•  2
    Editorial: Film-Philosophy-Poetry
    Film-Philosophy 27 (3): 375-376. 2023.
  •  17
    Rupture, Suture, Nietzsche: Impossible Intersubjectivity in Alien
    Film-Philosophy 25 (3): 229-250. 2021.
    The concept of suture has long been an important and controversial concept in investigations of the relationships between narrative, diegesis, character, and spectator. The dominant understanding of suture has paid more attention to its Lacanian derivation – and to the account given by Daniel Dayan – than to the work of Jean-Pierre Oudart which first introduced suture into Film Studies. This article, however, follows the recent work of George Butte, who argues that the way Oudart understands sut…Read more
  •  25
    The Cinema of Disorientation
    Edinburgh University Press. 2020.
    Precisely, perhaps, because they are so immediately absorbing, narrative films can also be profoundly confusing and disorienting. This fascinating book neither proposes foolproof methods for avoiding confusion; nor does it suggest that disorientation is always a virtue. Instead it argues that the best way to come to terms with our confusion is to look closely at exactly what is confusing us, and why. At the heart of the book are original close readings of four important recent films: David Lynch…Read more
  •  16
    (Re)producing Marriage
    Film and Philosophy 25 1-22. 2021.
    This article considers aspects of Stanley Cavell’s film-philosophy in the light of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and vice versa. Methodologically, it concentrates on the interpretation of Cavell’s writing and of Anderson’s film. In arguing that Phantom Thread has affinities with Cavell’s famous cinematic genre of remarriage comedy, the article addresses Cavell’s understanding of the production of what Wittgenstein calls “criteria.” Affirming Steven J. Affeldt’s insistence that…Read more
  •  9
    Review of Graham Jones and Ashley Woodward, eds., "Acinemas: Lyotard's Philosophy of Film" (Edinburgh University Press)
  •  27
    This article undertakes a reading of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker that runs, for the most part, against the grain of the director's own pronouncements on the film. My focus is on a character study of the Stalker himself, and the consequences of his most unattractive characteristics: his manipulativeness, his petulance, and his self-pity. Rather than seeing the Stalker as an emblem of pure faith I explore the possibility that he is a quasi-tragic figure trapped by his own myopic idolatry.…Read more