Beyond Mere Illustration: How Films Can Be Philosophy

The last decade has seen significant growth in the amount of attention that philosophers have paid to film. Whereas the philosophy of film used to be a small subfield of aesthetics practiced only by a few specialists, now philosophers with many different interests and specialties are using film as a means to address a broad range of philosophical topics. One very specific instance of this development is the number of books and articles written by philosophers that address the Wachowski Brothers' 1999 film, The Matrix, and its two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). By my count, there currently are two monographs authored by philosophers, three collections of essays, and innumerable articles in journals.' Although the quantity of material generated by philosophers in relation to this film is unusual, I cite it as an indication of the tremendous attraction that films now exert on philosophers. One interesting feature of this trend is that popular films-both Hollywood and independent-have been the subject of most of this recent philosophical activity. Previously, both the European art film and the avant-garde film were the types of films that seemed the likeliest vehicles to inspire philosophical reflection. Intuitively, it makes sense that philosophical discussion would be prompted by heady, difficult films like Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1954), which raises the sorts of existential issues traditionally the concern of philosophy, or an abstract, structural film like Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967), whose entire 45-minute length is composed of a single, slowly zooming shot. But now, following the example of Stanley Cavell, the philosopher's gaze has shifted to popular fiction films, and it is these films, usually taken to be mere vehicles for mass entertainment, that are claimed as sites of philosophical reflection that yield significant insight into perennial philosophical concerns.2 Despite this flurry of interest, there has been only minimal sustained reflection on the theoretical issues surrounding the use of film to discuss philosophical topics. In particular, philosophers have not generally asked whether films can themselves count as works of philosophy or, even, whether there is something peculiarly philosophical about the films they have chosen to discuss.3 Prior to the publication of this collection, instead of proceeding with explicit theoretical discussions of the legitimacy of using film as a vehicle for philosophy, the general tendency has been for philosophers to use film as a springboard for discussions of subjects of philosophical interest while paying only scant attention to the theoretical issues generated by this practice. What makes this particularly surprising is that, on the face of it, there are many features of film that militate against it yielding philosophical insights. For example, certain formal features that distinguish films from philosophical discussions cast doubt on the assimilation of film to philosophy. Although philosophy is a purely verbal discipline-whether written or oral-film is an essentially visual medium. Treating film as philosophy might seem to deny the role of this obvious fact. In addition, philosophy is generally characterized by explicit argumentation while those recent films that have been of most interest to philosophers