Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Cinema: Cinema refers to the art and industry of motion pictures, involving the production, distribution, and exhibition of films. It encompasses a diverse range of visual storytelling through moving images on a screen._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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V. Flusser on Cinema - Dictionary of Arguments
I 189 Film/Cinema/Flusser: Films are manipulation of stories. This manipulation takes place during production. I 190 Cinemas are reminiscent of theatres, although they have a completely different structure: in the theatre there is a channel, in the cinema one of them falls onto the screen under numerous broadcast rays. The aspects that make the film so different from photography are not as much about sending as they are about receiving. They are illusions provoked by the sender to the receiver. The gesture of filming is different from that of the photographer. >Photography/Flusser. The photographer is constantly changing his location, while the historical ideologist defends his point of view. The core of the codification of the film is the processing with scissors and adhesive. >Code/Flusser. Unlike the camera, the film apparatus is designed to eliminate decisions. He describes circles, zooms, is the indecisive doubt coagulated to material. The operator does not suffer from his doubts, his doubt is a method of making the tape manipulable. >Doubt. The tape consists of a series of dubious points of view and the operator treats it to make a film, a story out of it. Strictly speaking, the standpoint of cinema is a "transhistorical" standpoint. What the operator has in front of him when he cuts and sticks is the "historical time". The film tape is the "pretext" which is recoded in the apparatus operator system. I 193 The operator can intervene in the event in a way that the transcendent God of Jews and Christians is not entitled to: he can reorganize the events. Cf. >Omnipotence, >God. In Aristotle's case, the God is still the motionless mover, the apparatus in which the operator stands above the story is a motionless narrator (the God of Kafka). >History, >Historiography, >Aristotle. I 194 There are two types of action in the film. The one of the actor supplying the raw material and the one of the operator handling this action. For him, the "actors" are not only actors but also illuminators, scriptwriters, etc. The essential thing about film codes is that they push the linear principle to its limits in order to let it get out of whack and show that linear time is a trompe l' oeuil. From the point of view of the new level of consciousness, the transformation of the acting mankind into marionettes seems to reveal the fact that acting people ("the committed ones") can be nothing more than marionettes, because "freedom" does not consist in acting within time, but in the interpretation of this action. >Action, >Time, >Past, >Present, >Future, >Decision. I 205 Film/Flusser: the cinema has a striking resemblance to Plato's cave. One of the very few places where we are still allowed to concentrate. That, and not the content, is what makes cinema the predominant "art" today: you can concentrate on the film. >Plato. I 206 The cinema is architecturally based on the Roman basilica and not on the theatre. In the present it has two heirs (avatars): the supermarket (profan) and the cinema (sacral). I 207 In the cinema, one sits on geometrically arranged and arithmetically numbered chairs (so Cartesian chairs). >Cartesianism. You do not go to the cinema to dream, but you buy the illusion of seeing tech pictures as if they were traditional pictures or texts. The receiver's playing along is semi-conscious, only mala fide it is believed in them. >Pictures, >Texts._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Fl I V. Flusser Kommunikologie Mannheim 1996 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19