Film & Philosophy
PHI 361
Autumn Semester 2011-2012
Lectures: Wednesdays 3 – 4 HI-LTD & 5 – 6 HI-LTD (except week 4)
Seminars: Fridays 10 – 11 JB-SR117 &11 – 12 JB-SR117
In week 4 the lectures will be on Monday 17th October 12 – 1 HI-LTB
and 5 – 6 RRB-A84
Film showings (optional, but recommended): Weds from 6 in HI-LTD.
Module convenor: Dominic Gregory
d.gregory@shef.ac.uk
Office Hours: Wednesday 4 – 5, Thursday 12 – 1
Other Lecturers:
Chris Bennett
George Botterill
Chris Hookway
Rob Hopkins
(C.Bennett@shef)
(G.S.Botterill@shef)
(C.J.Hookway@shef)
(R.Hopkins@shef)
Course MOLE site:
Copies of the Powerpoints, this booklet – in fact a lot of what you need for the module
– are available from the course MOLE site. Follow the links from your Muse page.
Outline of the Course
This module explores the relation between philosophy and film. It addresses a set of
philosophical questions about the nature of film as an artistic medium: for instance,
the senses in which film is visual, the ways it combines pictorial and narrative
elements, whether film sustains some kind of illusion and the relationships between
photography and realism. But it asks these questions in order to ask another—
whether, as some have claimed, film can be a way of doing philosophy. An answer to
this last question should draw on some of the general issues concerning film just
cited. But it should also draw on discussion of particular movies. Thus some of the
lectures will be devoted to discussing individual films, the philosophical questions
they raise, and how far the film manages to address them. Finally, the question about
film as philosophy also forces us to reflect on the nature of philosophy itself. What
sort of activity would philosophy have to be, if it could be pursued in film?
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Structure of the Semester
Week 1 (from 26/9)
Week 2 (from 3/10)
Week 3(from 10/10)
Week 4 (from 17/10)
Week 5 (from 24/10)
Week 6 (from 31/10)
Week 7 Writing week
Week 8 (from 14/11)
Week 9 (from 21/11)
Week 10 (from 28/11)
Week 11 (from 5/12)
Week 12 (from 12/12) Wed 14th, 4pm = short essay deadline
Vacation
Exam period (3 weeks, 16th January to 4th February
Wednesday Jan 25th, 4pm: long essay deadline
How the module will be taught
One of several unusual features of this module is that it will be taught by a team.
Dominic Gregory will act as convenor. It is his job to make sure that the module runs
smoothly and that it coheres as a whole. Dominic will also teach those topics on the
module that concern the philosophy of film – the nature of film as a medium and the
resources available to it for exploring philosophical issues. But when it comes to
particular films and the philosophical questions they raise, Dominic will be joined by
various other lecturers (see above for a list). They will run the showing of their film,
give the lectures on it, and run the seminars accompanying those lectures.
The Films
The module focuses on seven films, from varying traditions and periods. Part of your
job will be to acquire a suitable familiarity with them. We will screen each of the
films once, on a Wednesday evening. However, if you cannot make the showing, or if
you need to see a film more than once, you need to make sure you watch it in your
own time. DVDs of the movies will be available in the library, though you should
remember that there are other ways to get hold of them (e.g. Blockbuster, and the
postal service LoveFilm).
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Lecture Timetable
Note that seminars start in week 2. Further details of the reading for them, where set
below, can be found on the reading list later in this course outline.
Week 1 Lectures:
Introduction: Philosophy of Film, Film as Philosophy (DG)
(Film showing: Minority Report)
Week 2 Lectures:
Minority Report (DG)
Seminar reading: Ch.6 of Mulhall On Film
Week 3 Lectures:
Seeing-in, depiction & the visual nature of film (DG)
Seminar reading: Ch.1 of Currie, Image and Mind
(Film showing: The Seventh Seal)
Week 4 Lectures:
The Seventh Seal (GB)
Seminar reading: See the MOLE site for relevant materials.
