Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures

Transcription

1 Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures

2 BLACKWELL PHILOSOPHY ANTHOLOGIES Each volume in this outstanding series provides an authoritative and comprehensive collection of the essential primary readings from philosophy s main fields of study. Designed to complement the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, each volume represents an unparalleled resource in its own right, and will provide the ideal platform for course use. 1 Cottingham: Western Philosophy: An Anthology 2 Cahoone: From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (expanded second edition) 3 LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (second edition) 4 Goodin and Pettit: Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology 5 Eze: African Philosophy: An Anthology 6 McNeill and Feldman: Continental Philosophy: An Anthology 7 Kim and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology 8 Lycan: Mind and Cognition: An Anthology (second edition) 9 Kuhse and Singer: Bioethics: An Anthology 10 Cummins and Cummins: Minds, Brains, and Computers The Foundations of Cognitive Science: An Anthology 11 Sosa and Kim: Epistemology: An Anthology 12 Kearney and Rasmussen: Continental Aesthetics Romanticism to Postmodernism: An Anthology 13 Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology 14 Jacquette: Philosophy of Logic: An Anthology 15 Jacquette: Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology 16 Harris, Pratt, and Waters: American Philosophies: An Anthology 17 Emmanuel and Goold: Modern Philosophy From Descartes to Nietzsche: An Anthology 18 Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology The Technological Condition: An Anthology 19 Light and Rolston: Environmental Ethics: An Anthology 20 Taliaferro and Griffiths: Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology 21 Lamarque and Olsen: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology 22 John and Lopes: Philosophy of Literature Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology 23 Cudd and Andreasen: Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology 24 Carroll and Choi: Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology

3 Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures An Anthology Edited by Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi

4 ß 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA , USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi to be identified as the Authors of the Editorial Material in this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philosophy of film and motion pictures: an anthology / edited by Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi. p. cm. (Blackwell philosophy anthologies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: (hard cover: alk. paper) ISBN-10: (hard cover: alk. paper) ISBN-13: (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN-10: (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures. I. Carroll, Noël (Noël E.) II. Choi, Jinhee. III. Series. PN1994.P dc A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 9 on 11pt Ehrhardt by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall The publisher s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:

5 Contents Acknowledgments viii General Introduction 1 Part I Film as Art 5 Introduction 7 1 Photography and Representation 19 roger scruton 2 The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency 35 dominic mciver lopes 3 Everybody Gets a Cut: DVDs Give Viewers Dozens of Choices and that s the Problem 44 terrence rafferty Part II What Is Film? 49 Introduction 51 4 The World Viewed 67 stanley cavell 5 A Note on the Film 79 susanne k. langer 6 Vision and Dream in the Cinema 82 f. e. sparshott 7 The Long Goodbye: The Imaginary Language of Film 91 gregory currie 8 Moving Pictures 100 arthur c. danto v

6 Contents 9 Defining the Moving Image 113 noël carroll Part III Documentary 135 Introduction Visible Traces: Documentary and the Contents of Photographs 141 gregory currie 11 Fiction, Non-Fiction, and the Film of Presumptive Assertion: A Conceptual Analysis 154 noël carroll Part IV Film Narrative/Narration 173 Introduction Le Grand Imagier Steps Out: The Primitive Basis of Film Narration 185 george m. wilson 13 Unreliability Refigured: Narrative in Literature and Film 200 gregory currie Part V Film and Emotion 211 Introduction Film, Emotion, and Genre 217 noël carroll 15 Fearing Fictions 234 kendall walton 16 Empathy and (Film) Fiction 247 alex neill 17 Identification and Emotion in Narrative Film 260 berys gaut 18 In Fictional Shoes: Mental Simulation and Fiction 271 deborah knight Part VI Topics in Film Criticism 281 Introduction Morals for Method 287 george m. wilson 20 Cinematic Authorship 299 paisley livingston 21 National Cinema, the Very Idea 310 jinhee choi vi

7 Contents Part VII Film and Ethics 321 Introduction Film Criticism and Virtue Theory 335 joseph h. kupfer 23 Beauty and Evil: The Case of Leni Riefenstahl s Triumph of the Will 347 mary devereaux 24 A First Look at the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance: Could Pornography Be the Subordination of Women? 362 melinda vadas Part VIII Film and Knowledge 379 Introduction The Philosophical Limits of Film 387 bruce russell 26 Minerva in the Movies: Relations Between Philosophy and Film 391 karen hanson 27 Motion Pictures as a Philosophical Resource 397 lester h. hunt Select Bibliography by Jinhee Choi 407 Index 415 vii

