A Philosophy of Cinematic Art – Berys Gaut

Extract

A Philosophy of Cinematic Art brings together material from many of Berys Gaut's excellent papers in analytic philosophy of film and aesthetics. In this way, the book covers almost all the central topics in contemporary philosophy of film, including realism, authorship, interpretation, narration, and emotional and imaginative engagement. The result, however, is by no means merely a handy Gaut compendium. Familiar arguments are shown to mesh perfectly, yielding a unified and systematic theory of cinematic art. Driving this theory is a general commitment to the role of the cinematic medium in establishing cinema as an art form. By extending analysis from traditional photo‐chemical to digital cinema, and from non‐interactive to interactive digital cinema, Gaut drives home an intriguing idea: in so far as analysis of diverse moving‐image technologies can ground the artistry of the moving‐image medium, cinema is a distinct art form, but one that encompasses everything from The Rules of the Game to Grand Theft Auto.