Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Filmosophy

By Hanno

Last year we started doing a series of lectures using film as the background for questions in Philosophy, which we called 'filmosophy.' It is easy to use film to raise philosophical issues when you choose philosophically oriented films, such as the classic 'The Seventh Seal.' I, however, also wanted to explore philosophy in films that were not so obvious, and I wanted to do that for two reasons: First, I thought the audience for heavy films would be small, so the group that shows up would be small, and we were looking for something with more appeal. And second, it is more of challenge to show that there are Platonic overtones to, say, Starship Troopers, than to show questions about the meaning of life in The Seventh Seal. After all, no one thinks Starship Troopers has any philosophical content, while everyone who has seen the later knows there is philosophical content to the Seventh Seal.

I was going to do 'The Truman Show,' Jim Carey's movie about a guy whose whole life is a reality show, only he does not know it. I may still, at some point. But I thought of three others I would rather do:

The Mind/Body Problem and 'Ghost'
The Metaphysics of Time and 'Back to the Future'
Horror and 'Night of the Living Dead'

9 comments:

TR said...

The Metaphysics of Time and 'Back to the Future'

Do this one. I've only dabbled in this (I know McTaggart's argument against the reality of time, and the differences between eternalsim and presentism, and endurantism and perdurantism, and not much more), but it is one of the most obscure and interesting questions in metaphysics. And trying to explain it to a room full of people seems like a hilariously difficult task.

ce said...

Horror? What about horror?

Hanno said...

TR!!! YOU ARE ALIVE!!

Hanno said...

Well, I am of course interested in the 'solution' to the grandfather paradox, and what this suggests about our conception of time, and then what other accounts might look like.

As to the horror, I am still trying to find a philosophical angle, but I am now thinking of the odd parallels between the live humans, besieged as their neighbors want to kill them, hiding in the basement, and Jews hiding from the holocaust. I think this element of being under siege is perhaps new in horror (its not the monster movie norm) and I think that may suggest a cultural shift, as horror tends to build from real worries (technology out of control, sex, etc.)

TR said...

I am alive, but, as you are no doubt aware, graduate school has a way of consuming your life and not leaving you time for things like reading blogs. Although it seems the more work I have to do, the more time I spend doing things like reading blogs.

Hanno said...

Standard Work Avoidance Behavior. We called it SWAB when I was in school.

ce said...

H, you forget that vampires and werewolves were real worries back in the day. At least, as real as the boogey man anyway.

I'm wondering what you have interesting to say about that though. But anything that manages to wrangle Huey Lewis and the News, and ZZ Top into the realm of philosophy certainly gets my vote. Just remember to say something about the Doc's hair.

Hanno said...

Who said I would say something interesting? Only my normal bs is promised...

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