This book reads a series of Godard films as interventions in
contemporary debate about the language of difference. Godard has
something he wants both to preserve (singularity) and destroy (visual
and aural totalitarianism). How is it possible to speak about the
Other? How is it possible for the Other to speak? Does all speaking
about or by the Other render that speaking common, thereby rendering
what is different identical? These questions gather together a number
of issues that cross and intersect disciplinary boundaries:
signification, representation, ethics, politics, and so on. The
problematics with which Drabinski is concerned begin in the debate
between Levinas and Derrida, then later in dialogue with Blanchot and
Irigaray. To this extent, Godard is particularly well-suited as an
interlocutor. Godard's work, especially in the 1970s, is itself a
self-conscious form of philosophy. His films theorize themselves,
produce a reflexive sound-image language, and so in many ways match
the very essence of philosophy: thought thinking thought. Still, the
medium of sound and image complicates any rendering of Godard's work
as philosophy. Godard produces a philosophically significant cinematic
language, rather than simply narrating or representing philosophical
ideas in the medium of film. And this language must be taken seriously
in the context of the problem of difference. For, if difference is
concerned with signification as such, then the visual and aural retain
equal rights with writing (and all questions obtaining therein).
Indeed, if part of the problem of speaking about or by the Other is
how such speaking traffics in inscription, then cinematic language is
certainly an important - and authentically complex - intervention in
that problem. The nature of the debate in this project - how the
language of alterity is possible or impossible - immediately breaks
disciplinary borders between philosophy, literary theory, film
studies, and cultural studies. What it means to engage with film in
this context, however, is complicated. To wit, there are two standard
treatments of film in philosophy. Film is typically either an example
of a philosophical position or philosophy is used to interpret motifs,
characters, plot lines, etc. In neither case is film engaged as a form
of philosophizing itself, that is, as a language engaged with
philosophical problematics. It is articulating exactly this engagement
that this book takes as its primary task. The aim of the project is to
read Godard's work as primary texts, with all the attention due the
idiosyncratic language of those texts. Framed by the debate about
difference and signification, these primary texts register and
resonate as transformative interventions. The overarching argument of
the book is that Godard's conception and practice of cinematic
language opens new, important possibilities for thinking about radical
alterity.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781441158482
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Continuum
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter