Aesthetics and Film

Katherine Thomson-Jones

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780826485236
• eBook ISBN: 9781441128300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Aesthetics and Film is a philosophical study of the art of film. Its motivation is the recent surge of interest among analytic philosophers in the philosophical implications of central issues in film theory and the application of general issues in aesthetics to the specific case of film.
Of particular interest are questions concerning the distinctive representational capacities of film art, particularly in relation to realism and narration, the influence of the literary paradigm in understanding film authorship and interpretation, and our imaginative and affective engagement with film.
For all of these questions, Katherine Thomson-Jones critically compares the most compelling answers, driving home key points with a wide range of film examples including Wiene's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Eisenstein's October, Hitchcock's Rear Window, Kubrick's The Shining and Sluizer's The Vanishing. Students and scholars of aesthetics and cinema will find this an illuminating, accessible and highly enjoyable investigation into the nature and power of a technologically evolving art form.

Chapter 1

FILM AS AN ART

Is film an art? Before we can answer this question, we need to be clear on what we mean by ‘film’. The term ‘film’ is ambiguous; it refers both to an art form that employs a variety of physical media – celluloid, video and digital formats, for example – and also to the traditional medium of the art form – the projected film strip that results from the complex technical processes of filming and editing. Sometimes ‘film’ is also used to refer to the art form specifically when it employs the traditional film medium. Classical film theorists use the term in this way simply because at the time they were writing, the film medium was the only medium of the art form. Despite this ambiguity, however, there is good reason to hold onto the term ‘film’. Most importantly, the term is still widely used by ordinary film-goers, film critics and film theorists, and it covers instances of the art form in every filmmaking tradition, viewed in any setting. Thus in this book, we will keep the term ‘film’ but use it carefully by marking a three-way distinction between film the art form, film the medium, and ‘photographically-based’ film – the art form in its traditional medium. We will also follow common usage in keeping the term ‘cinematic’ to describe a film, an aspect of a film or a mode of engagement with a film that is defined by or relies upon distinctive or unique features of film media.

So how should we understand our original question? – Is film an art? If we are referring to an established art form, then our question is trivial at best. In fact, however, the first answer to this question established the possibility of using the term ‘film’ to refer to a medium-specific art form. In the early days of film, first-generation classical film theorists were interested in the artistic possibilities inherent in traditional filmmaking processes, particularly in cinematography. Insofar as cinematography produces a recording on a celluloid strip to be run through a projector, classical film theorists were thinking about the artistic possibilities of the film medium. But not surprisingly, the way they established that film can be art is by scrutinizing the results of using the medium – the films projected onto a screen for an audience. It was because early film theorists glimpsed artistry on the screen that they decided that the product of cinematography, editing and celluloid projection could be art. Nowadays, of course, ‘film’ still refers to an art form but not to a medium-specific one. As we shall see, this raises the question of how to uphold the status of an art form which was originally justified in terms of a particular medium when that art form has moved beyond its traditional medium. Before we consider this question, however, let’s examine the original justification – how film first became art.

To answer our starting question, we might begin by pointing out the existence of cinematic masterpieces like New World (2006) or The Seven Samurai (1954). But does this show that (photographically-based) film per se is an art? It all depends on what makes such films masterpieces – whether it is their inherently cinematic qualities or whether it is qualities derived from other, established art forms – for example, their dramatic qualities or their painterly qualities of composition. The real question, then, is whether film is an art form in its own right and the answer to this question will depend on whether what makes a film a film can also be what makes it art.

Today most film-goers assume without question that film media can serve artistic purposes. When film first emerged, however, as a mechanical innovation in recording, there was no such assumption. If anything, in fact, there was an opposing assumption that film is merely a recording device devoid of artistic interest. This meant that early filmmakers and film theorists first had to legitimate their practices before they could secure a receptive audience. Rudolph Arnheim, one of the most prominent early film theorists, was well aware of how much he had to prove for the sake of an emerging art form. Both the 1933 and the 1957 versions of his treatise on the art of silent film provide a detailed catalogue of all the creative and expressive possibilities inherent in the filmmaking process. Essentially, Arnheim accepts the assumption that mere mechanical recording cannot be art and then argues that film art begins where mechanical recording ends. The result is an authoritative articulation of the anti-realist principles of silent filmmaking.¹

We see these principles applied in different ways in each of the major silent film movements. In Soviet montage films like Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925), editing is used to break up, rearrange and change the meaning of the recording. In German expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), highly stylized sets, acting and narration are emphasized with incongruous camerawork and lighting. Even the films of Charlie Chaplin with their use of visual tricks embody principles for establishing a break with reality and the creation of something entirely new.

