Description
Book SynopsisDaniel Shaw is Professor of Philosophy at Lock Haven University, USA. He is the author of Film and Philosophy: Taking Movies Seriously (2008) and Morality and the Movies: Reading Ethics Through Film (Bloomsbury, 2012) and is editor of Film and Philosophy.
Trade ReviewDan Shaw writes intelligently and insightfully about the intersection between film and philosophy. This book is a treat not only for scholars but for everybody who loves film. -- Sander Lee, Professor of communication and Philosophy, Keene State College, USA, and author of 'Woody Allen’s Angst'
Juxtaposing a set of well-known films with the theories of the central Existentialist philosophers from Arthur Schopenhauer to Simone de Beauvoir,
Movies with Meaning explains not just how films raise significant philosophical issues, but also the ongoing relevance of films to understanding Existentialist thought. Anyone interested in Existentialism should read Shaw’s insightful accounts of films such as
Hud and
Missing in order to see how these films shed light on this important tradition of philosophical thought. -- Thomas E. Wartenberg, Research Professor of Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, USA
A wonderful introduction to existentialism and many of the excellent movies that embody this powerful current of thought. With incisive overviews of key existentialist and critical thinkers (Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Foucault), coupled with illuminating philosophical discussions of contemporary films across a range of genres (
Blade Runner, The Thin Red Line, Waking Life, Husbands and Wives, Michael Collins, and
Revolutionary Road), Shaw’s
Movies with Meaning offers an engaging and exciting foray into the world of film and philosophy for anyone interested in existential questions today. * Robert Sinnerbrink, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Macquarie University, Australia *
In this engagingly written survey of existentialism, Shaw (communication and philosophy, Lock Haven Univ.) links central concepts from several key thinkers (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, and Foucault) with a dozen different films, in each case explaining how the film both illustrates and illuminates what the philosopher had in mind … Shaw’s writing is clear and his comments are insightful. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Why Existentialism and Film? 1 Dreams, Illusions and Will in Waking Life and Studies in Pessimism 2 Egoism in Max Stirner’s The Ego and His Own and in Hud 3 Kierkegaard and Bergman on Faith and Despair 4 Howard Rourke as Nietzschean Overman in The Fountainhead 5 Being-Towards-Death in Blade Runner: Angst, Authenticity and Care 6 Heidegger’s Poetics and the Truth of War in The Thin Red Line 7 Absurdity and Suicide in Leaving Las Vegas and The Myth of Sisyphus 8 Rebellion and Murder in Missing and Camus’s The Rebel 9 Sartrean Romantic Pessimism in Husbands and Wives 10 Sartre and the Justice of Violent Rebellion in Michael Collins 11 De Beauvoir’s Fight against Gender Stereotypes and Revolutionary Road 12 Foucault’s Madness and Civilization and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Afterword: Existential Philosophies and the Movies that Embody Them Notes Index
