Philosophy in Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man: World, Metaphor, Interpretation

ISBN-13: 9783030124250 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 144 str.

Alberto Baracco

Opis

This book shows how a masterpiece of experimental cinema can be interpreted through hermeneutics of the film world. As an application of Ricoeurian methodology to a non-narrative film, the book calls into question the fundamental concept of the film world. Firmly rooted within the context of experimental cinema, Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man was not created on the basis of a narrative structure and representation of characters, places and events, but on very different presuppositions. The techniques with which Brakhage worked on celluloid and used frames as canvases, as well as his choice to make the film without dialogue and sound, exhort the interpreter to directly question the philosophical language of moving images.

Spis treści

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1     Theoretical Aspects and Possible Perspectives in Film Philosophy

1.2     Film Worlds Theory

1.3     Ricœurian Hermeneutics of the Film World

1.4     Some Preliminary Conclusions

 

Chapter 2 - DSM and Philosophy

2.1     DSM Through Ricœurian Hermeneutics

2.2     The Process of Interpretation

2.2.1          Phase 1: Understanding DSM’s Film World

2.2.2          Phase 2: Explaining DSM’s Film World

2.2.3          Phase 3: Critical Understanding of DSM’s Film World

2.2.4          Structure and Schemata

2.3     DSM as Film World

 

Chapter 3 - Understanding DSM’s Film World

3      

3.1     Initial Guess: Pure Visual Perception

3.2     Symbolic Elements of the Film World

3.3     DSM as Poetry of Vision

3.3.1          The Rhetorical-Stylistic Structure of DSM

3.3.2          The Rhythmic Structure of DSM

3.4     DSM as Epic Mythology

3.4.1          The Genesis

3.4.2          The Conflict

3.4.3          The Innocence

3.4.4          The Desire

3.4.5          The Death

 

Chapter 4 - Explaining DSM’s Film World

4      

5      

6      

4.1     Origin of the Film World: Deren, Duncan and Brakhage’s Heterodoxy

4.2     History of Interpretations: Camper and Sitney

4.3     Exegesis of Symbolic Meanings: Between Poetry and Myth

4.3.1     Poetry of Vision

4.3.2     Epic Mythology

4.4     Conflict of Interpretations: Is an Analytical Approach to DSM appropriate?

 

Chapter 5 - Critical Understanding of DSM’s Film World

5      

6      

7      

8      

5.1     Critical Understanding of Interpretation: Further Clues on DSM’s Film World

5.2     Critical Understanding of Interpreter: Mythopoesis

5.3     Critical Understanding of Film Philosophy: Rejection of Logocentric Metaphysics

 

Chapter 6 - Conclusion

6      

7      

8      

9      

10      

6.1     A Summary of our Journey into DSM’s Film World

6.2     A Last Remark on Ricœurian Film Hermeneutics

O autorze

Alberto Baracco conducts research on film, film philosophy and film ecocriticism at the University of Torino, Italy.

 

Blurb

This book shows how a masterpiece of experimental cinema can be interpreted through hermeneutics of the film world. As an application of Ricœurian methodology to a non-narrative film, the book calls into question the fundamental concept of the film world. Firmly rooted within the context of experimental cinema, Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man was not created on the basis of a narrative structure and representation of characters, places and events, but on very different presuppositions. The techniques with which Brakhage worked on celluloid and used frames as canvases, as well as his choice to make the film without dialogue and sound, exhort the interpreter to directly question the philosophical language of moving images.