e infine al Collège de France, la massima istituzione universitaria francese. Fra i suoi libri, insieme con questo, vanno ricordati almeno Fenomenologia della percezione (1945, ed. it. Bompiani, Milano 2003), il più importante da lui ultimato, le raccolte di articoli intitolate Senso e non senso (1948, ed. it. Net, Milano 2004) e Segni (1960, ed. it. Net, Milano 2003), nonché il postumo Il visibile e l'invisibile (1964, ed. it. Bompiani, Milano 2007 5), che registra i più maturi sviluppi del suo pensiero. Mauro Carbone è professore di Estetica contemporanea nell'Università degli Studi di Milano. Considerato a livello internazionale uno dei più importanti specialisti della filosofia di Merleau-Ponty, cerca di prolungare l'ispirazione del pensiero francese contemporaneo in un'autonoma elaborazione teorica. Tra i suoi ultimi volumi: Essere morti insieme. L'evento dell'11 settembre 2001 (Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2007) e Sullo schermo dell'estetica. La pittura, il cinema e la filosofia da fare (Mimesis, Milano 2008). Davide Scarso è dottorando in Filosofia presso la Universidade Clássica di Lisbona, dove sta ultimando una tesi su Maurice Merleau-Ponty e Claude Lévi-Strauss. Ha pubblicato vari articoli sul pensiero di questi autori in riviste e opere collettive. È redattore della rivista internazionale di studi merleau-pontiani "Chiasmi international".

¿Será verdad que, como dice Ortega, el hombre no tiene naturaleza, sino historia, pues carece de un ser “fijo, estático, invariable y dado”? ¿Será verdad que hemos dejado de creer en la naturaleza y que esta se nos aparece como una “interpretación transitoria” de lo que ahí nos encontramos? ¿Qué significa entonces para nosotros la palabra “hombre” si nos tomamos en serio que el hombre no tiene naturaleza? ¿Significan algo las expresiones “género humano” e “historia universal”, que tanto gusta de usar Kant? ¿Será verdad que no puedo entenderme como un hombre, porque de hecho como hombres es como nunca hemos conseguido entendernos? Lo que encontramos sugerido en los textos orteguianos podríamos quizá enunciarlo de este modo: nosotros, quienes nos llamamos humanos, quienes nos creemos con cierta mezcla de ilusión y de desilusión unos tales personajes, nos encontramos en la situación del técnico: no tenemos más remedio que estar continuamente haciendo algo para ser y no podemos dejar de inventar el personaje que queremos ser, nos lo creamos mucho o poco, porque de otro modo no somos nada. La nuestra es, pues, la condición técnica.

When cinema deals with bioethical issues, science  fiction is inevitably involved, being a genre that intrinsically can be considered a thinking laboratory, as evidenced by an extensive number of titles – including novels and movies – which are now widely used by bioethicists, sociologists and philosophers even more than  film scholars themselves (Fahrenheit 451, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, So- laris and Blade Runner). At the turn of the twentieth and twenty- first century, science  fiction movies had been able to perfectly embody the fears and anxieties of a society that was radically changing in many respects, as evidenced by movies like The Truman Show, Dark City, eXistenZ, The Matrix, A.I. - Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Children of Men, Wall-E and Never Let Me Go, which are all focused on the theme of identity and destiny of mankind. The advent of molecular biology and the extensive use of technology in medicine brought about the materialization of nightmares about eugenics, which had been anticipated in the theoretical discussion during the previous decades. Gattaca was rightly included in the philosophical and religious debate when it was  first released, and after many years it still proves to be an inexhaustible resource of ideas. For its dramatic structure, it can act as a critical counterpart – a frontier sentinel – to the scientific progress and the social, political and anthropological changes disclosed in the movie. In the essay, after a few considerations on how Gattaca belongs to the sci-fi genre and how it still has something to say within the bioethical debate, we analyse the script from a dramatic point of view. With special attention to the theme, characters and dialogue, we will show how the movie arguments can truly contribute to the scientific debate because, as regards the nature of the debate itself, they say something about the condition and nature of the human being of all ages, which is both new and pertinent to the historical and sociological context.

This 17-page interview with psychologist and film-phenomenologist Jean-Pierre Meunier was conducted by Julian Hanich and Daniel Fairfax on two occasions. Meunier speaks about his origins as a researcher, how he came to write his first book "The Structures of the Film Experience: Filmic Identification," his interest in phenomenology and other topics.

This paper argues with P. Ricoeur´s hermeneutical notion of text, that asserts that writing is the textuality criterion. This paper proposes a conception of text that establishes the semantic coherence as the minimum criterion of textuality. This is the prevailing position in M. Bajtín ´s  philosophy of language, M. Scherner ´s the textual understanding phenomenology, or J. Petöfi´s semiotics. However, as argumentative strategy to justify this textual theory, these authors thinking is not exposed; instead, a text is analyzed, but a text  with a material support different from writing, a film that thinks about its textual condition, i.e. W. Allen´s  Hollywood Ending film.

“Toccare è toccarsi”, afferma Merleau-Ponty in una nota a Il visibile e l’invisibile, configurando la struttura auto-affettiva del puro sentirsi. Il testo ripercorre geneticamente i rimandi al tatto presenti nell’opera di Merleau-Ponty e rintraccia in quest’ultima il continuo ricorso all’esperienza del reciproco toccarsi delle mani come metafora e matrice della relazione chiasmatica tra il sensibile e il senziente.
La metafora auto-tattile che orienta tale fenomenologia si discosta dal modello husserliano che l’ha originata, e procede verso un’ontologia della carne come dimensione originariamente confusionale.
Indagando l’indistinzione carnale e gli snodi problematici del discorso merleaupontiano, questo testo rileva la spettralità irriducibile che travaglia la pura auto-affezione e disarticola la supposta simmetria tra le mani.

