The Twins Paradox: Bifurcation & Unification

Why is film becoming increasingly important to philosophers? Is it because it can be a helpful tool in teaching philosophy, in illustrating it? Or is it because film can also think for itself, because it can create its own philosophy? In fact, a popular claim amongst film-philosophers is that film is no mere handmaiden to philosophy, that it does more than simply illustrate philosophical texts: rather, film itself can philosophise in direct audio-visual terms. Approaches that purport to grant to film the possibility of being more than illustrative can be found in the subtractive ontology of Alain Badiou, the Wittgensteinian analyses of Stanley Cavell, and the materialist semiotics of Gilles Deleuze. In each case there is a claim that film can think in its own way. Too often, however, when philosophers claim to find indigenous philosophical value in film, it is only on account of refracting it through their own thought: film philosophises because it accords with a favoured kind of extant philosophy. Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image is the first book to examine all the central issues surrounding the vexed relationship between the film-image and philosophy. In it, John Mullarkey tackles the work of particular philosophers and theorists (Zizek, Deleuze, Cavell, Bordwell, Badiou, Branigan, Rancière, Frampton, and many others) as well as general philosophical positions (Analytical and Continental, Cognitivist and Culturalist, Psychoanalytic and Phenomenological). Moreover, he also offers an incisive analysis and explanation of several prominent forms of film theorising, providing a meta- logical account of their mutual advantages and deficiencies that will prove immensely useful to anyone interested in the details of particular theories of film presently circulating, as well as correcting, revising, and re- visioning the field of film theory as a whole. Throughout, Mullarkey asks whether the reduction of film to text is unavoidable. In particular: must philosophy (and theory) always transform film into pre-texts for illustration? What would it take to imagine how film might itself theorise without reducing it to standard forms of thought and philosophy? Finally, and fundamentally, must we change our definition of philosophy and even of thought itself in order to accommodate the specificities that come with the claim that film can produce philosophical theory? If a 'non-philosophy' like film can think philosophically, what does that imply for orthodox theory and philosophy? 'This book, in some sense, brings to an end a certain phase of film theorizing and instead looks toward something quite new: how theories have been written and how they may be written, how they fall into types, how these types are filling out not a logical grid but a grid of the anxieties we feel, and the defenses we erect toward the everyday. A wonderful, ground-breaking book.' - Edward Branigan (University of California, Santa Barbara), author of Projecting a Camera: Language-Games in Film Theory and Narrative Comprehension and Film 'Highly original both in its concern for avoiding the illustrative approach generally favoured by philosophers, and in the speculative ambition that looms behind the critical edge of its readings of contemporary film- philosophers. The very question "when does the film itself happen?" is a fundamental one, which is rarely addressed. Mullarkey is opening the door to a brand new type of philosophical engagement with films.' - Elie During (Université de Paris X-Nanterre), author of Matrix: Machine philosophique 'Mullarkey brings an informed, critical view to a number of theories from both the Continental tradition (his specialization) and the Anglo-American tradition...Refractions of Realisty is an original and valuable contribution to the field of film philosophy...It is perhaps most valuable in its highly successful dislocation of the rigid, myopic perspective of so many contemporary theories' - Joseph Mai, Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews

Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image 1. Lisbon: Nova Institute of Philosophy - Nova University of Lisbon., 2010

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, an international journal devoted to the philosophical inquiry into cinema. Since its beginnings, cinema has been the subject of philosophical investigation on the both sides of the Atlantic. Early in the twentieth century, Henri Bergson (1907) and Hugo Munsterberg (1916) offered, arguably, the first deep philosophical reflections on the recently born art. From the outset, their inquiries reflected different philosophical engagements and traditions. Bergson's ideas were highly influential in continental Europe and inspired a significant amount of artistic production that persisted, at least until the beginning of the Second World War. Munsterberg's pioneering study was almost forgotten, until the revived interest from cognitive film theorists in the nineties. During the twentieth century, in continental Europe, cinema inspired deep philosophical investigations about its nature, functioning, and reception-integrating, for the most part, the influences of

2016

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, an international journal devoted to the philosophical inquiry into cinema. Since its beginnings, cinema has been the subject of philosophical investigation on the both sides of the Atlantic. Early in the twentieth century, Henri Bergson (1907) and Hugo Munsterberg (1916) offered, arguably, the first deep philosophical reflections on the recently born art. From the outset, their inquiries reflected different philosophical engagements and traditions. Bergson's ideas were highly influential in continental Europe and inspired a significant amount of artistic production that persisted, at least until the beginning of the Second World War. Munsterberg's pioneering study was almost forgotten, until the revived interest from cognitive film theorists in the nineties. During the twentieth century, in continental Europe, cinema inspired deep philosophical investigations about its nature, functioning, and reception-integrating, for the most part, the influences of

Analysis of James Hong's experimental-documentary Film inspired by Heidegger...

