Cinematic Skepticism

Jeroen Gerrits

Description

Because of its automatic way of recording reality, film has a privileged relation to the problem of skepticism. If early film theorists celebrate cinema for overcoming skeptical doubt about the power of human vision, recent film-philosophers argue that our postphotographic, digital cinema is heading toward a general acceptance of skepticism, as though nothing on screen has anything to do with reality any longer. Emerging from the interaction of Stanley Cavell's and Gilles Deleuze's film-philosophies, Cinematic Skepticism challenges both these views. Jeroen Gerrits takes the issue of skepticism beyond concern with knowledge, turning skepticism into an ethical problem that pervades film history and theory. At the same time, he rethinks a Cavello-Deleuzian approach across the digital and global turns in cinema. Combining clear explanations of complex philosophical arguments with in-depth analyses of the contemporary films Grizzly Man, Amélie, Three Monkeys, and The Headless Woman, Gerrits traces how cinema invents ways of dis/connecting to the world.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: A “Still” New “Moving” Image of Skepticism?

1. Broken Links: A Cavello-Deleuzian Approach to Film

2. Renoir’s Key to Cinematic Skepticism

3. What Cinema Calls Believing, or: Deleuze beyond Skepticism?

4. A Seem-less Digital Skepticism in Grizzly Man and Amélie

5. Digital, Global, Ontological Turns

6. Reveiling the Gap in The Headless Woman and Three Monkeys

Conclusion: The Digital Will or a New Romanticism?

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Esthétique et philosophie de l'art
• Film
• History of film
• Visual culture
• Philosophy
• Película fotográfica

