This book examines the theory, originally raised in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of film, that cinema has the power to restore our trust in the world. Früchtl demonstrates that cinema does this in three main ways: by restoring our belief in the absurd, in the body and in a sceptical abstention from judging and acting. Cinema shares this ability with other arts, but what sets it apart in particular is that it evokes Modernity and its principle of subjectivity. This book further develops the idea of trust and cinema by synthesizing the philosophies of complementary thinkers such as Kant, Nancy, Agamben, Benjamin and Rancière. It concludes with examination of Cavell’s solution to the problem of scepticism and a synthesis of Kantian aesthetic theory with Cavellian pragmatism. Originally published in German under the title Vertrauen in die Welt, this English-language translation features a new introduction that situates Früchtl’s work within contemporary analytical philosophy of film. It will be of interest to scholars working in Continental aesthetics, philosophy of film, and film theory.
1. Gilles Deleuze and Belief in the World
2. A Struggle against Oneself: Cinema as Technology of the Self
3. The Evidence of Film and the Presence of the World: Jean-Luc Nancy’s Cineastic Ontology
4. Cinema as Human Art: Rescuing Aura in Gesture
5. Exhibiting or Presenting? Politics, Aesthetics and Mysticism in Benjamin’s and Deleuze’s Concepts of Cinema
6. Made and Yet True: On the Aesthetics of Presence of the Heroic
7. An Art of Gesture: Returning Narrative and Movement to Images
8. It Is if we Could Trust: Fiction and Aesthetics of the Political
9. All You Need is Love: Cavell and the Comedy of Remarriage of Film and Philosophy
Biography
Josef Früchtl is Professor of Philosophy of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His major research interests are aesthetics, especially the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, theories of modernity, critical theory, and the philosophy of film. He is the author of The Impertinent Self: A Heroic History of Modernity (2009).
"Josef Früchtl's book is a thoughtful addition to the ever-growing field of film and philosophy . . . This is a serious, ambitious, complex, and intriguing exploration of how the cinema offers to so many viewers an answer to skepticism." – Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"A fascinating and philosophically provocative exploration of cinema’s power to ‘restore belief in the world’, focusing not only on Deleuze’s account of modern cinema but drawing on Nancy and Cavell as well." – Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University, Australia