1989

The cinema does not just present images, it surrounds them with a world. This is why, very early on, it looked for bigger and bigger circuits which would unite an actual image with recollection images, dream-images and world-images. This is surely the extension that Godard calls into question in Slow Motion, when he takes issue with the vision of the dying ('I'm not dead, because my life hasn't passed before me'). Should not the opposite direction have been pursued? Contracting the image instead of dilating it. Searching for the smallest circuit that functions as internal limit for all the others and that puts the actual image beside a kind of immediate, symmetrical, consecutive or even simultaneous double. The broad circuits of recollection in dream assume this narrow base, this extreme point, and not the other way round. This sort of direction already appears in links through flashback: in Mankiewicz, a short circuit is produced between the character who tells a story 'in the past' and the same person in so far as he has surprised something in order to be able to relate it; in Carne, in Daybreak, all the circuits of recollection which bring us back each time to the hotel room, rest on a small circuit, the recent recollection of the murder which has just taken place in this very same room. Ifwe take this direction to its limit, we can say that the actual image itself has a virtual image which corresponds to it like a double or a reflection. In Bergsonian terms, the real object is reflected in a mirror-image as in the virtual object which, from its side and simultaneously, envelops or reflects the real: there is 'coalescence' between the two.I There is a formation of an image with two sides, actual and virtual. It is as if an image in a mirror, a photo or a postcard came to life, assumed independence and passed into the actual, even if this meant that the actual image returned into the mirror and resumed its place in the postcard or photo, following a double movement of liberation and capture.

2011

The relationship between film and philosophy has become a topic of intense intellectual interest. But how should we understand this relationship? Can philosophy renew our understanding of film? Can film challenge or even transform how we understand philosophy? New Philosophies of Film explores these questions in relation to both analytic and Continental philosophies of film, arguing that the best way to overcome the mutual antagonism between these approaches is by constructing a more pluralist film-philosophy grounded in detailed engagement with particular films and filmmakers. Sinnerbrink not only provides lucid critical analyses of the exciting developments and contentious debates in the new philosophies of film, but also showcases how a pluralist film-philosophy works in the case of three challenging contemporary filmmakers: Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and Lars von Trier. Table of Contents Preface \ Introduction: Why Did Philosophy Go To The Movies? \ Part I: The Analytic-Cognitivist Turn \ 1. The Empire Strikes Back: Critiques of “Grand Theory" \ 2. The Rules of the Game: New Ontologies of Film \ 3. Adaptation: Philosophical Approaches to Narrative \ Part II: From Cognitivism to Film Philosophy \ 4. Cognitivism Goes to the Movies \ 5. Bande à part: Deleuze and Cavell as Film-Philosophers \ 6. Scenes from a Marriage: Film as Philosophy \ Part III: Cinematic Thinking \ 7. Hollywood in Trouble: David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE \ 8. ‘Chaos Reigns’: Anti-cognitivism in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist \ 9. Song of the Earth: Cinematic Romanticism in Malick’s The New World \ Coda: ‘The Six Most Beautiful Minutes in the History of Cinema’\ Bibliography \ Filmography \ Index. Reviews: Reviewed by Jason M. Wirth in Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews (November 2012): http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/35702-new-philosophies-of-film-thinking-images/ Reviewed by Deborah Knight in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol 70, no. 4 (Fall 2012): 401-403. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x/abstract [DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x] Reviewed by Adam Melinn in Philosophy in Review, vol. 32, no. 5 (2012): 428-430 http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/pir/article/view/11591 Reviewed by Jane Stadler in the British Journal of Aesthetics: http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/07/31/aesthj.ays025.extract" "Both an excellent introduction and an original contribution to the field, New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images covers a large range of theoretical positions with impressive adroitness. By offering incisive philosophical analyses alongside brilliant film readings, Sinnerbrink achieves that rare thing, a true marriage of the abstract and the concrete that will be of huge value to scholars and students alike." Professor John Mullarkey, Kingston University, London, UK "Robert Sinnerbrink’s New Philosophies of Film is a captivating, challenging, smart, and highly readable exploration of the aesthetic encounter between cinema and philosophy. As an introduction to the recent philosophical turn in film studies, the book offers a rich and insightful critical perspective on many influential developments in film theory such as cognitivism. As a contribution to the emerging field of philosophical engagement with film New Philosophies of Film shows that films can do more than just illustrate or serve as metaphors for philosophical ideas. Films are philosophically valuable in themselves insofar as they can engage in philosophizing as ‘thinking agents’. Furthermore, films can invite us to invest in them philosophically, to meet them in dialogue as philosophical discussion partners. This idea comes alive in Sinnerbrink’s exceptionally vivid examples, in which he analyzes the philosophical-aesthetic receptivity to the work of such filmmakers such as David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Terrence Malick. This book is a ‘must read’ not only for philosophers and film scholars, but also for anyone seriously enthusiastic about cinema." Tarja Laine, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. "New Philosophies of Film is an ambitious attempt to overcome the Analytic-Continental divide in theorizing about film and to develop a new understanding of the relationship between film and philosophy. Beginning with a critical overview of recent developments in the philosophy of film and ending with interpretations that present film as a new mode of thinking, this book breaks new ground and will have to be reckoned with by anyone interested in film and philosophy." Thomas E Wartenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA."""