8 Acknowledgments The editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book: 1 Roger Scruton, Photography and Representation, The Aesthetic Understanding (London: Methuen, 1983, reprinted 1998 by St Augustine s Press, South Ben, IN): (from reprint). ß 1983 by Roger Scruton. Reprinted with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of Roger Scruton. 2 Dominic McIver Lopes, The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency, Mind, 112, July 2003: Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press Journals. 3 Terrence Rafferty, Everybody Gets a Cut, The New York Times Magazine, May 4, 2003: 58, Stanley Cavell, excerpts from The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film (New York: Viking Press, 1971): Reprinted by permission of Stanley Cavell. 5 Susanne K. Langer, A Note on the Film, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1953), F. E. Sparshott, Vision and Dream in the Cinema, Philosophical Exchange, Summer 1971: Reprinted by permission of F. E. Sparshott. 7 Gregory Currie, The Long Goodbye: The Imaginary Language of Film, British Journal of Aesthetics 33(3), July 1993: Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press Journals. 8 Arthur C. Danto, Moving Pictures, Quarterly Review of Film Studies 4(1), Winter 1979: Noël Carroll, Defining the Moving Image, Theorizing The Moving Image (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996): Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. 10 Gregory Currie, Visible Traces: Documentary and the Contents of Photographs, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57(3), Summer 1999: Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing. 11 Noël Carroll, Fiction, Non-Fiction, and the Film of Presumptive Assertion: A Conceptual Analysis, Film Theory and Philosophy, eds. Richard Allen and Murray Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. 12 George M. Wilson, Le Grand Imagier Steps Out: The Primitive Basis of Film Narration, Philosophical Topics 25(1), 1997: Reprinted by permission of George M. Wilson. 13 Gregory Currie, Unreliability Refigured: Narrative in Literature and Film, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53(1), 1995: Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing. 14 Noël Carroll, Film, Emotion, and Genre, Passionate Views, eds. Carl Plantinga and viii

9 Acknowledgments Greg M. Smith (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 21 47, (notes). Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 15 Kendall Walton, Fearing Fictions, Journal of Philosophy 75(1), January 1978: Reprinted by permission of the Journal of Philosophy, Columbia University. 16 Alex Neill, Empathy and (Film) Fiction, Post Theory, eds. Noël Carroll and David Bordwell (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996): Berys Gaut, Identification and Emotion in Narrative Film, Passionate Views, eds. Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 18 Deborah Knight, In Fictional Shoes: Mental Simulation and Fiction, first published in this volume. ß 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 19 George M. Wilson, Morals for Method, Philosophy and Film, eds. Cynthia A. Freeland, and Thomas E. Wartenberg (New York: Routledge, 1995): This is a revised version of Chapter 10 in Wilson s Narration in Light: Studies in Cinematic Point of View (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986): Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 20 Paisley Livingston, Cinematic Authorship, Film Theory and Philosophy, eds. Richard Allen and Murray Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. 21 Jinhee Choi, National Cinema, the Very Idea, first published in this volume. ß 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 22 Joseph H. Kupfer, Film Criticism and Virtue Theory, Visions of Virtue in Popular Film (Boulder: Westview, 1999): Mary Devereaux, Beauty and Evil: The Case of Leni Riefenstahl s Triumph of the Will, Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): Melinda Vadas, A First Look at the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance: Could Pornography Be the Subordination of Women? The Journal of Philosophy 84(9), 1987: Bruce Russell, The Philosophical Limits of Film, Film and Philosophy (Special Edition, 2000): Reprinted by permission of the Society for the Philosophic Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts. 26 Karen Hanson, Minerva in the Movies: Relations Between Philosophy and Film, Persistence of Vision 5, 1987: Reprinted by permission of Karen Hanson. 27 Lester H. Hunt, Motion Pictures as a Philosophical Resource, first published in this volume. ß 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. ix

10 General Introduction In the eighteenth century, only the wealthiest and most privileged persons could have had a theater in their own homes. But today in virtue of television, video cassette recorders, and DVD players, most citizens of the industrialized world have something very like a theater and often two or more in their households. These theaters, of course, do not feature live dramas, but rather motion pictures pictures stored on some sort of template like film and shown in a way that imparts the impression of movement. And from that impression, moving images are born, vistas are opened, and stories are told. Though many of us today might yearn for the delicate and quaintly imaginative stagecraft of an antique era, surely Vattel the creator of spectacles for the Bourbon court would envy the magic-making capacities of the contemporary motion picture artist. The display of fireworks and explosions, and the armies of clones and whatever on view nightly in our living rooms and dens would have staggered Vattel s comprehension. Perhaps his master would have given his kingdom for one of our TVs. The development of the motion picture has been an awesome step in the democratization of culture, providing the many with access to spectacles of the type that heretofore were the normal fare of the exceptionally few or of the many only on special occasions. Motion pictures have become a fixture of everyday life in the modern world. They have been integrated into a wide variety of cultural processes involving education and the communication of information, and they have spawned their own practices of art-making, entertainment, and documentary recording with their own traditions. It would be surprising if a social enterprise as substantial as the motion picture did not attract philosophical attention. Thus predictably, the philosophical literature pertaining to it, especially in recent years, has grown exponentially. This anthology, in part, is an acknowledgment of that trend. But what does philosophical attention to the motion picture comprise? In contrast to empirical research, philosophy is the discipline that is primarily preoccupied with the logic or conceptual frameworks of our practices. 1 So a philosophical perspective on the motion picture involves attending to the conceptual frameworks of our motion picture practices. This includes: (1) the analysis of the concepts and categories that organize our practices (for example, asking what is film or what is a documentary?); (2) the clarification of the relations between those organizing concepts and categories (for example, can what falls under the category of film also fall under the category of art, or is there some reason that precludes the former from being an instance of the latter?); (3) the resolution of the conceptual paradoxes, tensions, and contradictions that the relevant practices appear to provoke (for example, how is it possible for us to fear fiction films?); (4) the elucidation of the forms of reasoning the modes of connecting concepts appropriate to our practices (for example, what techniques of interpretation are suitable or valid with respect to classic Hollywood movies?); and (5) the discovery of the metaphysical presuppositions and entailments of the conceptual frameworks of the relevant practices (for example, what kind of narrators, ontologically speaking, do fiction films presuppose?) 1