But what of the assumption that film cannot be art if it is mere mechanical recording? Behind this assumption is the following line of thought: When a film is made, however much thought and creativity go into writing the script, constructing a scene and rehearsing the actors, once the camera is rolling, that’s it: the next crucial stage is beyond the creative control of the filmmakers. Of course the cinematographer can creatively control the angle, direction and distance of the camera, and the editor can creatively control the order and rhythm of images in the final cut. But no one can creatively control the content of those images – if the camera mechanically records a tree, then you end up with an image of just that tree, just as it looked at the moment of recording. It is this lack of artistic control at the crucial and distinctively photographic moment of the filmmaking process that allegedly prevents photographically-based film from being an art form.

It is undoubtedly true that film is separated from traditional arts like painting and drama by the mechanical nature of its recording process. The further question is whether mechanical recording rules out artistry. Actually, there are really two questions here: the question of whether there can be artistry despite mechanical recording and the question of whether there can be artistry in mechanical recording itself. Early film theorists like Arnheim only considered the first of these two questions. The second question is taken up by the first generation of sound film theorists. Among them is the great André Bazin who we meet in the next chapter on realism, and who locates the power of film in the immediacy and accessibility of its recorded imagery.

By the time we get to the second chapter we shall be able to appreciate that Bazin’s work is made possible by the prior work of silent film theorists in legitimizing filmmaking and film study. In particular, Arnheim’s work is historically important for establishing a certain theoretical approach to film, one involving close analysis of everything that makes film a unique artistic medium. Since we are interested, not just in confirming the art status of photographically-based film, but confirming its independent art status, this kind of medium-specific analysis is extremely useful. It is not, however, the only valid theoretical approach to film given that there are many continuities between film and other art forms. We will become particularly aware of these continuities when we discuss authorship and narration in Chapters 3 and 5, respectively.

Without medium-specific analysis, however, we might be stuck at the view that individual films can be art when they successfully record art but film per se cannot be art. On this view, film is not an independent art form because the filming process does not contribute to the artistic value of the final product. This brings our attention to the fact that film theorists who want to defend the art status of film are up against two distinct arguments, both of which involve the assumption that film cannot be art if it is mere mechanical recording. On the first view, film is treated as the mechanical recording of real life; on the second view, film is treated as the mechanical recording of the established art of drama and is thus ‘canned theatre’. While Arnheim responds to the first view, contemporary philosophers of film have tended to focus on the second view. This is partly because the canned-theatre argument has been revisited by the contemporary philosopher, Roger Scruton.

In his much-discussed essay, ‘Photography and Representation’, Scruton argues that films are just photographs of more or less artistically valuable dramatic representations.² Films cannot be artistic representations themselves because photographs are not the kind of thing that can represent: Their mechanical production blocks any artistic interpretation of what is being photographed. The debate concerning the art status of film is thus not merely of historical interest. Scruton’s contemporary challenge reminds us that a proper understanding of film requires an examination of the grounds for assuming, as most of us do, that film is an art. In other words, Scruton reminds us that as philosophers we are committed to uncovering and testing the most basic beliefs that inform our practices as filmviewers, filmcritics and filmmakers.

SCRUTON: AGAINST FILM AS AN ART

Scruton’s refutation of film as an art form has three steps: First, he assumes that the film medium is an inherently photographic medium. Then he creates an argument against the possibility of photographs being representational art. And finally, he extends this argument to film.

In order to assess Scruton’s argument against film art, therefore, we need to assess his argument against photographic art; that is, unless we discover that Scruton’s argument against photographic art cannot legitimately be extended to film. A photograph that has not been manipulated in any way records the appearance of its subject. But, Scruton insists, this does not mean that the photograph represents its subject. A painting of the very same subject, on the other hand, does represent its subject. What’s the difference?

To answer this question, we need to understand how Scruton’s account of representation focuses on the relation, established in its production, between an image and its subject. This relation determines the kind of interest we can take in the image – whether aesthetic or merely instrumental. To take an aesthetic interest in a representational work of art is to take an interest in how the work represents its subject. Scruton claims that photographs fail to inspire this kind of interest; instead they only inspire interest in what is represented, namely the subject itself. The photograph is therefore dispensable as a means to satisfy our curiosity about the subject. What makes the difference here is the way an image is produced – whether through mechanical recording or through the intentional, interpretive activity of a representational artist.