N.B. The lectures in week 4 are on Monday rather than Wednesday (see the start of this
course outline for further details).
Week 5 Lectures:
Photography & realism (DG)
Seminar reading: Walton ‘Transparent Pictures’
(Film showing: Rashomon)
Week 6 Lectures:
Rashomon (CH)
Seminar reading: Coady ‘Experts and the law’
(Film showing: Alien)
Week 7 WRITING WEEK
Week 8 Lectures:
Time in film (DG)
Seminar reading: Chapter 7 of Currie Image and Mind
(Film showing: Memento)
Week 9 Lectures:
Memento (RH)
Seminar reading: Wollheim ‘Experiential Memory, Introjection….’
§§1-7; 9-10 (RH)
(Film showing: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Week 10 Lectures:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (CB)
Seminar reading: C. Grau ‘Eternal Sunshine & Morality of Memory’
(Film showing: Aliens)
Week 11 Lectures:
Mulhall on the Alien films (DG)
Seminar reading: Mulhall On Film ch.1 ‘Kane’s Son, Cain’s
Daughter’
Week 12 Discussion:
Seminar:
Film as Philosophy? (DG to lead)
TBA
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Handouts and Powerpoints
Some of us lecture from Powerpoint slides while some of us may just use handouts
instead. These help us remember what we want to say; make the structure of the
lecture explicit; and make quotations, precise claims, and the like clearly visible to
you. Those of us who do this are happy to make these overheads available to you.
They will be posted on the course MOLE page (see above), usually before the lecture.
Please note that these are not intended to be a substitutes for your own notes. The
slides will make little sense if you read them without coming to the lecture, and will
make little more if you have only them to read at exam time. It is up to you to find out
what form of note-taking best suits you. We recommend experimenting. You might,
for instance, try taking notes as we talk; or try listening carefully during the lecture,
and only making notes immediately afterwards. The skills of listening to complex
ideas, digesting them (both at the time and at greater leisure later), and recording your
understanding of them, are amongst those you should be aiming to develop.
Assessment
Assessment is by one essay and one exam, or one Long Essay.
No topic will be the central subject of both an essay question and a question in the
exam. It may nonetheless be possible to repeat essay work in the exam, but you
should not do this.
Essay
You write one essay, of 2500 – 4000 words, using one of the questions to be
provided in the pre-released exam.
The deadline is: 4pm Wednesday December 14th (week 12)
The essay must be submitted both electronically and in paper form. Electronic
submission is done through MOLE, which you can access through your MUSE webpage. Go to the Assignments link of the relevant module, and upload your essay there.
Be sure to press the submit button.
The paper copy may be submitted in either of the following ways:
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by handing them in to the Departmental Office (45 Victoria St)
by putting them in the Essay Deposit Box at reception, Dept of Philosophy, (45
Victoria St)
You each have the right to a half-hour essay tutorial. This will be with one of the
staff teaching the module. Tutorials will take place in the weeks immediately
preceding the essay deadline. They will be shared out amongst the lecturers for the
module, and you may find that the person giving you your tutorial is not the person
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who taught the topic on which you are writing. Arrangements will be posted on
MOLE later.
Exam
This is two hours long and will be pre-released. The paper will be divided into two
sections, one concerning theoretical issues in the philosophy of film, the other
concerning the philosophical content of particular films. You answer two questions,
one from each section.
Long Essay
You have the option of writing a Long Essay in place of the essay and exam. (See the
Department website for details.) This would be 4500 to 6000 words long. Note that
students must have the formal approval of the module convenor, Dominic Gregory,
before taking this option, and that the deadline for opting for the Long Essay is 4pm
on Wednesday of week 8 (November 16th). Approval will only be given to topics
that involve both some general theoretical issue concerning the nature of film and
some particular film (or films) which explore a given philosophical issue (or issues).
