Philosophy of Film

Catalog description

Philosophy of film is one of the leading branches of philosophical aesthetics. While informed by and partly related to disciplines such as film studies, film theory, and film criticism, philosophy of film privileges a cognitive approach to the interpretation and study of film, an approach according to which film might be seen as doing philosophy per se, thus providing an original contribution to the overall philosophical panorama. The course begins with a critical overview of the most significant ontologies of film. Such a discussion is then followed, in the second and third units, by the exploration of issues pertaining to both the tradition of film studies and to the aforementioned cognitivist tradition. Among the issues considered, specific attention is given to the question of narrative, to emotions and film, and to the relation between fiction and nonfiction. A last unit will instead open the discussion to the relation between film and television and, more speculatively, to the future of film in the age of digital technologies.