Hugo Clémot

The moral importance of films to viewers is a dimension of the cinematic experience that has long been neglected. By describing the moral education powers of film, this book aims to encourage philosophers to practice the ethical reading of film works. This exercise helps to make intelligible important features of our lives, which academic forms of discourse tend to overlook. Taking our experience of films seriously should even reorient our conception of the tasks of ethics and the ways of doing philosophy. Hugo Clémot thus intends to contribute to a conversation whose interlocutors are Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, William Rothman, Victor Perkins, Cora Diamond, Andrew Klevan and Sandra Laugier. Because it allows us to understand films such as "The Awful Truth", "Bringing Up Baby", "The Aviator's Wife", "The Green Ray", "Winter Tale", "Spring Tale", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Detachment" or "Happy-Go-Lucky" and directors such as Leo McCarey in a different way, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Éric Rohmer, Terrence Malick or Arnaud Desplechin, this tradition also concerns researchers in film studies, since the value of an aesthetic research is a function of its capacity to enrich the experience of singular works.

La trilogie Matrix a suscite une litterature philosophique tres importante dans le monde entier. Plus de dix ans apres la sortie du premier des trois films, il est temps de faire un bilan des meilleures contributions et de proposer une interpretation inedite qui s'appuie non seulement sur l'ensemble de la trilogie, mais aussi sur les courts metrages animes, les comic books et les jeux video concus pour accompagner les films. Cette approche pretend en outre apporter une reponse a la question de savoir si et en quel sens une oeuvre cinematographique comme Matrix peut faire de la philosophie.

Resumo Pode um filme ser filosófico ? Para os filósofos analíticos esta questão dá origem àquilo que Paisley Livingston designou por “problema da paráfrase”, um dilema intratável para os adeptos da “tese audaciosa”, segundo a qual alguém pode envolver-se com a filosofia através do cinema. Este artigo defende que a prática corajosa de Stanley Cavell, de sempre procurar abordar a filosofia através do cinema, demonstra a importância de um baluarte sediado na autenticidade das análises conceptuais cinematográficas, que vieram a ser conhecidas como “ideias cinematográficas”. Destacaremos neste artigo, alguns exemplos em Jean Vigo, Nicholas Ray, Robert Bresson e nos filmes de Eric Rohmer, graças à análise penetrante de Stanley Cavell, Victor Perkins e Andrew Klevan. Concluir-se-á, que o designado problema de paráfrase está mal postulado, por causa de uma concepção tímida e reducionista sobre a análise filosófica. Palavras-chave : cinema como filosofia, filosofia através do cinema, Paisley Livingston, problema da paráfrase, Stanley Cavell, tese audaciosaCan a film be philosophical ? The analytic philosophers of film agree that this question raises what Paisley Livingston calls “the problem of paraphrase”, an intractable dilemma for the adherents of the “bold thesis” according to which one can indeed engage philosophy through film. This article maintains that the courageous practice of Stanley Cavell, one who always sought to address philosophy through film, demonstrates the significance of a bulwark of authentic cinematographic conceptual analyses that would come to be known as “cinematographic ideas”. Highlighted below are some examples in Jean Vigo’s, Nicholas Ray’s, Robert Bresson’s and Eric Rohmer’s films thanks to the penetrating analysis of Stanley Cavell, Victor Perkins and Andrew Klevan. It follows that the so-called problem of paraphrase is ill-posed because of a reductionist and timid conception of philosophical analysis. Keywords : bold thesis, film as philosophy, Paisley Livingston, philosophy through film, problem of paraphrase, Stanley Cavell.