Martin P. Rossouw

In his recent challenge to my analysis of transformational ethics in the debate on film-as-philosophy, Robert Sinnerbrink invites one especially surprising conclusion: that I am somehow sceptical of the very possibility that films may spark genuine personal transformation. This article offers an initial, bigger-picture reply to Sinnerbrink, prompted in particular by his invocation of L.A. Paul’s notion of “transformative experience”, which opens a helpful path for clarifying my actual claims. (This also offers a chance to open discussion in this journal on personal transformation, alongside the term’s usual socio-political connotations here, which I appreciate.) I begin by questioning whether the kind of transformation Sinnerbrink envisions in film spectatorship fully matches the sense and scale of what Paul means by “transformative experience” (e.g. childbirth). More pressingly, however, I argue that Sinnerbrink’s rebuttal conflates two crucially distinct conceptions of “transformation”: the mere possibility of transformative experience as an unpredictable, contingent event, versus the practical feasibility of what I call a preparatory transformational ethics – a set of ideals and perceived methods for fostering, as prior acts of self-transformation, one’s receptivity to such transformative experiences. Hence, my essential reply: the sceptical challenges that I have addressed to the film-as-philosophy debate do not concern the possibility of transformative experiences per se, but rather the extent to which viewers (and film philosophers) can genuinely hope to catalyse their own transformation through film.

This response article addresses the conception of “film as philosophy” developed by Shawn Loht in his book Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience (2017), with specific attention to the relevance and implications of Loht's approach for the broader debate beyond a strictly Heideggerian film-philosophy. The article proceeds in three distinct takes. The first take examines Loht's later-Heideggerian inspirations, arguing that although these more fundamental notions of philosophy open significant possibilities for film as philosophy, they nevertheless run the risk of being too embracive, as well as too elusive, to make a distinctive contribution to the debate. For its second take, the article resets its initial point of departure by considering how the earlier Heidegger of Being and Time cues in Loht's approach a special – albeit, ultimately, untenable – investment in cinematic reflexivity, with the stylistic hallmarks of Terrence Malick serving as a test case. In its final take, the article concludes by venturing a possible solution to the questions raised in the first two takes. Here it is proposed that, in contrast to Loht's general interest in cinematographic devices, the voiceover holds a far more sustainable promise of reflexivity, while at the same time giving more prominence to the viewer's acts of listening – which is what a quintessentially Heideggerian film phenomenology surely asks for.