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438476650
• Langue: English

Extrait

Cinematic Skepticism
Cinematic Skepticism
Across Digital and Global Turns
JEROEN GERRITS
Cover: Hatice Aslan in Three Monkeys (2008), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Credit: Mongrel Media/Photofest
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gerrits, Jeroen, 1975– author.
Title: Cinematic skepticism : across digital and global turns / Jeroen Gerrits.
Other titles: Lubricious objects
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Revision of author’s thesis (doctoral)—Johns Hopkins University, 2011, titled Lubricious objects : skepticism, cinema, poetry. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018056831 | ISBN 9781438476636 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438476650 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Skepticism in motion pictures.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.S5533 G47 2019 | DDC 791.4301—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056831
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Wout Gerrits and Martha Valke-De Witte, in loving memory
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A “Still” New “Moving” Image of Skepticism? Chapter 1 Broken Links: A Cavello-Deleuzian Approach to Film Chapter 2 Renoir’s Key to Cinematic Skepticism Chapter 3 What Cinema Calls Believing, or: Deleuze beyond Skepticism? Chapter 4 A Seem-less Digital Skepticism in Grizzly Man and Amélie Chapter 5 Digital, Global, Ontological Turns Chapter 6 Reveiling the Gap in The Headless Woman and Three Monkeys
Conclusion: The Digital Will or a New Romanticism?
Notes
References
Index
Illustrations
The figures listed below are frame captures taken (in order of appearance) from Amélie , Grizzly Man , The Rules of the Game , It Happened One Night , The Headless Woman , and Three Monkeys , as listed in the references. Figures I.1, I.2 Antipodal characters Figure 2.1 Schumacher halfway up the stairs Figures 2.2, 2.3 Marceau (left) and Lisette (right) fleeing through a crack in the crystal Figure 4.1 Herzog’s text over Treadwell’s footage Figure 4.2 Treadwell reached out Figure 4.3–4.5 Capra’s shift of focus in It Happened One Night Figure 4.6–4.11 At the Gare de Lyon Figure 4.12 “ Toujours lui!” Figure 4.13 Going “woo” in the ghost train Figures 4.14, 4.15 Allegories of cinema at the Square Louise Michel Figures 4.16, 4.17 Body, text, and photo-copy-graph Figure 4.18 Through the transparent screen Figure 4.19 Nino squats down at the photomaton as the luggage train arrives Figure 4.20–4.25 Amélie and Saïd: different turn Figures 4.26, 4.27 Magical resonance Figures 4.28, 4.29 Proliferating screens Figure 6.1 A literally headless woman Figure 6.2, inset The rear window shot showing a dog “in the middle of the road” Figure 6.3 Aldo (“Harelip”) and his dog Figure 6.4 Indexical signs on the side window Figure 6.5 “Watch those fingers” Figure 6.6 Vero reaches for the phone in her purse just before the accident Figures 6.7, 6.8 Calling for Elisabeth Andrade Figure 6.9 Vero witnessing Elisabeth Andrade through the mirror next to “ours” Figure 6.10, 6.11 Vero turns toward the literally marginalized people in her life Figures 6.12, 6.13 From the margin to the signifying zone of the image Figures 6.14, 6.15 Vero avoiding the indigenous gaze Figures 6.16, 6.17, inset Indexical, symbolic, illegible: passing by Changuila in El Cruce Figure 6.18 Vero at the party behind the slightly ajar door of translucent glass Figure 6.19, 6.20 Servet just before the accident Figure 6.21 An indistinct body lying in the middle of the road Figures 6.22, 6.23 Oscillating between subjective and objective shots Figures 6.24, 6.25 Servet leaving the scene of the accident Figures 6.26, 6.27 Eyüp hears a train pass by Figures 6.28, 6.29 False reverse shot Figures 6.30–6.32 Hacer entering her own POV Figures 6.33, 6.34 The cut to the framed view Figure 6.35 The drowned boy: Ishmael’s brother
Acknowledgments
This project reflects my passionate research interests, which have continued to grow over the past fifteen years. My fascination for Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze’s idiosyncratic styles of doing philosophy germinated while I was a master’s student of philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and continued as I pursued a PhD at the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center. Paola Marrati’s teaching, mentorship, and friendship have been decisive throughout my graduate career: I cannot thank her enough. I also want to single out Hent de Vries for his personal and professional support during my years at the Humanities Center.
The Humanities Center encouraged and enabled me to foster crucial working relations with some of the scholars in the fields of film and philosophy whose work I value most. These included, in particular, D. N. Rodowick, who welcomed me at the Visual and Environmental Studies Department at Harvard (which he chaired at the time), and Sandra Laugier, who invited me for lectureships and conference contributions at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens and later at Paris-Sorbonne. I thank them deeply for their generosity and inspiration.
Although the theoretical framework for the current study stems from my PhD dissertation, its actual shape and direction did not occur until my appointment at Binghamton University (SUNY), first as visiting assistant professor and, as of 2013, as junior faculty. I am incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to conduct my research and to teach courses on film and new media in the best possible environment: a theoretically oriented comparative literature department. Of my many heart-warming and intellectually stimulating colleagues, I want to thank Luiza Moreira and Brett Levinson in particular for their guidance, support, feedback, and trust.
I want to extent my gratitude to the bright and diverse student body at Binghamton University as well. Student responses to much of the material I present here was indispensible. Two graduate students, Tomas Guerrero Diaz and Basak Bingol Yuce, deserve special mention for the excellent research they conducted on The Headless Woman and Three Monkeys , as well as for sharing their insights.
The Humanities Center at JHU generously continued to host me during the various summers I spent working on this book. I am especially grateful to Marva Philip for this hospitality. And I want to thank Binghamton University for awarding me a most welcome research leave as well as a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, both of which propelled this project when it needed it most.
I thank Beth Bouloukos and Rafael Chaiken at SUNY Press for their continuous interest in this book project and for their guidance in preparing the manuscript.
I am grateful to my family for their unwavering support of my pursuits, in particular, my parents. I have dedicated this book to the memory of Wout Gerrits and Martha Valke-De Witte, whose love for life I carry with me. My dear friends Ron Griffin and Shaun Carrick have made me feel at home on the American side of the Atlantic. I hope to have them both near me for much longer; may Whistle Stop continue to bemuse my writings. My final words of gratitude are for Elham Hatef, my partner in life, whose determination, emotional strength, and profound love have humbled and inspired me throughout the writing process. This book would not exist without her.
Introduction
A “Still” New “Moving” Image of Skepticism?
The term “cinematic skepticism” speaks of films that deal in audiovisual ways with the problem of skepticism: How does one cope with a sense of distance to the world? “Dealing with” the skeptical problem is different from illustrating a philosophical argument: it rather indicates a manner of struggling or of finding and inventing ways through a problem, using the tools and means specific to the medium. But films do deal (cope, struggle) with a problem philosophy also deals with, using different means (as does literature). What is this problem?
In philosophy, the skeptic is usually taken to occupy a radical epistemological position by undermining not a specific knowledge claim, but the very possibility of knowing as such; not this or that belief, but the power to believe at all. The skeptic asks such questions as: How can we exclude the possibility that we are dreaming when we believe we are awake? Or how can we be certain that what we take to be real won’t turn out to be a simulation? Under the weight of the skeptic’s hyperbolic doubt, the very ground of reality is called into question, just as the foundations of language and rationality may be found to crack. Indeed, it may drive a wedge between mind and world, thus severing our sense of presentness and connectedness to the world. As a consequence of these radical skeptical conclusions, we may feel inclined to either withdraw in isolation or be willing to violate the limitations of the human condition, if that is what it takes to overcome the skeptic’s assault. This, then, constitutes the problem of skepticism: given the absence of ground as well as our sense of being at a distance, (how) can we establish new connections to a world without recourse to violence?
Because of its own enigmatic way of relating to the world, film has a privileged relation to the problem of skepticism. Be it in fiction or documentary, the medium’s use of automatically captured audiovisual recordings of the world has from the ou