Dear filmosophers -

Among the many paths to 'thought' that have been mentioned, I was reminded
of another by Ross' rumination on 'speaking thought': namely, Paul
Willemen's exploration of the concept of 'inner speech' and its
applicability to cinema. (Let me add that I also agree that we cannot limit
thought to linguistic acts and functions: yes, there is sensual thought,
muscular thought, etc ... ) Anyone want to jump in on inner speech?

Thinking about Willemen took me back to a special book that perhaps is not
as well known as it should be among the members of this list: the Australian
publication FILM AND MEANING by Ian Douglas (Continuum, 1988). The author
tragically died at 40, and this was the PhD he left behind. Stanley Cavell
examined it and commented that he had "never received a PhD dissertation of
the magnitude of ambition and the exhaustiveness of execution of Ian
Douglas". And it has a chapter on inner speech, as well as great stuff like
'Reduction and Possible Worlds' and 'The Fugitive Fictive'. Worth hunting
down.

It also occurred to me that we are in danger (in our recent discussions) of
always 'subjectivising' thought - a character's thought, the auteur's
thought, your and my thought - although I realise that, in the everyday
world, you and I do have thoughts, hopefully! - when really, one of the
great and inspiring things about Deleuze's cinema books is that he NEVER
subjectivises thought, he militantly refuses to do that. Thoughts are things
that pass through 'crystals', not persons, not our personalised
'imaginaries'! Things like perception-images, affection-images, etc, do not
'belong' to any one 'thinking mind' (whether of director or character or
even viewer) in the Deleuzian system. Even when he talks of 'cinema as
brain' in Kubrick and so on, that's something quite other to the business of
'thinking thoughts'. And although I am not entirely sure I fully understand
Deleuze on this crystal/virtual/immanent level, I do think it captures
something sublimely wonderful about cinema and maybe art in general: cinema
is the place where thoughts ESCAPE our heads or anybody's heads, where they
form imaginary worlds or bridgings independently of our will. What was the
great thing that Norman O. Brown said in the 60s? "The solution to the
problem of identity is - get lost". Movies allow our thoughts to get lost,
to get free of us. Often a good thing! I have noodled around this issue in
the short version of an essay called "The Ever-Tested Limit" which appeared
in another obscure Australian book publication called VALUE ADDED GOODS
(Centre for Contemporary Photography, 2001), but it surely needs a team
effort ...

Adrian