Of redemption
the good of film experience
pp. 57-66
in: Paul Macneill (ed), Ethics and the arts, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
Since the 1990s one area of film theory and criticism has turned toward questions of film and ethics to ask anew "What is the good of film experience?" These recent developments mark a change in cinema studies' previous emphasis on concerns over film ontology and epistemology. Drawing from a range of ethical thinkers, such as Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Žižek, Badiou, Deleuze, Levinas, and a number of feminist and queer theorists, this turn toward film and ethics has presented a new way of thinking through the cinematic gaze and the effects of the filmic encounter. As well, with some film critics reinvestigating traditional topics, such as the relation between film and redemption, we can begin to rethink earlier moments in cinema studies and their connections to contemporary debates over film ethics. Comparing Sam Girgus and Siegfried Kracauer on "redemption" reveals one such path while also opening a route to future discussions of film and ethics.
