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

9 Defining the Moving Image 113
Noël Carroll

Part III Documentary 135

Introduction 137

10 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 175

12 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 213

14 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 283

19 Morals for Method 287
George M. Wilson

20 Cinematic Authorship 299
Paisley Livingston

21 National Cinema, the Very Idea 310
Jinhee Choi

Part VII Film and Ethics 321

Introduction 323

22 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 381

25 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

This authoritative anthology presents key selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy of film and motion pictures. Designed for classroom use, the essays that comprise this volume have been specially chosen for their clarity, precision, philosophical depth, and consonance with current cognitive science and psychology.

The volume's eight sections, each introduced by the editors, cover topics such as

• Film as art
• The nature of film
• Documentary cinema
• Narration and emotion in film
• Film criticism
• Film's relation to knowledge and morality

Whether addressing assumptions about the objectivity of documentary film, fear of movie monsters, or moral questions surrounding the viewing of pornography, this text is replete with examples and discussion of moving pictures throughout.