Adam et. al.,
You begin your "argument" against Carroll with an assault on the analytic way of doing philosophy that is sophomoric. You then fail to come to grips with the main arguments Carroll offers. As I see it, they are fourfold:
1) The hypothesis that we regress to some infantile state in which allows the cinema to influence us in profound ways ovestates the impact of the filmic experience, making it look that we are more in its thrall than we really are.
2). The analogy with Plato's cave weakens rather than strengthens the original claim, by diffusing the focus of the analysis. It in effect changes the subject, adding some preposterous folderol about the allegory prefiguring the cinematic experience.
3). Both analogies have the ideological function of "crying wolf", warning us too urgently of the ability of film to deceive and mislead us.
4) The dream screen argument collapses when we view films in non-theatrical settings (e.g. on television) or in non standard positions (like standing up), which does not fundamentally alter the cinematic experience.
These are four fairly convincing arguments, and Carroll goes on to expand on these themes in A Philosophy of Mass Art, my review of which still appears in the Salon archives.
Dan Shaw
"For beauty is the beginning of terror we are still able to bear, and why we love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us" Rilke's First Duino Elegy
Daniel Shaw
Professor of Philosophy and Film
Lock Haven University
Managing Editor, Film and Philosophy
website: www.lhup.edu/dshaw
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