On Badiou a bit 2

Badiou’s articulation of cinema as a possible raison d’etre of philosophy, which offers paradoxical/impossible relations saving philosophy from being in vain is also an outcome of Badiou’s own definition of cinema that seems to me a bit whimsical. Prior to stating why it seems whimsical to me, let me introduce again what cinema is for Badiou.

As Badiou argues via contrasting it with the avant-garde art, cinema is a “mass art” in the sense that the masterpieces of cinema are unquestionable and are seen and liked by millions from diverse social groups as soon as they are created. Badiou makes a special emphasis on the notion of at the very moment of their creation.

Badiou sets forth such a definition in order to support and justify his beforehand conception or articulation of cinema. He does this in such way that as if his definition of cinema precedes his articulation of it. But the real situation is vice versa. Anyway, via introducing two terms – viz. mass and art which may be taken as contrary to each other – in a syntagm, Badiou tries to show how cinema can offer paradoxical/impossible relations. Since, for Badiou, mass is a political and art is an aristocratic category, and form of the definition already offers a paradoxical/impossible relation.

My first objection for such an articulation is that art and mass belong to different categories, so to argue that they are contrary to each other seems to be a category mistake presupposing that they belong to the same category. More than this implicit tagline of the syntagm of “mass art” offers that cinema is an art which is and can be appreciated by masses. Following from the assumption that art is an aristocratic category, it can be said that cinema is aristocratic something which is and can be appreciated by masses. Being attended by masses or being appreciated by them, in my opinion, should not be taken as the factors for characterizing them as being aristocratic or massive, because they are the effects but not causes.

Apart from the concerts, it is difficult for music to be appreciated by masses; the medium through which music is distributed also necessitates this. It is difficult, almost impossible for painting to be seen by masses apart from the ones who attend museums, because there are not hundreds of copies for a particular painting and this again is related with the medium of this particular art. But with the funds beyond the productions, its consumption means, cinema is already made for masses to meet the production expenses.

In the following parts, Badiou enumerates his five different ways of his thinking cinema as mass art. In the third way, he argues that cinema aims at generic humanity by the means of taking what is devoid of aristocratic requirements from the other arts. It is very difficult to keep track of the non-aristocratic characteristics which cinema borrows from other arts, if there are so. So it is such a big claim that while painting, music or theatre are not mass arts because of their aristocratic requirements, but cinema is a mass art because it is independent of these requirements. I do really wonder what these aristocratic requirements which other arts that are not massive have are. So what Badiou does seems like a praise for cinema, but it depends on weakly articulate justifications.

In the fourth way, Badiou re-considers his conception of mass art and claims that cinema is a mass art because it is on the border-line between art and non-art. Up to the fourth page in which he writes about the fourth way of how cinema can be considered as a mass art, he bases his arguments on a different conception of mass art which was stated in the second paragraph of this post. But now he changes his mind and offers a new conception for the place of the old one. But what are Badiou’s justifications while he is claiming that since it is always at the edge non-art, cinema is a mass art. Again there is a big claim here which is difficult to grasp.

Finally, in my opinion, philosophy is cinema as valuable and important as the philosophy of cinema. But as I understand, Badiou again makes a political distinction at this point in the sense that while he sees philosophy of cinema as being aristocratic, he posits on the other hand philosophy as cinema as if it has an opportunity of being of mass philosophy.

From his short paper in which Badiou conveys only his conclusions, but not the reason behind them, I do not understand his obsession with the concept of mass. Without a definition of what mass is or explication of what mass refers to, calling cinema as mass art or philosophy as cinema as mass philosophy do not make them democratic emblems.

M. Kemal İz