11 General Introduction Pursuing these lines of inquiry composes the largest part of the philosophy of the moving picture. However, as the articles in this anthology frequently attest, there is also a part of the enterprise that, like the philosophy of mind, segues with cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. For the philosophy of motion pictures involves thinking about things like attention, emotion, recognition, inference, and so forth and, therefore, needs to be at least informed by scientific psychology, a feature of the philosophy of the motion pictures evinced amply in many of the essays in this volume. Given the ever-growing importance of motion pictures to our culture, such questions about the logic and/or conceptual frameworks of our motion picture practices have come increasingly to the fore. The purpose of this anthology is to air a selection of some of the most pertinent recent writing on these philosophical topics. With the exception of S. K. Langer s A Note on the Film, the writing in this volume has all been published since 1970 by philosophers who have grown up in the epoch of the motion picture. That is, they were born after the invention and popularization of the motion picture, and, as a result, movies have been an unexceptional feature of their cultural landscape. For the philosophers born before World War II, a visit to the movie theater was an ordinary pleasure, while for those born after World War II, in addition to a trip to the cinema, the repertoire of film history has also been continuously available on TV and then video cassettes and DVDs. Because of their everexpanding familiarity with motion pictures, more philosophers are asking more questions about moving pictures than ever before, and they are posing their inquiries with heightened sophistication, precision, and refinement. Thus, the last three and a half decades have benefited from an unparalleled philosophical scrutiny of a diversity showcased in this collection. But though the philosophy of the motion picture is flourishing, particularly at present, it would be an error to think that it is only a concern of recent vintage. For the philosophy of the motion picture arrived on the scene very soon after those inaugural moving pictures namely, films became ensconced as a significant cultural force. Early on, film was enmeshed in an intense philosophical debate. Because of its photographic provenance, many argued that film could not be an artform. For, it was assumed, photography was nothing but the mechanical reproduction of whatever stood before the camera lens. Just as a mirror reflection of a table full of decoratively arranged viands is not an artwork, no matter how much it might resemble some still life, so it was argued, neither is a photograph whether still or moving an artwork. It is merely a slavish recording with no art to it. As mechanical processes, photography and cinematography allegedly afford no space for expression, imaginative elaboration, and/or creativity and, therefore, are artless. Though early film theorists, like Rudolf Arnheim, vigorously disputed the case against film art, the prejudice has lingered into the present and been advanced in a philosophically adept fashion by Roger Scruton. Since the issue of whether film can be art was historically the first philosophical challenge leveled at the motion picture, we begin this anthology in honor of it leading off the first section with Scruton s brief against the possibility of film art and then following that with Dominic McIver Lopes s case in favor of an art of motion pictures. The debate over whether films or motion pictures can be art hinges on certain presuppositions about what kind of thing a film is. Those who deny it art status presume that it is essentially photographic, and, furthermore, presuppose that photography, by definition, is mechanical in a way that is categorically inhospitable to art making. But is this true? What is film? To what category does it belong? In Part II, a gamut of answers to this question is interrogated by various philosophers. Suggestions canvassed include not only that film is essentially a photographic instrument, but also that it is a language, that it is a form of dream, and finally that it is a moving picture or image. As indicated, the first moving pictures were the products of photographic film. Many of these images were documentary in nature, such as the famous actualités of the Lumière Brothers. Moreover, inasmuch as the film camera was designed to be first and foremost a recording device, there has long been an association between film and documentation to the extent that one of the most enduring genres of the moving image has been the documentary or nonfiction film. Part III of this anthology takes up the question of the nature of such filmmaking, with two philosophers setting out contrasting conceptions of the nonfiction film. Though the nonfiction film represents one of the oldest traditions of motion picture making, it is probably not the sort of endeavor that first comes 2