In this article, we will analyse the different ways in which Merleau-Ponty deals with the problem of phenomenological subjectivity, consisting of the tension between the definition of the subject as transcendental power and his belonging to the world. We can draw two fundamental paths: the embodiment of consciousness through perception, that characterises the first production of Merleau-Ponty, and the belonging of the subjective body to the world through a common and enfolding ground, the flesh, that permeates his last ontology. After that, following the criticism of Renaud Barbaras, we will consider the limits of the notion of flesh, that would be ineffective to solve the dualism between subject and world. According to Barbaras, what is lacking in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is a veritable reflection on manifestation, as proto-phenomenalisation. Nevertheless, it is possible, in our opinion, to track down an attempt to formulate a “phenomenality without subject” on the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s analysis on the expressivity of animal appearance.

El presente trabajo pretende explorar la posible traducción cinematográfica del término heideggeriano Temporalidad (Zeitlichkeit) tal y cómo queda reflejada en la película Fresas Salvajes (Smultronstället, Ingmar Bergman, 1957). Para ello, se propondrá en primer lugar una aproximación a la problemática estética de Heidegger en su aplicación cinematográfica. Posteriormente, se estudiarán algunos de los diferentes recursos audiovisuales usados por Bergman para encarar la mostración de la temporalidad desde tres perspectivas narrativas diferentes: la presentación del personaje principal, la escritura sim-bólica de elementos relacionados con el tiempo y su vivencia, y finalmente, la problemática relacionada con el encuentro ante los otros.

La filmografia di David Cronenberg, dagli esordi fino ai primi anni Novanta, è passata alla storia del cinema perché dà sistematicamente in pasto agli spettatori una variopinta categoria di personaggi che hanno tutti un rapporto piuttosto problematico con il loro corpo.
Due dei "grandi testi" di questa prima fase autoriale ("Videodrome" - 1982 e "La mosca" 1986) fungono da paradigma cristallino di una strategia narrativa che problematizza alcune delle questioni filosofiche fondamentali relative ai nessi "mente-corpo-mondo-realtà-percezione" attraverso i canoni e le figure tipiche del "body horror" di cui il regista canadese è stato uno degli indiscussi maestri.

This paper defends that "Melancholia" has a philosophical and artistic value which is founded on the use of cinematographic language to communicate, in an apocalyptic context, the experience of anxiety. And because of that, can help us to understand our ambivalent attitude towards death, which not only does it terrify us but it also attracts us. In other words, I believe that "Melancholia" not only makes us experience the fear that would be provoked by the certainty of imminent annihilation, but at the same time awakens our desire to look into the abyss.

This article argues that "Melancholia" (Lars von Trier, 2011) can be a special occasion to think seriously about death in the terms proposed by Søren Kierkegaard in "At a Graveside", generating in the viewer the same effect that the discourse intends to produce to the reader, which is help us to live our lives more properly.

El presente artículo argumenta que Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011) puede constituir una ocasión privilegiada para pensar seriamente en la muerte en los términos que Søren Kierkegaard propone en "Junto a una tumba", generando en el espectador el mismo efecto que el discurso pretende producir en el lector.

Esta investigación parte de la convicción de que Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011) tiene un destacado valor filosófico, artístico y cognitivo que proviene de una utilización del lenguaje cinematográfico que permite transmitir, repensar y sentir la experiencia de la angustia. Dicho de otro modo, como espectador creo que la película del director danés nos incita a repensarnos de tal modo que nos saca de la cotidianidad y nos enfrenta a nuestro ser-para-la-muerte, casi como si ella misma actuara como detonante de la angustia.

Este artículo examina el comportamiento la protagonista de "Melancholia" (Lars von Trier, 2011) durante la primera parte de la película a partir de las teorías sobre la angustia que Søren Kierkegaard y Martin Heidegger formularon en "El concepto de la angustia" y en "Ser y tiempo". El objetivo es enriquecer el análisis de la película interpretándola desde un marco teórico que, sin excluir la melancolía, explica el conflicto de Justine desde la reflexión sobre la existencia. Y con ello, como la otra cara de la misma moneda, se pretende presentar a Melancholia como una representación cinematográfica de la angustia.

Merleau-Ponty is one of the very first philosophers who devoted a reflection to the seventh art: he outlined a convergence between contemporary philosophy and cinema, insofar as phenomenology and cinematographic expression shares a common vocation to “make us see the bond between subject and world, between subject and others, rather than to explain it” (The Film and the New Psychology). As Christian Metz observes, thanks to Merleau-Ponty, an entire generation of filmmakers and critics had been initiated to phenomenology and to a new comprehension of cinema. But such connection between film theory and phenomenology is not confined to an epoch or historical conjuncture: in the last two decades, the dialogue between cinema and phenomenology has originated a field of studies, which is more and more productive and fruitful. This essay aims at deepening such perspective by approaching the fundamental work of Vivian Sobchack. Drawing on phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, the American cinema and media theorist has developed an original and rich reflection, which in Italy is still almost unknown.

A conversation between philosophy, cultural studies, and cinematography on Haneke's film "The White Ribbon". I was the proud editor of the discussion (and also discussant). Among the discussan one can find Fernando Broncano, Carlos Thiebaut, Jose Medina, Juan Menchero, Alberto Sebastían Lago, Guillermo de Eugenio and Alfredo Kramarz.