Film fulfils many functions in contemporary society. They can represent our ideas on morality, politics, ethics, friendship, and what we believe to be a worthwhile life. But they can also be iconoclastic and irreverent of the status quo. This course will argue that film has a ‘mythological’ structure; that it creates narratives out of our beliefs about the world and our place in it. Film can also represent our collective hopes and future aspirations, as well as cathartically playing out our worst fears. We will draw on both classic cinema and contemporary films; drama, science fiction, romances and comedy. We will also consider the technical ways in which film presents a ‘reality’ to us as a coherent illusion, through the manipulation of time, space, sound and light.
- Introduction to the philosophy of film: We will consider a range of film theorists, philosophers, and sociologists on the issue of film and compare and contrast these views.
- Mythology: Questions on this topic will be: What are ‘mythologies’ and how do they function; How is film both alike and different from past mythologies; And why do humans enjoy telling each other stories. A further philosophical question arises out of this discussion which is: Does ‘lived reality’ become more ‘real’ to us when we mirror it backwardly through narrative art; does art construct social reality, or social reality construct art?
- Construction of social identity: This week we will look at character types. Some of these types are: the outsider and the insider; the hero and the villain; the sexually attractive and the sexually inept; the good friend and the deceiver.
- Fantasy and the political: Throughout history a time-honoured way of either critiquing your own society or exploring alternative social and political scenarios has been to construct other worlds. There are broadly three forms of this: The mythical past world; the future utopia or dystopia; the parallel fantasy world in the ordinary world.
- Image and mind: We will discuss a number of theorists in psychology who have attempted to understand the way film works on the mind. One interesting issue here is whether the mind processes the moving image differently to a static image as in a painting.
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Recognise the different types of myths in film and the way they may influence social ideas
- Make the connection between the ideological elements in social history and the transfer of those ideologies to film
- Discuss some of the technical mechanisms used in film to achieve the ‘reality’ effect
- Analyse the connection between the narrative elements of film and the various emotional triggers connected with different narratives
