Stanley Cavell and Film
Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema
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Book Presentation:
“Film is made for philosophy,” asserted Stanley Cavell. In addition to his work on scepticism, morality, and the intentions and meanings of ordinary language, the American philosopher wrote fascinatingly about cinema, arguing that film can reveal new ground for thinking through old philosophical problems. In this book, Catherine Wheatley draws upon Cavell’s explicitly film-inspired works, key philosophical concepts and autobiographical writings, examining his analyses of films from Hollywood’s Golden Age, the French New Wave, contemporary action cinema, silent film heroes Chaplin and Keaton, directors Cocteau and Hitchcock, and performers Greta Garbo and Ginger Rogers. Revealing the ways in which Cavell’s thinking was shaped by the movies, Wheatly poses the question: what was it about film that taught the philosopher how best to live in the world?
About the Author:
Catherine Wheatley is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College London. She has written articles and essays on a wide range of contemporary cinema topics, and is the author of Michael Haneke's Cinema: The Ethic of the Image (2010), French Film In Britain: Sex, Art And Cinephilia with Lucy Mazdon (2013) and the BFI Film Classic on Haneke's Caché (BFI 2013).
See the publisher website: Bloomsbury Academic
> From the same author:
Shoe Reels (2021)
The History and Philosophy of Footwear in Film
Dir. Elizabeth Ezra and Catherine Wheatley
Je t'aime... moi non plus (2010)
Franco-British Cinematic Relations
Dir. Lucy Mazdon and Catherine Wheatley
> On a related topic:
Thinking Film (2023)
Philosophy at the Movies
Dir. Richard Kearney and M. E. Littlejohn
Subject: Theory
Reading Cavell's the World Viewed (2000)
A Philosophical Perspective on Film
by Marian Keane and William Rothman
Subject: Theory