The Eye of the Cinematograph

Abstract

Explores the encounter between Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical thought and aesthetic realisms of the body Presents an interdisciplinary approach that brings together film studies, philosophies of ethics, cultural studies and critical theory to contribute to the fields of film-philosophy and cinematic thinking Expands the existing enquiries into the consequences of Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy for aesthetics and draws out a new encounter between his ethical thought and film Makes a case for the hospitality of the cinematic image by investigating its unique visual being as a gift and proposes an affirmative account of the ethics of the cinematograph through discussions of cinematic realism The Eye of the Cinematograph investigates the ethical and aesthetic implications of the automatic formation of the body’s image by the camera. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ thought, Manafi asks what happens when the other makes their body available to the gaze of the camera to be automatically recorded, and this giving of the body is preserved within the image, juxtaposed with other images to allude to a story that might otherwise remain untold. To locate the ethical at this intersection of the body and the aesthetic, this book articulates an ethical account of a diverse range of film theories to demonstrate alternative encounters with the other that realisms of the body offer. Manafi discusses works by Chantal Akerman, Bruno Dumont, Pedro Costa, Gus Van Sant, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Abbas Kiarostami, Amir Naderi, Jafar Panahi, Carlos Reygadas and Andy Warhol to make a case for the ethics and aesthetics of incompleteness and performative failure.