The deadline for the Long Essay is 4pm, Wednesday 25th January.
Plagiarism
The following are serious academic offences and may result in penalties that could
have a lasting effect on your career, both at University and beyond.
Plagiarism (either intentional or unintentional) is the stealing of ideas or work of
another person (including experts and fellow or former students) and is considered
dishonest and unprofessional. Plagiarism may take the form of cutting and pasting,
taking or closely paraphrasing ideas, passages, sections, sentences, paragraphs,
drawings, graphs and other graphical material from books, articles, internet sites or
any other source and submitting them for assessment without appropriate
acknowledgement.
Submitting bought or commissioned work (for example from internet sites, essay
“banks” or “mills”) is an extremely serious form of plagiarism. This may take the
form of buying or commissioning either the whole assignment or part of it and implies
a clear intention to deceive the examiners. The University also takes an extremely
serious view of any student who sells, offers to sell or passes on their own
assignments to other students.
Double submission (or self plagiarism) is resubmitting previously submitted work
on one or more occasions (without proper acknowledgement). This may take the form
of copying either the whole assignment or part of it. Normally credit will already have
been given for this work.
Collusion is where two or more people work together to produce a piece of work, all
or part of which is then submitted by each of them as their own individual work. This
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includes passing on work in any format to another student. Collusion does not occur
where students involved in group work are encouraged to work together to produce a
single piece of work as part of the assessment process.
More on plagiarism in particular:
In any essay or exam answer submitted for assessment, all passages taken from other
people's work, either word for word, or with small changes, must be placed within
quotation marks, with specific reference to author, title and page. No excuse can be
accepted for any failure to do so, nor will inclusion of the source in a bibliography be
considered an adequate acknowledgement.
If the marker decides that plagiarism has occurred, it becomes a matter of report to a
University Committee. The student may be judged to have failed the essay and/or
exam and/or module (depending on the degree of severity). The plagiarism will also
be recorded on the student's record.
Plagiarism from handouts and related material: There has in the past been some
scope for confusion on this issue, since many staff offer the advice that ideas deriving
from the lecturer do not need to be cited when used. But the department has agreed
that a distinction needs to be drawn between use of ideas or arguments expounded in
lectures, on the one hand (which is legitimate without citation), and verbatim or nearverbatim reproduction of material from lecture handouts or lecture notes/transcripts,
on the other hand (which is not).
Any essay that is judged to rely too heavily on course handouts and the like— even
when it is considered to fall short of plagiarism — will be penalised.
Reading for the Course: General Introduction
Getting hold of the material can, as with any heavily subscribed course, be a problem.
Here are six tips to help avoid disappointment:
(1) If you need a book, reserve it. The library is now running a system that adjusts the
time for which a volume can be borrowed to the number of people who’ve put in a
reservation.
(2) The library keeps some photocopies of hard-to-get papers. Increasingly, these are
being replaced by e-offprints. See ‘My Resource Lists’ under ‘Library’ in MUSE
(where the reading lists to follow are available online).
(3) Remember that more and more journals are available electronically. Always
check whether this is so before giving up in despair because the hard copy is on loan.
(4) Plan ahead. If you leave researching your essay to the last minute, you are more
likely not to get the reading you need in time.
(5) Be resourceful. Perhaps the paper you want is in an anthology. Have a look.
(Google Scholar can sometimes help with such matters.)
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(6) Be prepared to share resources. Perhaps someone in your seminar group, or next
to you in a lecture, has what you need, or needs what you have.
Reading by Topic
Key:
We have used italics for the names of books and journals, and quotation marks
for the names of articles that appear in them.
An asterisk indicates that an entry is particularly useful.
Film & philosophy
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Thomas Wartenberg ‘Film as Philosophy’ in The Routledge Companion to
Film and Philosophy
Stephen Mulhall, On Film second edition, chapters 1-5
Various reviews of Mulhall’s book have been published in the internet journal
Film-Philosophy. Mulhall replies to some of them in ch.5 of On Film.
