Steven Shaviro puts beauty centre stage in his book Without Criteria - highly recommended
Greg
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From: Film-Philosophy [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Herbert Schwaab [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 March 2011 09:26
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Subject: Re: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] another naive question -- on beauty
I find the beautiful an important concept in thinking about film, althought I don't know exactly how the concept is used in English. I refer to the beatiful in connection with Cavell's interpretation with Kantian aesthetics, which I find very interesting as a means to understand the way we talk about movies or artworks we like. Kant says, that whenever we find something beautiful, meaning more than just aggreable for 'me', we feel compelled to convince others to find it beautiful too, although it is still a subjective feeling and judgement that cannot be shared with others. We do this although we know better. (see "Aesthetic Problems of Modern Philosophy" in Cavell's "Must We Mean What We Say" and §7 and 8 of Kant's Critique of Judgement). For Cavell, there are close links between Kant and everyday language philosophy, treating the way we are used to talk about things as facts of our life forms. But Cavell takes the notion further, aligning, as I understand it, the beautiful with the entertaining (in his readings of classical Hollywood comedies), feeling the same urge to tell others that something was beautiful or entertaining or simply good.
I am not really sure about this, but I think that I am very often inclined to claim that I find a film beautiful the same way I find it entertaining or good, but the term beautiful would then mean, that I wasn't able to find the film only beautiful for me, so I have to address myself to others and try to convince them of the qualities of a film (for the same reasons I get angry, really angry about films I don't find beautiful or entertaining or find simply wrong). I like Kant's concept of the beautiful also for a pragmatic or functional reason: Although I am supposed to be a media scholar I don't think its is useful to be indifferent (or objective) towards films.
Therefore I am very interested in this discussion and I will repeat the question raised here: Does the concept of the beautiful mean that something is more than just good for me, does it mean that we will have to go beyond the limits of our subjectivity in order to try to find a common ground for our subjecitive feelings about a film? (Which also means that we expose ourselves to others).
Herbert
Am 18.03.2011 22:53, schrieb Frank, Michael:
perhaps this will be a tired and stale question for many film-philosophy folks, but it seems to me striking [and largely unremarked – perhaps unnoticed] that the idea of the beautiful rarely figures in discussion of cinema – or indeed in discussions of most art – today [except, perhaps, in some incidental acknowledgement of the cinematography]
i’m particularly struck – thought this has nothing directly to do with film – that the notion of beauty seems almost entirely beside the point in contemporary discourses about the one art where i would have thought it plays the biggest role, music
i want to emphasize that i don’t in any way to suppose that the “aesthetic” [should such a thing exist in the first place] need be anchored in beauty – there are many things i admire enormously that i would never think of as beautiful . . . still, i find the lack of attention to this concept more than a little curious
can anyone recommend any articles [or books] that consider this matter – or even pose the question more clearly than i’ve managed to do here . . . . any guidance very much appreciated
happy spring [a very beautiful season]
mike
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Dr. Herbert Schwaab
Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur
Universität Regensburg
PT 3.0.55
Universitätsstraße 31
93053 Regensburg
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