The article offers a survey of Deleuze's interest in images throughout his career. It suggests that his enduring fascination with time is the driving force behind his relatively late preoccupation with images, which started with an essay on Lucretius, followed by his book on Bacon's paintings, his two famous books on the cinema and a brief piece on Beckett's TVplays. During the ten years of not discussing time at all, time has changed the medium of reflection: Deleuze stops conceiving time-as most structuralists do-as infinite, onedirectional successiveness, similar to how utterances work. After the gap years, time gets involved in an "evental logic" that is designed after the role-model of images. From now on, time incorporates divergent flight lines (to a past, that never existed, to a future, that will never come true etc.). Far from being only chronological, time becomes a code name for a "reservoir" of simultaneity that undermines and overrides the actual process of sensemaking through the consecutive use of words. Here, the visible and the utterable step in: as the graphic "counter-realization" of philosophical problems that have remained unsolved since Kant linked the sublime to a conflict between successive apprehension and its simultaneous comprehension. Mirjam Schaub explains why the moving image helps to understand the troubling effects of this discrepancy: Through Nouvelle Vague techniques such as false connections, boredom or ostentatious sight-and-sound-gaps it becomes obvious, that time remains a disruptive force. For Deleuze the asynchronical use of sight and sound in film reveals the inner logic of time as universal differentiator. While the utterable naturally generates contractions (such as A and Non-A cannot exist simultaneously), the visible in film easily embraces divergent events (such as Citizen Kane being old in the foreground and young in the background). What is to be believed? The moving-image as a "fusion of the tear" is celebrated as a process of exchange between intertwined time lines, virtual and actual images that become mutual look-alikes.

Film has a tendency to mutate and remake itself over time, each of its evolving technologies dependent and growing one from the other. The development of technologies both force change and reinforce established processes. In film, metamorphosis is able to present the spectator with spectacular representations derived from a sophisticated organisation made up of sets of complex experiences and traditions expressed by signs that are made visible through cinematic language and its apparatus.

Elsevier, 2021

When one believes in something, thoughts come true. Better, if one believes in something, then opportunities come true. Quantum mechanics is probably the basis. These include the mechanics of quantum waves and quantum teleportation. The current developments in the quantum brain are far-reaching. Within our brain, brain waves constantly interact at a quantum level, such as entanglement and tunneling. Images like thoughts are electronic signals, those waves, they come from atoms of our neural network. Every wave is quantum. This means that it also performs quantum effects. On a wave there are electrons and each electron has spin, which says something about the angle and phase, if the action potentials change, waves are created, with electrons. When these collide, there is an entanglement between 2 "quantum states". In this superposition, states can be passed that change due to captured photons. A polarization occurs, the electron on the other side gets an opposite state. Basically, a qubit has been teleported. This is at least what quantum mechanics entails. There are large-scale exchanges between millions of electrons. The assumption in this study is that these messages already occur naturally in our brain. It informs us, information like names, location, shape, color, texture, time of day and much more. The stronger the entanglement, the more intense the synchronicity. Because these two are polarized, one has one up the other one down, it could just forward messages. The messages are drawn together. Signals that all form an image, in a polarized way. It's not a literal line between two objects, people or animals, it's instant mechanics. The signals come through unobtrusively. One draws a force field of two photons that are opposite each other. One red, the other blue. This teleportation, presumably, has arisen on a larger social level.