Metaphysics and the Moving Image

Abstract

Examines the work of transcendental filmmakers such as Bela Tarr and Terence Malick using a metaphysical framework Stages a dialogue between film and philosophy on the question of metaphysics Theorizes the workings of a metaphysical film style" and analyses its varied characteristics through close readings of films Situates the moving image in the context of the visual arts (i.e., photography and painting) as part of the history of aesthetic disclosure Speculates on the value of a return of metaphysics for a post-metaphysical age Metaphysics and the Moving Image is an exploration of how the medium of film inherits metaphysics, the ancient tradition of Western thought, and why it does so at the very moment philosophy sought to overcome it. As the age of metaphysics comes to a close with the Nietzschean “death of God” crisis of nihilism, the emergence of film gives birth to a new absolute value, a secular re-enchantment of the world, or ‘the world in its own image’. Film radically transforms the metaphysical paradigm from rational speculation through concepts to mechanical revelation through images and sounds—a revelation vital to the capacity for the art of film to enlighten and enthrall. In this book, Mowchun discusses film theorists and philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Stanley Cavell, Robert Bresson, and Heinrich von Kleist, in relation to films which possess a “metaphysical film style,” including The Thin Red Line and The Turin Horse . Painting and photography are also considered a precursor to the moving image, but it’s a specifically cinematic metaphysics which promises to lead us out of the traps of abstraction and alienation inadvertently set by old metaphysics. Mowchun demonstrates that in the aftermath of the ‘end of metaphysics’, questions about being, value and truth find compelling and open-ended responses in cinema. "