Where Film Meets Philosophy: Godard, Resnais, and Experiments in Cinematic Thinking

by Hunter Vaughan

Overview

Hunter Vaughan interweaves phenomenology and semiotics to analyze cinema's ability to challenge conventional modes of thought. Merging Maurice Merleau—Ponty's phenomenology of perception with Gilles Deleuze's image—philosophy, Vaughan applies a rich theoretical framework to a comparative analysis of Jean—Luc Godard's films, which critique the audio—visual illusion of empirical observation (objectivity), and the cinema of Alain Resnais, in which the sound—image generates innovative portrayals of individual experience (subjectivity). Both filmmakers radically upend conventional film practices and challenge philosophical traditions to alter our understanding of the self, the world, and the relationship between the two. Films discussed in detail include Godard's Vivre sa vie (1962), Contempt (1963), and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967); and Resnais's Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and The War Is Over (1966). Situating the formative works of these filmmakers within a broader philosophical context, Vaughan pioneers a phenomenological film semiotics linking two disparate methodologies to the mirrored achievements of two seemingly irreconcilable artists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231161329
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	02/05/2013
Series:	Film and Culture Series
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Hunter Vaughan is assistant professor of English and cinema studies at Oakland University. His scholarly interests include the moving image, philosophy, and the environment.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Where Film Meets Philosophy
1. Phenomenology and the Viewing Subject
2. Film Connotation and the Signified Subject
3. Sound, Image, and the Order of Meaning
4. Alain Resnais and the Code of Subjectivity
5. Jean—Luc Godard and the Code of Objectivity
Conclusion: Where Film and Philosophy May Lead
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Ronald Bogue

Vaughan's discussions of the films of Resnais and Godard are incisive and engaging, providing welcome relief from the difficulties of abstruse philosophical debates, offering clarification of the practical implications of their theoretical points, and enriching abstract concepts via a penetrating treatment of the specific techniques of film form as, in themselves, modes of thought with far-reaching conceptual implications.

David Martin-Jones

A superb new contribution to film-philosophy. With wonderful insight, rigor, creativity, and verve, Vaughan draws on Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze to critically examine how film form can be aligned with thinking and to question what this might mean for our engagement with the world. This standout book makes an important intervention into both recent discussions in film studies and longer running philosophical debates.