Linguistic film theory
[''The Dualist']
Vols. 1–6
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1994, p. 56. is a form of
film theory
Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for und ...
that studies the
aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
of films by investigating the concepts and practices that comprise the experience and
interpretation of movies.
Overview
Linguistic film theory was proposed by
Stanley Cavell
Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, ...
[ and it is based on the philosophical tradition begun by late Ludwig Wittgenstein. The theory itself is said to mirror aspects of the activity of Wittgenstein's own philosophising (e.g. Wittgenstein's thought experiments) as films are viewed capable of engaging the audience in a therapeutic process of 'dialogue' and even investigate the absurd and the limits of thought. Cavell's framework is seen as a distinctive way of approaching film and ]philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
since question of style - the finding of words adequate to our aesthetic experience - is central to the understanding of the meaning of films. One of his ideas involved the position that "if one thinks of a grammar as a machine for generating sentences, then perhaps one will wish to speak of the camera and its film as a machine for generating idioms."
Critics from this tradition often clarify misconceptions used in theoretical film studies[Annette Kuhn and Guy Westwell (2012). "Post-theory" in ''A Dictionary of Film Studies''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.] and instead produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life
Form of life () is a term used sparingly by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his posthumously published works ''Philosophical Investigations'' (''PI''), ''On Certainty'', and parts of his ''Nachlass''. It is a term widely understood to refer to the shared b ...
.
See also
* '' Film-Philosophy''
* Historical poetics
* Neoformalism in film theory
References
Bibliography
* Richard Allen
"Cognitive Film Theory,"
in ''Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts,'' Routledge, 2001,
* Stanley Cavell
Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, ...
''The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film''
(1971); 2nd enlarged edition. (1979)
* Stephen Mulhall
''On Film''
London/New York: Routledge, 2002.
* Rupert Read and Jerry Goodenough (eds.), ''Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema After Wittgenstein and Cavell'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
External links
* Daniel Barnett
''"If a Film Did Philosophy We Wouldn′t Understand It"''
Review of Read-Goodenough collection of essays.
* Stanley Cavell
Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, ...
''Conversations with History: Stanley Cavell''
YouTube video of Cavell discussing his philosophy of film.
* Rupert Read
''"What theory of film do Wittgenstein and Cavell have? (Introduction II)"''
Introduction to ''Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema After Wittgenstein and Cavell'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Film theory
{{philosophy-stub