In Movies with Stanley Cavell in Mind, some of the scholars who have become essential for our understanding of Stanley Cavell’s writing on film gather to use his landmark contributions to help us read new films—from Hollywood and elsewhere—that exist beyond his immediate reach and reading. In extending the scope of Cavell’s film philosophy, we naturally find ourselves contending with it and amending it, as the case may be. Through a series of interpretive vignettes, the group effort situates, for the expert and novitiate alike, how Cavell’s writing on film can profitably enrich one’s experience of cinema generally and also inform how we might continue the practice of serious philosophical criticism of specific films mindful of his sensibility. The resulting conversations between texts, traditions, disciplines, genres, and generations creates propitious conditions for discovering what it means to watch and listen to movies with Stanley Cavell in mind.
Edited by:
Dr. David LaRocca
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781501380167
ISBN 10: 1501380168
Pages: 360
Publication Date: 23 February 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword The Importance of Stanley Cavell for the Study of Film Sandra Laugier Introduction The Seriousness of Film Sustained David LaRocca I. The Companionship of Film and Philosophy 1. Love and Class in Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows Robert B. Pippin 2. Lévinas, Cavell, and the Films of the Dardenne Brothers William Rothman 3. The Specter of the Electronic Screen: Bruno Varela’s Reception of Cavell Byron Davies II. Recollecting and Remembering 4. The Pertinence of the Stars: Achieving Mortality in Little Did I Know and Only Angels Have Wings Steven G. Affeldt 5. In Praise of Cinema: Cavell, Arnaud Desplechin, and Telling What Counts in Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse Joseph Mai III. Rethinking Remarriage 6. Morality and Recognition: A Cavellian Reading of Elaine May’s A New Leaf Paul Schofield 7. Remarriage Comedy, the Next Generation: The Bold Pursuit of Happiness K. L. Evans IV. The Female Voice Heard Anew 8. Passionate Utterances: Cavell, Film, and the Female Voice Catherine Wheatley 9. Cavell, Altman, Cassavetes: The Melodrama of the Unknown Woman in A Woman Under the Influence and Nashville Charles Warren V. Contending with Conditions, Human and Otherwise 10. Stanley Kubrick and Stanley Cavell: Cinematic Syntax, Avoidance, and Acknowledgment David Mikics 11. The Use and Abuse of Documentary Confessionals: Cavell, Žižek, and the Possibility of Justice in The Unknown Known and The Act of Killing Amir Khan 12. Pursuits of Happiness in the Time of War: On Borhane Alaouié’s Beirut: The Encounter Daniele Rugo VI. Visibility, Audibility, and Intelligibility 13. Chantal Akerman and Stanley Cavell: Viewing in La Captive and Reviewing in Moral Perfectionism Kate Rennebohm 14. Contemplating the Sounds of Contemplative Cinema: Stanley Cavell and Kelly Reichardt David LaRocca Acknowledgments Contributors Index
DAVID LAROCCA is the author, editor, or coeditor of a dozen books. He edited The Thought of Stanley Cavell and Cinema, a commemorative issue of Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies, Inheriting Stanley Cavell, and Stanley Cavell’s Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes. He has taught philosophy and cinema and held visiting research and teaching positions at Binghamton, Cornell, Cortland, Harvard, Ithaca College, the School of Visual Arts, and Vanderbilt. www.DavidLaRocca.org
Reviews for Movies with Stanley Cavell in Mind
This volume pushes Cavellian scholarship forward, showing that the value of Cavell’s work lies not simply in understanding it but in applying it. By extending the philosopher’s methods to an exciting range of international and contemporary films, the chapters compose a timely consideration on what it is to read a film, and to read a film generously. * Kyle Stevens, Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Appalachian State University, USA * Stanley Cavell is, to my mind, the best thinker for helping us account for the power of the film experience, and the fourteen chapters collected here provide ample reason for understanding the importance of Cavell for the study of film. All of the contributors to this wonderful, collective enterprise—brought together by David LaRocca—have in a similar way encountered him and his work. Whether they are revisiting films Cavell loved or taking up the invitation to explore new films, they reveal the importance of Cavell’s writing and method. * Sandra Laugier, Professor of Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France *
