TRIAL BALLOON

I have been trying to figure out why filmosophy is so heavily slanted 
toward narrative film exposition and has ghettoized experimental film. 
Whereas I would so have expected the opposite.  After all if a 
philosopher were truly to do philosophy in film, the films would 
certainly look much more like what we all are calling experimental 
films.
My argument goes like this:
In order for a film to do philosophy, the philosopher must be a 
filmmaker.
It’s not enough that the filmmaker be a philosopher. (This 
circumscribes the topic to philosophy as investigative and not 
moralizing or prescriptive, or even descriptive. – but investigative.)

When a philosopher picks up the pen that is the cinema apparatus she or 
he will be confronted with basic decisions, all of which must have 
philosophical implications, if a mindset of philosophic inquiry is 
brought to them. If a filmmaker decides to do philosophy, on the other 
hand, the basic decision sets will have already been inculcated into 
his or her style of thought. These decisions simply have to do with 
what will be contained within the frame and what frames will be 
juxtaposed. It’s upon these rudimentary instincts that a filmmaker will 
superimpose philosophical motivations. A philosopher on the other hand 
brings to these two basic decisions more fundamental questions. What 
are the implications of framing? How do different framings signify 
differently? What are the implications of shot length? What is a shot? 
How does juxtaposition work in time as distinct from space? Now that 
I’m working with pictures, how does that differ from working with 
words? What is a picture, anyway? And on.

None of these are overt questions for a filmmaker, that is, someone 
whose goal it is to use the medium of film toward a specific end. The 
prior questions of a philosopher are of little interest here.

But I shouldn’t be surprised, right? Words are philosophy’s medium, and 
philosophers should naturally resist the idea that cinema is primarily 
a pictorial medium, and the idea of the articulation of pictures is 
something that the history of philosophy has not prepared us for. 
Therefore we will continue to skate toward that definition of cinema 
that recognizes it (trivializes it) merely as the pictorialization of 
verbally driven concepts.

Nonetheless, I remain disappointed.  If anyone can offer me reasons why 
they think one can do philosophy in film without picking up the 
apparatus of cinema; and in doing that then fail to confront the simple 
ontological and epistemological questions the apparatus poses, and 
instead leap automatically to enacting what Youngblood called "the 
make-pretend" of fiction film, I'd like to know how they think that 
works.

Any philosopher who claims that film can do philosphy needs to pick up 
the apparatus - this used to mean a camera and splicer - now it just 
means software and hardware. Then the real issues that pertain to doing 
philosophy in film will emerge - and the nature of that work will 
become apparent.

Once again, as a challenge to listees wordlwide:If anyone can offer me 
reasons why they think one can do philosophy in film without picking up 
the apparatus of cinema - I'd like to hear about it.
dan


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