The ‘New Wave’ of French phenomenology and cinema: new concepts for the cinematic experience

Abstract

This paper presents the key concepts and authors of the French new phenomenology and seeks to clarify how this movement breaks the limits of the phenomenological tradition. It demonstrates that the new phenomenologists provide valuable tools to rethink the phenomenology of film experience in terms of its excess or lack of visibility. Particular emphasis is given to the works of (1) Jean-Luc Marion, whose concept of saturated phenomena has been used in film studies to articulate the relations between painting and cinema, and (2) Michel Henry, whose discovery of two states of appearing can be of great help for analysing the phenomenological value and bodily affect of tinting in early cinema.