12 General Introduction to mind when people think of cinema. In all likelihood, at the mention of movies the majority of us start thinking about narrative fictions, surely the most popular type of motion pictures to date. So in Part IV of this volume, we turn to the issue of the narration of fiction films and the special problems and complexities that contemporary philosophers imagine it to involve. Motion pictures are intimately bound up with the emotions. When it comes to fiction films, one might be tempted to call them E-motion pictures. Films not only move; they move us (emotionally). Many film genres take their very labels from the emotions they are typically designed to engender, such as horror films, suspense films and tearjerkers. Part V of this text is focused on the relation of motion pictures to the emotions. It opens with a discussion of the way in which movies engage the garden-variety emotions and then goes on to grapple with certain apparent anomalies pertaining to our emotional responses to fiction namely, how is it possible to be moved by cinematic fictions, since we know the events they depict do not exist? How can we, for example, recoil in fear at the onset of the Green Slime when we know that there is no such thing? Much of our affective engagement with filmed fictions centers upon our relations with characters. But what is the nature of that emotional relation? In the fifth section, several philosophers explore different conceptions of it, including identification, empathy, and simulation. We not only respond to films emotionally in the moment. We also talk about them afterwards with each other and analyze and assess them. Film criticism pursued by professional critics and ordinary viewers alike is a part of the practice of cinema along with filmmaking and film viewing. Just as philosophers reflect upon the conceptual frameworks that organize the latter activities, they also examine the concepts and modes of thinking the categories and procedures that facilitate the practice of film criticism. Sometimes called metacriticism, the philosophy of film criticism epistemically weighs the appropriateness of alternative interpretive protocols and attempts to reconstruct rationally the categories that inform the conduct of criticism. In Part VI, George M. Wilson rejects a dominant style of contemporary academic film interpretation and offers a series of more nuanced critical concepts in its stead. Then in subsequent essays, different philosophers attempt to distill the saving remnant of and to defend for critical discourse respectively the organizing concept of cinematic authorship and the very idea of a national cinema. If only because of the connection between motion pictures and the emotions, movies inevitably come in contact with morality. How do films stand in relation to right and wrong? Are some motion pictures morally salutary, and, if so, how? Can some films contribute to the cultivation of virtue? But aren t other films morally pernicious and even harmful such as pornographic films? Yet how is it possible for a film to be harmful and what should we do about it? Can we censor such films? And how are we to respond to motion pictures that appear to be artistically accomplished but also evil? In what way do moral factors and artistic ones come into play in an all-things-considered judgment of a film? These are the sorts of issues that vex Part VII of this anthology. The final section, Part VIII, is preoccupied with the relation of motion pictures to knowledge in general and to philosophical knowledge in particular. Obviously not all films add to our fund of knowledge and perhaps even fewer can lay claim to the title of philosophy. But might it be the case that at least some motion pictures can satisfy the criteria required to count as genuine knowledge, philosophical or otherwise? Skeptics argue no, for genuine knowledge claims, they assert, demand to be backed by evidence and, especially in the case of philosophy, by argument. Yet fiction films are bereft of evidence and argument; so even if they convey truths, those truths do not amount to knowledge, since they have not been justified by means of evidence and argument. Nevertheless, this species of skepticism is liable to attack from at least two different directions. On the one hand, it may be countered that the view of knowledge, and particularly the view of philosophical knowledge, countenanced by the skeptic is too narrow. Or, alternatively, it may be demonstrated that narrative fictions possess structural resources that enable them to mount what may be reasonably described as arguments. Both strategies are deployed against the skeptic in the closing section of this volume. Perhaps needless to say, the topics selected for discussion herein are but a sampling of the issues that intrigue and engage contemporary philosophers of the moving image. Another anthology might propose an entirely different agenda, emphasizing, for example, the relation of motion pictures to the preoccupations of political philosophy. 3

13 General Introduction We would never suggest that the itinerary through the field offered between these covers is the only way of introducing beginning students to the philosophy of the motion picture. It is a fairly representative overview of the kind of work produced by so-called analytic philosophers of film. But one might enter the conversation by a different route. What is important is simply to begin somewhere. So we invite you to start here and now. N.C. Note 1 For a fuller account of this view of philosophy, see the introduction to Noël Carroll, Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge, 2000). 4

