Philosophy and Film

7-week session | CRN 33911

Films can help illuminate philosophical questions in a variety of ways. This course introduces students to key philosophical contributions (by Plato, Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, and others) and film theory texts (among others, works by Münsterberg, Kracauer, and Bazin). We investigate how philosophical questions figure in representative films, including Mulholland Drive (David Lynch), The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers), Martha (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), The Passion of Jean of Arc (Carl Dreyer), and The Polar Express (Robert Zemeckis). The close scrutiny of films enables us to grasp the ways in which philosophical questions assume formal shape in special effects, camera movement, sound, and editing. Putting philosophical and theoretical readings into dialogue with visual materials, we seek to comprehend how audio-visual materials can illustrate, advance, or nuance philosophical perspectives.