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64:1 (2006) Special Issue on Film as
Philosophy, especially the articles by Livingstone, Wartenberg and Smith.
Smuts, Aaron ‘Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold Thesis’ Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67:4 (2009)
Minority Report
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Chapter 6 of Mulhall’s On Film (second edition).
‘Minority Report: A Dystopian Vision’, Lester D. Freeman, in the online
journal Senses of Cinema, viewable at:
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/27/steven-spielberg/minority_report/
See any of the various editions of Punishment: The Supposed Justifications by
Ted Honderich for an overview of some of the different approaches to
punishment.
There are very many books which can provide you with an overview of some
of the issues involved in debates over free will. Exercise—find one!
Seeing-in, depiction & the visual nature of film
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Dominic Lopes Sight and Sensibility ch.1 (‘The Puzzle of Mimesis’) (e-book
available)
Allen, Richard ‘Representation, Illusion and the Cinema’ Cinema Journal
33:2 (1993)
Noel Carroll ‘Address to the Heathen’ October 23 (1982) (NB only pp.103-9)
Gregory Currie Image and Mind ch.1 (‘The Myth of Illusion’) (e-offprint
available) Gregory Currie Image and Mind ch.6 (‘Imagination, Personal and
Impersonal’) or ‘Visual Fictions’ Philosophical Quarterly 1991
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Dominic Lopes, Imagination, Illusion and Experience in Film, Philosophical
Studies 89 (1998)
Hugo Munsterberg The Photoplay: A Psychological Study in Allen Langdale
ed. Hugo Munsterberg on Film
Mark Wicclair ‘Film Theory and Hugo Münsterberg's "The Film: A
Psychological Study"’ Journal of Aesthetic Education 12:3 (1978)
Noel Carroll ‘Film/Mind Analogies: The Case of Hugo Munsterberg’ Journal
of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46:4 (1988)
Don Fredericksen ‘Hugo Munsterberg’ in P.Livingston & C.Plantinga, eds.
Routledge Companion to Film and Philosophy – this is useful on the broader
background to Munsterberg’s thinking.
The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal in particular :
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Bergman, I. Images: My Life in Film. Faber and Faber: London, 1995. pp.231242.
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Donner, J. ‘The Seventh Seal: A Director’s View’. In S.M. Kaminsky ed.,
Ingmar Bergman: Essays in Criticism, Oxford University Press: Oxford and
New York, 1975, pp.148-162.
[Jörn Donner is a Finnish film director and politician, and like Bergman at one time a
partner of Harriet Andersson, the bad-girl star of Bergman’s 1953 film Summer with
Monika. He was the Producer of Bergman’s last major film, Fanny and Alexander
(1982).
Donner takes the view that the central contrast in The Seventh Seal is between the
knight and his squire, and that the squire Jöns is the most interesting figure in the film,
ultimately the most sympathetic:
‘Jöns’ actions are practical. The Knight performs his actions as if there were another
task beyond that of living. Jöns is prepared to enjoy life as long as possible. He curses
his fate. Jöns is no philosopher: to live is to live is to live. Viewed in this perspective,
the foolishness is not found in Jof and Mia (“the golden virgin and her idiot husband”)
but in the Knight, because he went on a crusade, and because he is still asking his
meaningless questions.’ p.154]
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Stubbs, J.C. ‘The Seventh Seal’. Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 9, No. 2,
Special Issue: Film IV: Eight Study Guides (Apr., 1975), pp. 62-76.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3331735
Further Reading on Bergman’s Films
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Archer, E. ‘The Rack of Life’ Film Quarterly 12, 1959, pp. 3-16.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3185998
Kawin, B.F. Mindscreen: Begman, Godard, and First-Person Film. Princeton
University Press: Princeton, New Jersey. 1978.