14 PART I Film as Art

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16 Introduction Film and philosophy first encounter each other over the issue of whether or not film can be an artform. This is the question of whether or not some films can be artworks, since it is obviously not the case that all films are artworks. Ballistics tests, for example, are not. This is a philosophical question because it concerns the concept of art. Specifically, can the concept of art be applied to some films? That is, can certain films, at least, meet the criterion or criteria requisite for the concept of art to be applicable? This question became pressing by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, if not earlier. At that time, the film medium was in the process of acquiring greater visibility and influence in society. Though it had started as a technological novelty, its practitioners and proponents had higher ambitions for it. They aspired for recognition; they clamored for legitimacy. They no longer wished to be regarded as the poor step-sister of theater. 1 They wanted film to be acknowledged as an artform in its own right. However, not everyone was willing to accord this status to the fledgling medium, not even after it had produced arguable masterpieces, such as Intolerance and the works of Charlie Chaplin. The source of this resistance, moreover, had consolidated decisively before the invention of cinema, taking its inspiration from the reservations voiced against the possibility that photographs could be artworks. Allegedly, photographs cannot be art. Film, it was said, merely added movement to photography. Film is just moving photography. Film is essentially no more than a photographic instrument. Therefore, since photographs cannot be art, neither can films be. Because we are so accustomed to accept photographs and films as artworks because we believe that we have already come across many artistic masterpieces in these media the preceding argument sounds strange to us. But its motivation may not be as bizarre as it seems at first blush. Those who are skeptical about the possibility of an art of photography took special notice of the fact that photographs are mechanical productions. They are the result of sheer causal processes sequences of physical and chemical reactions. Because of this, they suspected that photography precluded the creative, expressive, and/or interpretive contribution of the photographer. Photographic images, on this construal, are nought but the slavish product of a machine an automatic mechanical process not a mind. Press a button and voilà! The skeptics presupposed that, by definition, art required the creative, expressive, and/or interpretive input of an artist. But, they contended, photography is a mechanism. It affords no space for creative, expressive, and/or interpretive invention. Therefore, it fails to meet the criteria requisite for art status; it cannot be art. And since film is essentially photography, films cannot be artworks either. Furthermore, the skeptics took note of the kind of mechanism photography is. It is a machine for reproducing the appearance of whatever stands before the lens of the camera. It is a recording mechanism. Consequently, they argued that photography could not be an artform in its own right. A photograph of an artwork of the sort one can 7

17 Introduction to Part I purchase in a museum bookstore is not an artwork itself; it is merely a reproduction of an artwork. Similarly, the CD of Bach s Brandenburg Concertos is not a musical masterwork, but only the record of one. The photograph and the CD give us access to antecedently existing artworks, but they are not artworks themselves. They are recording media, not artistic media. Photographs and, by extension, films are something like time capsules temporal containers that preserve past artistic achievements. They are temporal conveyances. But just as the ice cream truck is not the ice cream, so these recording devices are not the artworks they make available to us, nor are they artworks in their own right. Moreover, applying this reasoning to dramatic films, it was deduced that films are not artworks on their own steam but merely slavish recordings moving photographs, if you will of theatrical artworks. Much of what is referred to as classical film theory was dedicated to rebutting these arguments against the possibility of film art. 2 Film theorists, like Rudolf Arnheim, maintained that despite their mechanical dimension both photography and film had the capacity to be expressive. Arnheim emphasized especially the ways in which the film image fell short of the perfect reproduction of its subjects and he claimed that this lacuna granted the filmmaker the opportunity to treat those subjects creatively. Film theorists, notably the Soviet montagists, also stressed that film is not reducible to photography; film editing is at least as fundamental an element of the medium, if not a more important element than the photographic constituent. And since editing can rearrange the spatio-temporal continuum, including the order of events in a play, film need not be a mere or slavish recording of anything of any naturally occurring sequence of events or, either, of any theatrical ones. Thus, film, via editing, had the resources to support authorial intervention, interpretation, and expression. The filmmaker was not confined to the slavish reproduction of the world. The filmmaker could also create worlds worlds of works of art. It is against the background of this longstanding debate about the possibility of photography and film to produce art, properly so-called, that Roger Scruton s Photography and Representation, and Dominic McIver Lopes s response The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency need to be read. For Scruton s article is an extremely sophisticated, philosophical variant of the traditional suspicion that photography and film cannot be art; while Lopes s article is an equally sophisticated rejoinder which also has the advantage of clarifying, in part, what is at stake in aesthetically appreciating photographic images, whether still or moving. It is important not to dismiss Scruton s arguments against the possibility of film art out of hand. It is true that it appears to fly in the face of common sense. But common sense can be mistaken; for centuries it held females to be necessarily inferior to males. Moreover, it is not clear that Scruton cannot assimilate to his own viewpoint much of the evidence that common sense might attempt to marshal against him. For instance, if you observe that there are artistic masterpieces on film, like Chaplin s The Gold Rush, that appear to be counterexamples to Scruton s conclusions, Scruton may respond that if the movie The Gold Rush is a masterpiece, then it is not a cinematic masterpiece not itself a case of film art but a case of a theatrical artwork which has been photographically recorded on film. That is, it is a dramatic (or comedic) masterpiece preserved on film, but the film itself is no more an artwork than the postcard of School of Athens is an instance of Raphael s genius. Scruton s master argument has three major movements: 1 Photography is not a representational art. 2 A film is at best a photograph of a dramatic representation. 3 Therefore, film itself is not a representational art. This master argument, in turn, is bolstered by three other arguments, each designed to substantiate the first premise of the master argument. These three supporting arguments may be called: (1) the causation argument, (2) the control argument, and (3) the aesthetic-interest argument. Scruton does not appear to have additional argumentation to reinforce the second premise of his master argument. He seems to presume that this premise is completely uncontroversial. This a shortcoming to which we must return. However, first let us look at Scruton s reasons for advancing the first premise. The causation argument. Scruton holds that a representation is necessarily an expression of 8

