The Worldhood of the Cinematic Image

A close analysis of the specifically cinematographic procedure in Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Dream’ Crows reveals it as an articulated and insightful philosophical statement, endowed with general relevance concerning ‘natural’ perception, phenomenological Erlebnis, mechanical image and aesthetic rapture. The antagonism between the Benjaminian lineage of a mechanical irreducibility of the cinematic image to anthropocentric categories, and the Cartesian tradition of a film-philosophy still relying on the equally irreducible structure of the intentional act, be it the one of a deeply embodied and enworlded counsciousness, in accounting for the essential structure of film and spectator (and their relation), i.e., the antagonism between the decentering primacy of the image and the self-centered primacy of perception, cannot be settled through a simple Phenomenological shift from occularcentric, intentional counsciousness to its embodyment ‘in-the-world’ as yet another carrier of intentionality. Still it remains to be explained what is it in the mechanical image that is able to so deeply affect the human flesh, and conversely, to what features in the human bodily experience is its mechanical other, the fascinating image, so successfuly adressing? It should be expected from the anti-Cartesianism of both the early and the late Merleau-Ponty the textual support for an approach to the essential condition of passivity in movie watching, that would be convergent with Benjamin. The Chapter ‘Le sentir’, in Phénoménologie de la perception, will offer us the proper guide to elucidate what we are already perceiving and conceiving in Kurosawa’s film, where the ex-static phenomenological body of the aesthetical contemplator ‘enters the frame’ like the Benjaminian surgeon enters the body and like the painter - and always already like our deepest level of ‘sensing’, previously to any act of cousciousness - ‘just looses himself in the scene before him’. The Polichinello secret of cinema watching is nonetheless too evident to be seen, and that is where Phenomenological description and reduction are still required.

O cinema como recurso pedagógico na aula de história

Este estudo pretendeu pesquisar acerca da influência do cinema histórico de ficção na construção do conhecimento histórico de alunos de História A do Ensino Secundário. Foi realizado com uma turma do 10º ano de escolaridade de 20 alunos e foi antecedido de um estudo prévio. O trabalho baseou-se no visionamento do filme "O Gladiador" e na realização de fichas de trabalho: a "Ficha de Enquadramento Histórico do Filme", para contextualizar a época histórica em que decorria o filme; a "Ficha de Análise do Filme”, para recolha de dados e finalmente a "Ficha de Trabalho de Comparação entre Fontes Históricas e o Filme". As respostas fornecidas pelos alunos foram organizadas em categorias. Para as perguntas que pediam uma resposta mais directa e simples foram criadas três categorias: básica primária, básica secundária e definição elaborada. Para as perguntas que exigiam uma resposta mais complexa criaram-se cinco categorias: incoerente, básica primária, básica secundária, definição emergente e definição elaborada. As principais conclusões foram: a) o cinema de ficção desempenha um importante contributo na construção do conhecimento histórico dos alunos do ensino secundário; b) o visionamento de filmes de ficção na aula de História deve ser acompanhado com o confronto de fontes históricas para os alunos distinguirem ficção de conhecimento histórico; c) o cinema desempenha um papel muito importante no desenvolvimento das competências específicas de História do Ensino Secundário e do espírito crítico dos alunos; entre outras. / ABSTRACT: This study aimed to understand the influence of historical fiction movies in historical knowledge of students in History of Secondary Education. The study was conducted with a group of 20 students of the 1O th grade and was preceded by a preliminary study. The work was based on viewing the film Gladiator and on worksheets: A "Historical Background" to contextualize the historical era of the movie, the "The analysis of the Movie" to collect data and finally the “Comparison of Historical Sources and movie” worksheet to analyze distinguish fiction from historical knowledge. The responses given by students were categorized: for questions that asked for a more direct and simple answer were created three categories: Basic; Primary; Definition elaborated. For questions requiring a more complex answer were created five categories Incoherent; Basic; Primary; Emergent and Elaborated. The main conclusions were: a) the film fiction has an important contribution to historical knowledge of secondary school students, b) using films in history lessons should be accompanied with a comparison of historical sources for students to distinguish fiction from historical knowledge, c) the film plays an important role in the development of specific skills for the History of Secondary Education and the students' critical thinking, among others.

‘Crows’ vs. ‘Avatar’, or: 3D vs. total-dimensional immersion

3D film’s explicit new space depth arguably provides both an enhanced realistic quality to the image and a wealth of more acute visual and haptic sensations (a ‘montage of attractions’) to the increasingly involved spectator. But David Cronenberg’s related ironic remark that ‘cinema as such is from the outset a «special effect»’ should warn us against the geometrical naiveté of such assumptions, within a Cartesian ocularcentric tradition for long overcome by Merleau-Ponty’s embodiment of perception and Deleuze’s notion of the self-consistency of the artistic sensation and space. Indeed, ‘2D’ traditional cinema already provides the accomplished «fourth wall effect», enclosing the beholder behind his back within a space that no longer belongs to the screen (nor to ‘reality’) as such, and therefore is no longer ‘illusorily’ two-dimensional. This kind of totally absorbing, ‘dream-like’ space, metaphorical for both painting and cinema, is illustrated by the episode ‘Crows’ in Kurosawa’s Dreams. Such a space requires the actual effacement of the empirical status of spectator, screen and film as separate dimensions, and it is precisely the 3D caracteristic unfolding of merely frontal space layers (and film events) out of the screen towards us (and sometimes above the heads of the spectators before us) that reinstalls at the core of the film-viewing phenomenon a regressive struggle with reality and with different degrees of realism, originally overcome by film since the Lumière’s Arrival of a Train at Ciotat seminal demonstration. Through an analysis of crucial aspects in Avatar and the recent Cave of Forgotten Dreams, both dealing with historical and ontological deepening processes of ‘going inside’, we shall try to show how the formal and technically advanced component of those 3D-depth films impairs, on the contrary, their apparent conceptual purpose on the level of contents, and we will assume, drawing on Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, that this technological mistake is due to a lack of recognition of the nature of perception and sensation in relation to space and human experience.