Tuitions and Intuitions

William Rothman

Description

William Rothman has long been considered one of the seminal figures in the field of film-philosophy. From his landmark book Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze, now in its second edition, to the essays collected here in Tuitions and Intuitions, Rothman has been guided by two intuitions: first, that his kind of film criticism is philosophy; and second, that such a marriage of criticism and philosophy has an essential part to play in the serious study of film. In this book, he aspires, borrowing a formulation from Emerson, to "pay the tuition" for these intuitions.

Thoughtful, philosophically sophisticated, and provocative, the essays included here address a wide range of films, including classical Hollywood movies; the work of "auteur" directors like Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Yasujirō Ozu, and Woody Allen; performances by John Barrymore and James Stewart; unconventional works by Jean Genet, Chantal Akerman, Terrence Malick, and the Dardenne brothers; the television series Justified; and documentaries by Jean Rouch, Ross McElwee, and Robert Gardner. All the essays address questions of philosophical significance and, taken together, manifest Rothman's lifelong commitment when writing about a film, to respect the film's own ideas; to remain open to the film's ways of expressing its ideas; and to let the film help teach him how to view it, how to think about it, and how to discover what he has at heart to say about it.
Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction: How John the Baptist Kept His Head, or My Life in Film Philosophy

Part I. A Philosophical Perspective

1. Why Not Realize Your World? William Rothman interviewed by Jeffrey Crouse

2. Silence and Stasis

3. Film and Modernity

4. André Bazin as Cavellian Realist

5. What Becomes of the Camera in the World on Film?

Part II. Studies in Criticism

6. “I Never Thought I Should Sink So Low as to Become an Actor”: John Barrymore in Twentieth Century

7. “I Look Up, I Look Down”: James Stewart in Vertigo

8. Hats Off for George Cukor!

9. Woody Allen’s New York

10. Blood is Thicker than Water: The Family in Hitchcock

11. Space and Speech in the Films of Yasujiro¯ Ozu

12. Romance, Eroticism, and the Camera’s Gaze in Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’amour

13. Face to Face with Chantal Akerman

14. Precious Memories in Philosophy and Film

15. Seeing the Light in The Tree of Life

16. A Film That Is Also a Handshake: Philosophy in the Films of the Dardenne Brothers

17. Justifying Justified

18. Documentary Film in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s

19. Sometimes Daddies Don’t Talk about Things Like That: Ross McElwee’s Bright Leaves

20. Jean Rouch as Film Artist: Turu and Bitti, Funeral at Bongo: The Old Anaï (1848–1972), Ambara Dama

21. Dancing with Gardner: Robert Gardner’s Films on Art

22. Dead Birds Re-Encountered: A Journey of Return

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Film
• Cinema
• History of film
• Visual culture
• Philosophy
• Película fotográfica

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438475806
• Langue: English

Extrait

TUITIONS AND INTUITIONS
TUITIONS AND INTUITIONS
Essays at the Intersection of Film Criticism and Philosophy