18 Introduction to Part I thought. If snow falling on a mountainside distributed itself so as to cast shadows in such a way that the result resembles the face of Jackie Chan, it would not, according to Scruton, constitute a representation of Jackie Chan. Why not? Because a representation, properly so-called, requires the expression of thought and there is no thinking behind our imagined snow storm. It is a natural event, a bald series of causes and effects, the sheer product of physical laws rather than human agency. So: no thinker no thinking no portrait. Similarly, a photograph is putatively a sheer causal process. Photographs can occur without human agency. A malfunctioning camera with a hair trigger can click off a perfectly focused snapshot. Bank surveillance cameras do not require human operators. And even more fancifully, one can imagine a cave containing a puddle of naturally occurring photographic salts with a tiny crack overhead that allows light to flow in the manner of a pin-hole camera; that package of light rays, we may further speculate, could fix the image of a nearby tree on the floor of the cavern. 3 A randomly occurring, natural photograph of this sort would not require a human photographer. And for that reason, someone like Scruton would not wish to count it as a representation, no matter how closely it captured the look of the neighboring tree. What the preceding examples imply is that photography does not necessarily require a camera operator. At minimum, a photograph may be the result of an utterly physical process of causation. Scruton calls such a photograph an ideal photography a photograph stripped down to its essence in such a way that it gives us a glimpse of what a photograph minimally is. Since such a photo does not require human agency, it will not express a thought. Therefore photography, conceived minimally, essentially, and ideally, need not express thoughts. But since representation, according to Scruton, requires the expression of thought, what the case of the ideal photograph reveals is that photography, considered essentially, is not representational. This argument is likely to provoke the objection that Scruton wrongly presupposes that representation demands the expression of thought. But in a perfectly respectable way of speaking, barometers represent atmospheric pressure and yet they express no thoughts. This is a fair observation. However, it is not conclusive. Recall that what is at issue for Scruton is whether photography can be a representational art. And it does appear that anything that lays claim to the title of art should be in the business of expressing thought. 4 In pointing to the sheer causal dimension of photography, Scruton means to draw a distinction between photography or photography as it is revealed essentially to be in its idealized form and painting. A painting has the property of intentionality by which Scruton appears to signal that it (1) be about something because (2) its author intends it to be. That is, for Scruton, a painting is intentional both in the sense that it is directed and that it is a vehicle for an authorial thought (such as an interpretation of what it is about). Ideal photographs, on the other hand, are not intentional in these senses. They are supposedly sheer causal processes. The appearance of the tree fixed photographically on the floor of the cave is not about the tree. How could it be? It expresses no thought about the tree as a painting that pictured it majestically might. The photograph is simply the result of a natural process, indicating the presence of no more thought than a river overflowing its banks would. Moreover, whereas the painting can portray imaginary things, a photograph allegedly always renders the appearance of something that literally existed before the lens of a camera. Photographs, that is, present the spectator with a referentially transparent context that is, in the standard case, the photo P is the effect of cause C (say, a tree) in such a way that the existence of P permits one to infer the existence of C (a tree or some tree-like visible configuration). Paintings, on the other hand, are referentially opaque. From a painting of an angel, you are not entitled to infer the existence of an angel. Paintings can be about what painters imagine; their subject need not exist. This too is a feature of intentionality, sometimes called intentional inexistence. Painting is a representational art because it involves intentionality which is intimately related to the capacity to express (authorial) thoughts about its subjects. 5 Photography, conceived of in terms of its ideal or essential form, produces its images causally rather than intentionally, and, therefore, does not express thoughts. Consequently, photography is not a representational art, and, neither is film, since film is basically photography. The control argument. This argument, which Lopes calls the style argument, presupposes that a genuine representational artform is such that, in 9

