Daniele Rugo

This article addresses both the conceptualisation and visualisation of annihilation landscapes of suffering and despair. Rethinking the history of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and what it means for understanding the past and present of atrocity, the essay attends to key concerns with the logics of the abyss and the nihilism of technologically enabled destruction. These will be addressed through a number of films that will highlight our main concerns with the violence of disappearance, desolation and the (im)possibility of memory.

Despite considerable differences, Stanley Cavell and Jean-Luc Nancy share the demand for a renewal of thinking produced through and with the concept of the world. Their articulation of the legacy bequeathed by Heidegger and Wittgenstein begins with an understanding of the world in excess of knowledge and insists on this impossible mastery as the most productive incentive for thinking. Inasmuch as philosophy has understood itself as producer of worldviews, systems and principle, philosophy has constantly suppressed the thinking of the world, for any worldview absorbs and dissolves the world in its vision. For both Cavell and Nancy an insistence on this suppression leads to an emphasis on film. Two gestures can be said to intertwine in their thinking of film: to recapture our relation to the world as one that is not based on knowing as certainty, but on the reception of the singular; to recapture thinking as that which is attracted and called for by the insurgence of the singular, by the seam in experience. Nancy and Cavell reverse the idea of cinema as completing the regime of representation stressing how cinema produces a step away from thinking as representation in view of what the article names thinking as patience. The article concludes by asking: what does it mean for philosophy to understand itself as patience?

While it is possible, as Vivian Sobchack and others show, to illuminate film through Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, it is more difficult to find within Merleau-Ponty’s work a coherent and systematic reflection on cinema. This absence is seldom interrogated. This article addresses what this absence might reveal by analyzing the reasons why Merleau-Ponty stopped short of an explicit discussion of film. The argument builds on these analyses to show how what Merleau-Ponty found problematic about cinema might turn out to be one of cinema’s most resourceful features. For Merleau-Ponty, cinema is caught between a deadening exactitude and a disappointing partiality. It is because of these two apparently opposing extremes that Merleau-Ponty sidelines cinema. However, the pairing of exactness and partiality provides an interesting moment for reflection. Intuitively the two should not coexist, since they appear mutually exclusive. Yet their coexistence seems to renew rather than foreclose a thinking of film. Guided by these two terms, Jean-Luc Nancy produces his own thought on cinema. To show how film is apt at capturing the essential excess and ambiguity of the world, the article will turn to the Lebanese film Je Veux Voir, which offers a powerful instance of cinema’s simultaneous exactitude and partiality.Bien qu’il soit possible, comme Vivian Sobchack et d’autres l’ont démontré, d’illuminer le cinéma à partir de la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty, il est beaucoup plus difficile de trouver dans l’oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty une réflexion cohérente et systématique sur le cinéma. Cette absence est rarement interrogée pour elle-même. Cet article considère ce que cette absence peut révéler en analysant les raisons pour lesquelles Merleau-Ponty ne s’est pas engagé dans une réflexion explicite sur le cinéma. En nous appuyant sur ces analyses, nous montrons que ce que Merleau-Ponty trouvait de plus problématique dans le cinéma est peut-être sa ressource la plus précieuse. Pour Merleau-Ponty, le cinéma est pris entre une exactitude abrutissante et une partialité décevante, et c’est pour cette raison que Merleau-Ponty le met sur la touche. Cependant, le jumelage de l’exactitude et de la partialité devrait nous donner matière à réflexion. Intuitivement, les deux ne devraient coexister : ils apparaissent s’exclure l’une l’autre. Pourtant, leur coexistence est en mesure de renouveler plutôt que d’exclure une pensée du cinéma. C’est guidé par ces deux termes que Jean-Luc Nancy produit sa propre pensée du cinéma. Pour montrer comment le cinéma est à même de capturer l’excès et l’ambiguïté essentiels du monde, nous proposons une lecture du film libanais Je Veux Voir, et montrons comment il offre un exemple puissant de la simultanéité de l’exactitude et de la partialité dans le cinéma. Mentre è possibile, come Vivian Sobchack e altri hanno mostrato, comprendere il film attraverso la filosofia di Merleau-Ponty, risulta più difficile rintracciare all’interno del suo lavoro una riflessione coerente e sistematica sul cinema. Se quest’assenza è stata di rado oggetto di discussione, questo articolo propone invece di interrogarsi sul possibile significato di questa assenza analizzando le ragioni per cui Merleau-Ponty non ha sviluppato una riflessione esplicitamente dedicata al cinema. Sulla base di questa analisi, si intende mostrare che ciò che Merleau-Ponty trova problematico riguardo al cinema può invece rivelarsi una delle sue caratteristiche più preziose. Secondo Merleau-Ponty, il cinema si trova costretto tra una monotona esattezza e una deludente parzialità. È a causa di questi due estremi, apparentemente opposti, che Merleau-Ponty accantona il cinema. Tuttavia, la coppia esattezza-parzialità fornisce un interessante spunto di riflessione. Intuitivamente, i due termini non dovrebbero poter coesistere: sarebbero invece reciprocamente esclusivi. Eppure, la loro coesistenza sembra rinnovare piuttosto che precludere una riflessione sul cinema. È sulla scorta di questi due termini che Jean-Luc Nancy sviluppa il proprio pensiero su questo tema. Al fine di mostrare come il cinema sia in grado di catturare l’eccesso e l’ambiguità essenziali del mondo, l’articolo propone una lettura del film libanese Je Veux Voir, che offre un esempio efficace della simultanea esattezza e parzialità del cinema.

With a foreword by Jean-Luc Nancy Philosophy and the Patience of Film presents a comparative study of the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Stanley Cavell. It discusses the effect of their philosophical engagement with film, and proposes that the interaction between philosophy and film produces a power of patience capable of turning our negation of the world into a relation with it. Through detailed readings of cinematic works ranging from Hollywood classics to contemporary Iranian cinema, this book describes the interaction between film and philosophy as a productive friction from which the concept of patience emerges as a demand for thinking. Daniele Rugo explains how Nancy and Cavell’s relationship with film demands the surrendering of philosophical mastery, and that it is precisely this act in view of the world that brings Cavell and Nancy to the study of film. While clarifying the nature of their engagement with film this book suggests that film does not represent the world, but ‘realizes’ it. This realization provides a scene of instruction for philosophy.

According to Jean-Luc Nancy the essential condition for the existence of sense is the 'otherness' of our being-together. For John Cassavetes being-together makes sense only there where it escapes sense. It will be shown that in fact that both propositions derive from a qualitative distance at the heart of our being-together. This qualitative distance triggers the circulation of sense and leaves sense always open. It is in this way that being-together responds of sense absolutely (responding to its content – the acquired meanings – and its structure – sense’s referentiality) by foreclosing any absolute sense, maintaining itself as it were as the moving horizon of sense