WILLIAM ROTHMAN
Cover image: Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Credit: MGM/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: Rothman, William, author.
Title: Tuitions and intuitions : essays at the intersection of film criticism and philosophy / William Rothman.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2019. | Series: SUNY series, horizons of cinema | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018045643 | ISBN 9781438475790 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475783 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475806 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures. | Film criticism—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC PN1995 .R6853 2019 | DDC 791.43—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018045643
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Kitty, the love of my life
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: How John the Baptist Kept His Head, or My Life in Film Philosophy
PART I A PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE
1 Why Not Realize Your World? William Rothman interviewed by Jeffrey Crouse
2 Silence and Stasis
3 Film and Modernity
4 André Bazin as Cavellian Realist
5 What Becomes of the Camera in the World on Film?
PART II STUDIES IN CRITICISM
6 “I Never Thought I Should Sink So Low as to Become an Actor”: John Barrymore in Twentieth Century
7 “I Look Up, I Look Down”: James Stewart in Vertigo
8 Hats Off for George Cukor!
9 Woody Allen’s New York
10 Blood is Thicker than Water: The Family in Hitchcock
11 Space and Speech in the Films of Yasujirō Ozu
12 Romance, Eroticism, and the Camera’s Gaze in Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’amour
13 Face to Face with Chantal Akerman
14 Precious Memories in Philosophy and Film
15 Seeing the Light in The Tree of Life
16 A Film That Is Also a Handshake: Philosophy in the Films of the Dardenne Brothers
17 Justifying Justified
18 Documentary Film in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s
19 Sometimes Daddies Don’t Talk about Things Like That:Ross McElwee’s Bright Leaves
20 Jean Rouch as Film Artist: Turu and Bitti , Funeral at Bongo: The Old Anaï (1848–1972) , Ambara Dama
21 Dancing with Gardner: Robert Gardner’s Films on Art
22 Dead Birds Re-Encountered : A Journey of Return
Notes
References
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A relatively neglected passage of Pursuits of Happiness invokes Matthew Arnold’s concept of the “best self”—“a possibility or potential in the human self,” Cavell writes, “not normally open to view, or not open to the normal view. Call this one’s invisible self; it is what the movie camera would make visible” (1981, 157). When I was a callow Harvard undergraduate taking his graduate seminar on the aesthetics of film more than a half-century ago, what Cavell saw in me—as he always did, as he always encouraged me to see in myself—was my “best self.” Without his teaching, his inspiration, and his friendship, I could not have written the essays in this book. Nor could I have written these essays if my wife, Kitty Morgan, had not seen the “best self” in me, too.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Murray Pomerance, the editor of SUNY’s “Horizons of Cinema” series, for his enthusiastic support of this volume, for our many years of friendship, and for his own work, which resonates deeply with my own.
The essays in Tuitions and Intuitions span so many years of my life that there is no way I can acknowledge individually here all the colleagues, students, and friends to whom this book is indebted. Marian Keane, Charles Warren, George Toles, and Andrew Klevan—along with Gilberto Perez and Victor Perkins, whose loss deeply saddens me—will have to stand in for the rest.
CHAPTER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction . “How John the Baptist Kept His Head: My Life in Film Philosophy” appeared in The Film Theory Handbook (2018). Reprinted by permission of the Anthem Press.
Chapter 1 . “Why Not Realize Your World?” was first published as “Why Not Realize Your World? Philosopher/Film Scholar William Rothman Interviewed by Jeffrey Crouse” in Film International , vol. 9, issue 6, December 2011. Reprinted by permission.
Chapter 2 . “Silence and Stasis” appeared in The Language and Style of Film Criticism (2011). Reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan
Chapter 3 . “Film and Modernity” appeared in Cinema and Modernity (2006). Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 4 . “André Bazin as Cavellian Realist” appeared in Film International , Spring 2008. Reprinted by permission.
Chapter 5 . “What Becomes of the Camera in the World on Film?” appeared in Theorizing Screen Acting , published by Routledge (2013). Reprinted by permission of the Taylor Francis Group.
Chapter 6 . “ ‘I Never Thought I Would Sink So Low as to Become an Actor’ ”: John Barrymore in Twentieth Century ” appeared in Hamlet Lives in Hollywood: John Barrymore and the Acting Tradition on Screen (2017). Reprinted by permission of Edinburgh University Press.
Chapter 7 . “ ‘I Look Up, I Look Down’: James Stewart in Vertigo ” appeared in Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances Volume I: America (2017). Reprinted by permission of Edinburgh University Press.
Chapter 8 . “Hats Off to George Cukor!” was published in Hollywood’s Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (2012). Reprinted by permission of Wayne State University Press.
Chapter 9 . “Woody Allen’s New York” was published in The City that Never Sleeps (2007). Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 10 . “Blood is Thicker than Water: The Family in Hitchcock” was published in A Family Affair: Cinema Calls Home (2008). Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press.
Chapter 11 . “Space and Speech in the Films of Yasujirō Ozu” appeared in Film International , Summer 2006. Reprinted by permission.
Chapter 12 . “Romance, Eroticism and the Camera’s Gaze in Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’amour appeared in Film International , Winter 2010. Reprinted by permission.
Chapter 15 . “Seeing the Light in The Tree of Life ” appeared in The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace: Philosophical Footholds on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2016). Reprinted by permission of Northwestern University Press.
Chapter 17 . “Justifying Justified ” was published in Television Aesthetics and Style (2013). Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chapter 19 . “Sometimes Daddies Don’t Talk about Things Like That” appeared in Three Documentary Filmmakers (2009). Reprinted by permission of SUNY Press.
Chapter 20 . “Jean Rouch as Film Artist” includes sections from “Jean Rouch as Film Theorist” in Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice (2015). Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 21 . “Dancing with Gardner: Robert Gardner’s Films on Art” (2007) appeared in The Cinema of Robert Gardner , published by Berg Publishers. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chapter 22 . “Dead Birds Re-Encountered” was published in Looking with Robert Gardner (2016). Reprinted by permission of SUNY Press.
PREFACE
T his volume collects under one cover most of the essays I have written since 2004, the year of the publication of the expanded second edition of The “I” of the Camera , my first book of essays. (Rothman 1988/2004). Three are previously unpublished. The others have appeared in diverse film studies journals or anthologies.
The essays in Tuitions and Intuitions , like those in The “I” of the Camera , address a wide range of films, including classical Hollywood movies; the work of “auteur” directors like Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Woody Allen, and Yasujirō Ozu; John Barrymore’s acting; unconventional works by Jean Genet, Chantal Akerman, Terrence Malick, and the Dardenne brothers; the television series Justified ; and documentaries by Ross McElwee, Jean Rouch, and Robert Gardner. All the essays pose and address questions of philosophical significance, including the nature of screen performance; self-expression and authorship in film; film and modernity; film’s relationship to reality; the agency of the camera; silence and movement; the relationship of theory to critical practice; and the need for the marriage of film studies and philosophy exemplified by Stanl