19 Introduction to Part I principle, an artist working in that medium has complete control over it. A representational artform is a vehicle for the expression of thought. Ideally, every element in a representational artform serves or should be capable of serving the articulation of thoughts. In addition, for the purpose of clarifying her ideas and/or emotions, the artist may imagine whatsoever she needs; she is not restrained by what is. Painting as a vehicle of intentionality can meet these demands. However, the photographer lacks comparable levels of control. The camera is like a mirror; it captures whatever is before the lens, whether or not the photographer is aware of the details and/or intends to photograph it. For example, some of the Roman soldiers in Stanley Kubrick s Spartacus can be seen wearing wristwatches a detail in the image that the cinematographer missed and never intended to record. But photography is a causal process; if something was in front of the lens, the procedure guarantees, all things being equal, that it will be in the image, no matter what the camera operator desires. 6 If wristwatches appear on ancient Roman soldiers in a painting, we would infer that the painter put them there intentionally and we would ask what she intended by them. On the other hand, when details like this erupt in historical films, as they so often do, we surmise that things have gotten out of control, since we understand that the photographic process is an automatic, causal affair, abiding blindly according to the laws of chemistry and optics. Moreover, there are so many things in front of the camera lens that may make an inadvertent appearance in the final print. Typically there are far too many details large and small for the photographer to notice. Too many surprises arrive uninvited in the finished photograph. With a painting, everything that is on the canvas is there because the painter intended it to be there. There are no surprises, no unintended wristwatches. Not so the photograph. A detail will appear in a photo because it was on the camera s turf whether or not the photographer took heed of it. Furthermore, there are an indefinitely large number of such potential details lying in wait for the photographer. So in this sense, the painter may be said to have more control than the photographer. Because paintings are intentionally produced, the artist has a level of control such that there is nothing whose presence in the representation shocks her. But photographers are frequently taken aback by what they find in their photos, because the causal process that they set in motion evolves ignorantly, irrespective of what the photographer believes, desires, or intends. As well, the photographer not only lacks sufficient control over the details that may crop up in her work; she also lacks the kind of imaginative freedom the painter possesses, inasmuch as she can only literally present what can be placed before the camera. The ingredients of a photographic image are limited to reality, in contrast to the painter who can picture whatever she fancies. Magritte, for example, can represent a stone suspended in mid-air, defying the laws of gravity. A photographer could never actually photograph such a rock, because it does not exist in nature to be dragooned as a camera subject. So, once again, the painter can exercise a degree of control over his image that the photographer cannot hope to match. Because representational art involves the expression of thought, only media that afford a high level of control suit it. For the clarification of thought requires a certain malleability. Photography, however, is recalcitrant in this respect: it is tethered to what is and it incorporates details beyond the photographer s ken. Unlike painting, it is not a representational art, because it provides insufficient control. Ditto film, for the same reasons. Remember those wristwatches. The aesthetic-interest argument. This argument, which Lopes calls the object argument, maintains that if something is a representational art, it must be capable of sustaining aesthetic interest. An aesthetic interest is an interest we take in something for its own sake, i.e., because of the kind of thing it is. We take an aesthetic interest in a novel when we are preoccupied by the kind of thing it is essentially an expression of thought rather than, say, as an object heavy enough to prop open a door. According to Scruton, photography cannot command our aesthetic interest. Why not? Because a photo is strictly analogous to a mirror. If we are interested in what shows on the surface of a mirror that is because we are interested in the object so reflected there and not in the reflection itself. When I brush my hair in front of the mirror, I am interested in my hair and not the mirror reflection as such. That is, I do not take an interest in the mirror reflection for its own sake; my interest is not directed at the mirror qua mirror. It s my dwindling patch of grey that concerns me. 10

20 Introduction to Part I Scruton claims that the same is true of photographs; we are interested in them for what they show long-departed relatives, for example and not for their own sake. It is the object in the photograph and not the photograph as an object that commands our attention. Contrarily, we are interested in paintings because they are expressions of thought. Mirrors are not expressions of thought, but optical phenomena thoroughly beholden to the lawlike operation of natural, causal processes. They deliver appearances to us mechanically. So there is no point in taking an interest in them in the way we care about paintings. In fact, the only way to take an interest in the images in mirrors, if we are not physicists, is to be interested in what they show us for instance, the parking space into which we are trying to back our car. Similarly, photos record appearances; they do not convey thoughts. We are interested in the photo of x maybe one of Emma Goldman because we are interested in learning how Emma Goldman looked. We are not interested in the photo for itself, by only as a mechanical transmitter of appearances. Thus, we take no aesthetic interest in photos. Another way to see what Scruton is getting at is to recall a key word in the title of Lopes s article namely, transparency. We have already noted that photographs are referentially transparent in contrast to the opacity characteristic of the products of intentionality; there is a causal connection between the photo and the object that gives rise to it such that the photo supplies grounds for inferring the existence of the object in the photo. But in addition, both Scruton and Lopes hold that the photograph gives us indirect perceptual access to the object. The photograph is a special way of seeing an object just as seeing an object through a mirror is a special, indirect way of seeing my receding hairline. Specifically: we see objects through photographs. That is the way in which they are perceptually transparent. But for people like Scruton, if photographs are perceptually transparent, then it is not the photograph in its own right that occupies us. It is the object to which the photograph gives us perceptual access that interests us, either for its own sake, or otherwise. Suppose the object is something very beautiful like a budding flower of the sort whose appearance folks are typically said to value for its own sake. Scruton argues that the putative aesthetic interest here is in the beautiful flower. Our attention is not directed at the photograph itself, but at the appearance of the flower which the photograph delivers transparently, mechanically, as through a glass brightly. It is not, in a manner of speaking, a beautiful photograph, but a photograph of a beautiful thing. And it is the beautiful thing that is the object of our aesthetic interest, properly speaking. The director Dziga Vertov called cinema the microscope and telescope of time. Just as perceptual prosthetic devices like microscopes and telescopes enable us visually to penetrate both infinitesimal and vast spaces, photographic processes enable us to see into the past to bridge temporal distances at a glance. But, equally, just as in the normal run of affairs, neither the microscope nor the telescope is the object of our interest, neither is the photograph. With respect to all three, we see through them; they are tranasparent. Thus, we are not interested in the photo for the sake of the object it is. The photo, therefore, does not sustain our aesthetic interest. So photography is not a representational art. Consequently, if film is basically, essentially photographic in nature, then it is not a representational artform either. If a film appears to encourage aesthetic interest as Kurosawa s Throne of Blood certainly does that is because it is a photograph of a dramatic representation. It is the dramatic representation itself as enacted before the camera that holds our interest and not the photographing of it, just as it would be Bill Irwin s pantomime and not the looking glass that would be the object of our aesthetic interest if Irwin s performance were relayed to us though a mirror. These three sub-arguments are the basis for Scruton s contention that photography is not a representational art, the first premise of his master argument against the possibility that some films are (representational) artworks. These arguments are undeniably formidable, even if they strike contemporaries as a bit cranky. But are they also decisive? Let us see why they may not be. Against the causation argument. Scruton correctly points out that the production of a photograph does not necessarily require the intentional contribution of a human agent. It can result from a process of sheer physical causation with no intentional input. This shows us that intentionality is not an essential feature of a photograph. There can be idealized photos photos minus intentionality which are photographs nonetheless. But if there is 11

