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Trying to find instances of philosophical content in films seems to be, however demanding in individual cases, still the easier task than to find films or filmic moments which in themselves provoke and generate innovative philosophical insight. I don't know if the following example really counts, it may be too obvious, but I had an 'epiphany' of sorts about ten years ago while watching the documentary Winged Migration (Le peuple migrateur, Jacques Perrin et al., France 2001) about migratory birds. As we follow a flock of seagulls over the Pacific ocean, with the camera virtually aligned with the birds at their eye level, a ship is seen from high above. The gulls descend and alight on its stern, and all the time, the camera stays with and follows the birds. Right then it struck me that for the gulls the ship was just as much part of nature and of their natural habitat as anything else. From a truly animal point of view, the ship was not the product of human industry and hence alien to or in some ways in contradiction to nature, but part of their one, indivisible environment, no less or more natural than anything else. And that all the stereotypical images we see when there is an oil spill and we see birds, covered in slick, gradually dying what we think must be an agonizing death, with animal-rights activists doing their best to make us feel guilty, typically provoke highly moralistic and ideologically self-serving sentiments from a human perspective. From the dying birds' point of view, from the animal point of view, the lethal oil is just part of the one unitary environment that is inherently dangerous. This is not to sound callous or cynical - the birds suffer, but they don't distinguish morally between man-made dangers and all the others they face from predators and nature (itself of course a cultural concept). So this little example might help us to appreciate animals and their needs from an animal and not human perspective. Henry > When we address film/philosophy, I'm concerned over the hierarchies involved. Simply saying "film as philosophy" doesn't address this for me unless we think as well of "philosophy as filmic." How might we better think this relation in both directions? > Brian > -- Film-Philosophy After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html For technical help email: [log in to unmask], not the list -- Film-Philosophy journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference (6-8 July 2011): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ Contact: [log in to unmask] --