Film Phenomenology
A Symposium
On Saturday November 13 2010, the Film Studies department at Queen Mary hosted a Film Phenomenology Symposium in the Hitchcock Cinema. The event was organised and chaired by Dr Lucy Bolton (QMUL), who introduced the day with an outline of the meaning of phenomenology and its relationship to film, and an overview of the approaches of scholars such as Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks. The day consisted of papers by three leading film philosophy academics and a roundtable discussion of Innocence (dir. Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2004). Dr Richard Rushton (Lancaster) imagined a debate between Jean-Luc Nancy and Deleuze concerning Shirin (dir, Abbas Kiarostami, 2009). Richard argued that a phenomenology of film must be an enquiry into cinema’s preconditions for reception (our customary practices and beliefs) and, by extension, any film’s preconditions. In his paper on vision, ontology and Merleau-Ponty, Dr Greg Tuck (UWE) argued that aesthetic traditions facilitate rather than predetermine what will be produced and emerge from our own primordial and existential engagment with the possibilities of the phenomenal body and its capacity to see, move and intend in a coherent and unfolding world. Dr David Sorfa (LJMU) turned a questioning eye to the work of Sobchack, Marks and Jennifer Barker, and cautioned of the risks in moving too quickly from talking about visual effect to psychological affect. David argued that when we respond affectively we do not do so to camera tricks or isolated moments but rather that we respond to the world of the film just we respond to the world of the world.
After an extract from Innocence, the roundtable discussion participants considered how to begin to receive, think and write about a film phenomenologically. Chaired by Dr Lucy Bolton, with Dr Kate Ince (Birmingham) and Dr Davina Quinlivan (KCL), the discussion focused on the need for adequate description of a film’s affect and the possible next steps, including a debate between recourse to an established paradigm such as psychoanalysis, or repeated subjective reflection upon the lived experience of receiving the film. Respondents to the discussion included Catherine Wheatley, Daniel Frampton, William Brown, Jenny Chamarette and Libby Saxton.
The event concluded with a wine reception and reflection upon the lived experience of the symposium.
- For further information please contact: l.c.bolton@qmul.ac.uk
- To download the flyer click here
Programme:
10.30 Welcome and Introduction
11.00 Richard Rushton
‘Kiarostami's _Shirin_ (2009): Imagining a debate between Jean-Luc Nancy and Gilles Deleuze’
11.45 Coffee break
12.15 Greg Tuck
‘Painted things, projected things: Vision, ontology and Merleau-Ponty's late aesthetic theory’
1.00 Lunch break
2.00 David Sorfa
‘Metaphors of Touch in Film: Moving Too Quickly from Visual Effect to Psychological Affect’
2.45 Break
3.00 Screening of extract from Innocence (dir. by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2004)
3.45 Roundtable discussion, led by Lucy Bolton, Kate Ince and Davina Quinlivan
4.45 Closing Remarks
5.00 Drinks reception