With the rise of review sites and social media, films today, as soon as they are shown, immediately become the topic of debates on their merits not only as entertainment, but also as serious forms of artistic expression. Philosopher Robert B. Pippin, however, wants us to consider a more radical proposition: film as thought, as a reflective form. Pippin explores this idea through a series of perceptive analyses of cinematic masterpieces, revealing how films can illuminate, in a concrete manner, core features and problems of shared human life.
Filmed Thought examines questions of morality in Almod³varâs Talk to Her, goodness and na¯vet© in Hitchcockâs Shadow of a Doubt, love and fantasy in Sirkâs All That Heaven Allows, politics and society in Polanskiâs Chinatown and Malickâs The Thin Red Line, and self-understanding and understanding others in Nicholas Rayâs In a Lonely Place and in the Dardennes brothers' oeuvre. In each reading, Pippin pays close attention to what makes these films exceptional as technical works of art (paying special attention to the role of cinematic irony) and as intellectual and philosophical achievements. Throughout, he shows how films offer a view of basic problems of human agency from the inside and allow viewers to think with and through them. Captivating and insightful, Filmed Thought shows us what it means to take cinema seriously not just as art, but as thought, and how this medium provides a singular form of reflection on what it is to be human.
Industry Reviews
"There are many riches in these chapters that will reward the careful reader. Taken together, the result is stimulating, engaging, and thought-provoking. Filmed Thought shows convincingly why philosophers should take cinema seriously, and how film theorists can engage in philosophy through cinema. A major contribution."--Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University, author of "Cinematic Ethics" and "New Philosophies of Film"
"Analytically assured and compulsively readable. . . . Filmed Thought is an important contribution to film-philosophy that attests to the difficult relationship between the two disciplines."-- "Radical Philosophy"
"Filmed Thought is film philosophy at its finest. At a time when so much academic philosophy speaks only to specialized audiences, Pippin's book is a remarkable work of public scholarship, one that will surely become a classic. Just as viewers never tire of rewatching the films of Hitchcock, Malick, and Ray, readers will return again and again to Filmed Thought, finding something new, something captivating, something worth thinking about, each and every time."--Martin Woessner, City College of New York
"I suspect I will often return to Filmed Thought. Each chapter is packed with observations which cast an academically well-worn movie in a whole new light. When I read Pippin's remark that we never see Jeff from Rear Window take an actual picture (or even load any of his cameras), I wanted to smack my head for never having noticed something so simple, yet so fascinating in its implications. Such small, strange details illustrate how the best films demand both multiple viewings and constant reassessment. Hopefully, Pippin's analytical framework will inspire similar pieces on more diverse films."--Thomas Puhr "Film International"
"Filmed Thought is accessibly written, focuses on wonderful films, and argues compellingly for the intellectual intricacy of cinematic works that may already be very familiar to us."--Lucy Bolton "Times Higher Education"