According to Scruton, a painting like the Mona Lisa is representational because it shows us how the artist saw the subject. The style of the painting manifests da Vinci’s decisions about how to paint his subject and makes the painting interesting whether or not the subject is also interesting. Moreover, given that the painting is the product of artistic intentions, the subject need not even have existed. Compare this to an imaginary case of a photograph showing a woman dressed and made-up to look like the subject of the Mona Lisa. Clearly this is neither a photograph of a Renaissance gentlewoman nor a photograph of a non-existent woman in the mind’s eye of the photographer. The photograph cannot be either because the subject has to exist and be in front of the camera to be photographed. It is not up to the photographer to create the subject and, as a result, it is not up to the photographer to decide how the subject is going to look in the photograph. Since the camera simply records how an actual subject actually looked at a certain moment in time, the resulting image has no aesthetic interest as an artist’s interpretation.

When we look at a painting, knowing that it is the product of intentional activity, we assume that its perceptible details were chosen as part of the style of the work and thus have meaning. In contrast, when we look at a photograph, we assume that its details were not chosen. In fact, if it is a true photograph, those details could not have been chosen: they are just the result of the camera automatically recording all the details of the subject itself. Scruton insists that it is precisely this alleged lack of control over detail on the part of the photographer that prevents her product from being representational art. Moreover, it is the same lack of control in recording that prevents films from being representational art. This is the point at which Scruton extends his argument from photography to film:

A film is a photograph of a dramatic representation; it is not, because it cannot be, a photographic representation. It follows that if there is such a thing as a cinematic masterpiece it will be so because – like Wild Strawberries and Le règle du jeu – it is in the first place a dramatic masterpiece.³

Scruton goes further to suggest that it is not just that the film-recording process is neutral in terms of its contribution to the dramatic success of the final work, but that it actually makes a negative contribution: Again due to a lack of control over the detail in film images, it is going to be harder for a film audience to know how to interpret a recorded dramatic scene than for a theatre audience to know how to interpret an analogous scene on stage. Let’s say that we have a film scene and a stage scene of a battle. Since the camera records everything in the scene – every splatter of mud, every glint of steel – the film audience can be overwhelmed with and distracted by a plethora of unorganized detail. In contrast, since the staging of a battle in a play is stylized to allow for the foregrounding of certain features of the landscape and certain actions, the theatre audience is properly drawn to the dramatic locus of the scene.

RESPONDING TO SCRUTON

According to Scruton, since a photograph records rather than represents its subject, it cannot support an aesthetic interest in how its subject is shown. All it can support is an interest in the subject itself. A film is just a series of photographs and thus also fails to represent. We cannot take an aesthetic interest in how something is shown on film because how that thing is shown is merely the result of a mechanical recording process and not the result of creative artistic choices.

Given this line of argument, there are at least two strategies for responding to Scruton’s claim against film:

1. Accept that Scruton’s argument against photography automatically extends to film and then show that there are some photographs in which we can take an aesthetic interest and which thereby qualify as art in their own right.

2. Leave unquestioned Scruton’s argument against photography and instead question its extension to film.

The defence of photographic art involved in the first strategy is convincingly made by William King in the appropriately titled, ‘Scruton and Reasons for Looking at Photographs’.⁴ The second strategy involves pointing to ways in which film is unlike photography, ways that suggest the requisite creative control for representation. The most significant way in which film is unlike photography is of course in being a sequence of images that are combined in any way that the film artist wants through editing.⁵ There are, however, a whole range of devices and conventions that are distinctive to film and that can serve artistic purposes. These are helpfully catalogued for us by Arnheim.

Before we turn back to Arnheim, however, let’s consider King’s response to Scruton. Remember that Scruton takes it as evidence of the inability of photographs to represent that the only reason we can have for looking at them is to satisfy our curiosity about their subjects. This way of thinking about photographs, King responds, can only be a result of a lack of awareness or appreciation of the range of photographic techniques and the consequen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Film as an art
• 2 Realism
• 3 Authorship
• 4 The language of film
• 5 Narration in the fiction film
• 6 The thinking viewer
• 7 The feeling film viewer
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright