A Comment on Film-Philosophy Issue

Having bachelor of philosophy degree, I think that the concept of philosophy is easily vulgarized in any topic that “thinkers” talk. This is same when “philosophy” integrates/engages in the film. Thus, as regards to film-philosophy issues, philosophy can be seen as if it is a medium to analyze a film or it is seen that some films are illustrations of philosophical themes and also film can be seen as philosophy, namely, “philosophy in action”. Although this topic requires further analysis, I’ll give you some key points in order to make you be familiar with the issue of film-philosophy.

I think that, especially after new path of Deleuze, film and philosophy penetrate each other but how this intimacy should be considered becomes argumentative issue. Thus, in my last response, I’d like to briefly re-speculate the issue or the argument “film as philosophy”, which Falzon and Mulhall, who has adapted and extended opinions of Cavell (influenced by Bazin’s conception of film as an imprint of the world itself), have argued, in terms of Wartenberg’s opposition to them.

On Bazin & The Ontology of the Photographic Image

In order to find non-practical aims or ends beyond human enterprises or activities, one needs a considerable amount of research, because at the end of day, it is very difficult to find aims or ends which cannot be reduced to pragmatic concerns. In this respect, art as a human enterprise or activity can its own set of practical ends such as finding a way to cope with earth that seems hostile or at least indifferent to human beings, or standing against the death which is in fact inevitable end for the human beings etc. Religion can be another human enterprise seeking for similar ends like art and this condition might be one of the factors that take place in their intersection. So although at first sight it seems to be a bit simplistic, I agree with Bazin concerning his argument that embalming the dead might be taken as a fundamental factor in the creation of plastic arts. In other words, human beings’ struggle against death which is in fact inevitable for them might be the source of their artistic creations.

When Bazin talks about the aims beyond the mummification process, the part that I found interesting is the part in which he tells about the terra cotta statuettes as substitutions for mummies. I take this as an illustration of how representation of something is used for this something itself, i.e. terra cotta statuettes for mummies. Although this act has a religious background in itself, through this substitution of representation for the thing it represents, use of representation as a possible way of coping with earth or standing against the death finds its echoes in the substitution of image for model.