See especially:
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o Ch.1 ‘The Mind’s Eye’: Kawin discusses the question of the narrative
perspective of a film. By ‘mindscreen’ he means the presentation of the
subjective experience of one of the characters in a film (as in a dreamsequence). Pp. 14-18 discusses Bergman’s Cries and Whispers.
o Ch.6 ‘Bergman: An Introduction’, pp.91-101;
o and Chs. 7 and 8, on Persona and Shame (respectively)
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Singer, I. Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: reflections on his
creativity. 2007.
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Livingston, P. Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy.
Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2009.
Photography & realism
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Andre Bazin ‘The ontology of the photographic image’ Film Quarterly 13:4
(1960)
*K.Walton ‘Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism’
Critical Inquiry 11 (1984). See also the postscripts to the reprint and ‘On
Pictures and Photographs: Objections Answered’ (part 2: ‘Photographs’), both
in Walton’s Marvelous Images.
Gregory Currie ‘Painting, Photography and Perception’ Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism 1991 OR Image and Mind ch.2 (‘The Imprint of Nature’)
Noel Carroll ‘Towards an Ontology of the Moving Image’ in C.Freeland and
T. Wartenberg Philosophy and Film
Aaron Meskin & Jonathan Cohen ‘On the Epistemic Value of Photographs’
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 2004
Robert Hopkins ‘What do we see in film?’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 66:2 (2008)
Rashomon
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Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Rashomon and other Stories. (There are many
editions of these short stories. The relevant ones, on which the film is based,
are ‘In a grove’ and ‘Rashomon’.)
David Richie, Akiri Kurasawa, 1998. 70-80.
David Richie (ed) Focus on Rashomon. Prentice Hall: 1972
‘Experts and the law’, in Coady Testimony, a Philosophical Study. Chapter 12:
277-301 (e-book available)
C.A. Coady, Testimony: a Philosophical Study, Oxford University Press,
section V. 1992
J. Adler, Epistemological Problems of Testimony, Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
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Time & narrative
Moving pictures:
 Gregory Currie Image and Mind ch.3 (‘Realism’) sections 3-4
 Noel Carroll ‘Defining the Moving Image’ in Theorising the Moving Image
CUP 1996 pp.49-74
Cinematic time:
 Currie ch.7 (‘Travels in narrative time’) OR ‘McTaggart at the Movies’
Philosophy 1992
Memento
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Andrew Kania ‘Memento’ in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and
Film
Joseph Levine ‘Leonard’s system: why doesn’t it work?’ in Andrew Kania ed.
Memento
Raymond Martin ‘The Value of Memory: Reflections on Memento’ in Andrew
Kania ed. Memento
John Sutton ‘The feel of the world: exograms, habits and the confusion of
types of memory’ in Andrew Kania ed. Memento
A.J.Ayer ‘Memory’ ch.IV (esp.§§1-4) in The Problem of Knowledge Penguin:
Harmondsworth 1956
Richard Wollheim The Thread of Life lectures II (‘Iconicity, Imagination &
Desire’) and III (‘Experiential Memory, Introjection & the Inner World’)
sections 1-10. (Lec.III is available as an e-offprint)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
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*C. Grau, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the Morality of
Memory’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 (2006)
T. Jollimore, ‘Miserably Ever After: Forgetting, Repeating and Affirming
Love in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ in C. Grau (ed.), Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Routledge)
V. Tiberius, ‘Bad Memories, Good Decisions and the Three Joels’ in Grau
(ed.), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
J. Driver, ‘Memory, Desire and Value in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind’ in Grau (ed.), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A. Margalit, The Ethics of Memory, pp. 18-40, 84-94, Ch. 4
M. Nussbaum, ‘Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature’ in her Love’s
Knowledge
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The Alien series
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*Stephen Mulhall On Film second edition, chapters 1-5
Various reviews of the first edition of Mulhall’s book have been published in
the internet journal Film-Philosophy. Mulhall replies to some of them in ch.5
of the second edition of his book.
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