SJ5078 Final Assessment - Essay Questions

1) Noel Carroll states that ‘Films are not arguments’ (Theorizing the Moving Image, p. 281). Does this mean that films cannot be genuinely philosophical? What arguments might there be that they can?

2) ‘An exemplary stage performance is one which, for a time, most fully creates a character. [...] An exemplary screen performance is one in which, at a time, a star is born.’ (The World Viewed, p. 28) Critically examine this claim and the ontological consequences which Cavell draws from it.

3) What, if anything, does Alien tell us about the human condition? Is Ripley meant to be its very incarnation? What role does gender play in that incarnation?

4) Using specific examples, examine the way in which films have dealt with the philosophical issue of personal identity. Can this problem be separated from other aspects of human existence?

5) Critically examine and assess Cavell’s interpretation of what he calls the Hollywood comedy of remarriage. What objections might be raised against it?

6) Žižek has said that ‘stepping out of (what we experience as) ideology is the very form of our enslavement to it.’ (Mapping Ideology, p. 6) Do you think this is true of Hollywood films which present themselves as social or political critiques?

7) ‘Thus, in the beginning, all the world was America, and more so than that is now,’ Locke, Two Treatises on Government, II, ch. 5‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.’ The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Are Westerns simply American myths, or can they be read (instead or also) as contributions to political philosophy, even perhaps as critical reflections on that founding myth of political philosophy – “the state of nature”?

8) Examine the way the idea of a miracle is explored in Capra’s Miracle Woman and/or von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. What philosophical implications about goodness, faith and religious belief might be drawn from either film?

9) Is Tarkovsky’s Solaris a mystical, humanist or philosophical work? Or do you (or perhaps does it) reject those distinctions?

10) ‘To assess the (metaphorical) distinction between interpretations of a work which do and those which do not allow the work its say in its interpretation, its voice in its history of reception, is to assess one's stake in theory and criticism.’ Cavell, “Response to Modleski,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17 no. 1 (Autumn, 1990)What point is Cavell making here? Is it an effective one? Is it meant to be directed against (feminist) film theory?

This assignment counts for 60% of the overall assessment grade of the module

The overall word limit for this exercise is 2,500 words

The deadline for submission is 3pm on Monday 19th May 2014 (Week 15)