21 Introduction to Part I no intentionality, they cannot be said to be expressions of thought for they lack thought content (something they are about). Thus, ideal photographs are not representational artworks in the sense advocated by Scruton. However, even were this the case, what about actual photographs, not ideal ones? When we revere the photos of Weston, Atget, and Adams as works of (representational) art, we are thinking of real, live photographs, not ideal ones. And when it comes to actual photos like these, we believe, on eminently defensible grounds, that the intentions of these photographers are expressed in their images. These photos do convey thoughts, attitudes, and emotions; these photos do offer interpretations about the content toward which they direct our attention; they are unquestionably intended to do just that by their authors. The pertinent photographs possess intentionality in the ways Scruton requires and should count as works of (representational) art on his terms. Who cares whether or not ideal photographs (in Scruton s sense) can be representational artworks if actual photographs can be representational artworks? For if some actual photographs are artworks, then some photographs can be art. Pace Scruton, then, the photographic medium is capable of supporting representational art. That what Scruton calls ideal photos which might also be labeled minimal photos are not representational artworks does not imply that actual photos are not artworks of the relevant sort. Scruton appears to think that if intentions are not necessarily involved in producing a photo, then intentions are necessarily not involved in the production of photos. But this is fallacious modal reasoning. The fact that a bank surveillance camera records the presence of an intruder automatically sans the intervention of any intention does not entail that intentionality and intentions are not productively engaged when I select my subject, choose the lens, film stock, and aperture setting I desire, and adjust the lighting for my purposes as I prepare to execute my photograph. From the fact that photographic status does not necessarily mandate intentionality, it does not follow that anything legitimately considered to be a foursquare specimen of photography must lack intentionality. This is simply a non sequitur. And it is upon such a logical gaff that the causation argument founders. Rather, we can argue that even if ideal photos lack intentionality and are not (representational) artworks for that reason, that does not entail that actual photos are equally compromised. For actual photos can have intentional content and be intentionally produced and thus they can satisfy the criteria Scruton expects for representation. And if photography can be representational on these grounds, so can film. Of course, Scruton may assert that anything short of his ideal photography is not the genuine article. But when contemplating whether some photos are artworks, why would we give greater significance to how they might have been made as opposed to how they were actually made? In calling the former ideal, Scruton seems to be exploiting the ambiguity between something that is paradigmatic versus something that does not exist. But Scruton s ideals are hardly paradigmatic of photographs as they do exist, since, by his own admission, his ideal photos are few and far between that is, if they exist at all. Furthermore, Scruton cannot argue that if causation is involved in the production of a work, then that precludes the kind of intentionality requisite for art status. For were that so, virtually no medium could be said to produce art, since almost all of them have an ineliminable causal dimension. After all, a paintbrush is a tool; when an artist applies paint to her canvas, she sets a causal process in motion. But that scarcely forecloses the expression of thought. Against the control argument. The expression of one s thought requires control. If there is no control over the medium in question, then one is simply not expressing one s own thought. Indeed, if there is no control whatsoever, then it is doubtful that any thought is being expressed at all. Furthermore, if you believe that there is an essential connection between the expression of a thought and the possession of a style, then if one lacks control over one s medium, what one produces lacks style. No control no style; no style no (representational) art. A first response to the control argument is that it is utopian. If what is required for art status is total control of a medium, then we will be compelled to discount as artforms most of the practices we now esteem as such. Most artists have to make compromises with their medium to adjust what they envision to the materials at hand. A theater director will have to set her drama on certain actors who may bring to the role qualities of voice, of temperament, etc. she never imagined; she will have to make do with what she has to work 12