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Devotional Cinema
Literary Nonfiction. Cinema Studies. Second, Revised Edition. Offered here in Spring 2005, this new edition has new text added based on the new availability of Yasujiro Ozu's extand works. "I felt inspired to improve the description of The Only Son and deepen my thoughts about Ozu in general," write Nathaniel Dorsky in the new preface. He has been making and exhibiting films within the avant-garde tradition since 1964.
For film to have a devotional quality both absolute and relative time must be active and present not only present but functioning simultaneously and invigorating one another. Transformative film rests in the present and respects the delicate details of its own unfolding."
For film to have a devotional quality both absolute and relative time must be active and present not only present but functioning simultaneously and invigorating one another. Transformative film rests in the present and respects the delicate details of its own unfolding."
54 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
June 16, 2010
I put this on the theater shelf because, though it is technically about film and not theater, the ideas, and, more importantly, the attitude, apply beautifully to theater and performance. This little gem is a lecture Dorsky, the experimental filmmaker gave at Princeton in 2001. Dorsky lays out a rarely found pathway from art into meaning, which he refers to as religion. The book is about finding a way of using film to study life, and of using the viewing of film to be more than a reflection of life but a state-changing experience, more than metaphor and other than ritual. Dorsky speaks at length about the Self-Symbol, meaning a thing that is shown not as symbolic of another thing, but as itself but with the weight of meaning that symbolism imbues. He gives examples (now I want to go watch all the films he mentions) and moves from generalities to specifics and back. The practical matters of his claims are things I have no practitioner's knowledge of, but a filmmaker could easily undertake a study based on this book of how to effect more meaningful cinema. More important to me is the attitude with which he approaches his work - his is an approach that presupposes that there is a way that his work could align with the materiality and sensuality of our own existence and therefrom unlock spiritual possibilities in us. We should wish to be able to do this in any art form.
October 7, 2013
The first time I read this book, a year and a half ago, I gave it 3 stars. I found it interesting, but it didn't really speak to me. Part of it was that I was turned off by Dorsky's religious perspective and some of his more "woo woo" language (he starts the book by talking about how bad art can be damaging to your health), and I objected to his Buddhist-influenced goal of making films that allow us to "accept the world as it is," which I saw as conservative.
But looking back on it, I think another reason I rejected this book was that at the time, I was still clinging onto a didactic, overly conceptual idea of filmmaking that Dorsky rejects. As he says in the book, "It is the fear of direct contact with the uncontrollable present that motivates the flight into concept. The filmmaker seeks the safety net of an idea, or something to accomplish what is already known."
Returning to the book now, I'm astounded at how much my own perspective has come to align with Dorsky's.
Don't be scared away by the book's title. It's not really about religion at all, and even the explicitly new-agey bits aren't pronounced enough to take away from the rest. The book's real subject is a classic philosophical dichotomy. For Dorsky, the best films strike a reciprocal balance between the subjective and the objective, the real and the ideal, material and concept.
But looking back on it, I think another reason I rejected this book was that at the time, I was still clinging onto a didactic, overly conceptual idea of filmmaking that Dorsky rejects. As he says in the book, "It is the fear of direct contact with the uncontrollable present that motivates the flight into concept. The filmmaker seeks the safety net of an idea, or something to accomplish what is already known."
Returning to the book now, I'm astounded at how much my own perspective has come to align with Dorsky's.
Don't be scared away by the book's title. It's not really about religion at all, and even the explicitly new-agey bits aren't pronounced enough to take away from the rest. The book's real subject is a classic philosophical dichotomy. For Dorsky, the best films strike a reciprocal balance between the subjective and the objective, the real and the ideal, material and concept.
September 28, 2013
Beautiful and poignant - wrestles with questions of intersubjectivity, constructed meaning, and the prepredicative in the arts and makes a convincing case for the urgency of experimental film.
November 17, 2023
"Devotion is not an idea or sentiment. It is born out of the vastness and depth of our view. Out of darkness, behind all light, this vastness abides in nowness. It reveals our world. It is humbling and accurate and yet, for all its pervasiveness, it is not solid."
January 31, 2022
A fucking relevation
July 9, 2023
“When film…subverts our own absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world.”
March 24, 2024
“The word "devotion," as I am using it, need not refer to the embodiment of a specific religious form. Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world. It is alive as a devotional form.”
“If we do relinquish control, we suddenly see a hidden world, one that has existed all along right in front of us. In a flash, the uncanny presence of this poetic and vibrant world, ripe with mystery, stands before us. Everything is expressing itself as what it is. Everything is alive and talking to us.”
“If we do relinquish control, we suddenly see a hidden world, one that has existed all along right in front of us. In a flash, the uncanny presence of this poetic and vibrant world, ripe with mystery, stands before us. Everything is expressing itself as what it is. Everything is alive and talking to us.”
January 23, 2022
I was at Princeton when Dorsky gave this lecture but I did not hear him speak. Instead I saw him speak briefly before showing some of his films, one of which moved me intensely as just a perfect assortment of beautiful images put together as a wonderful cinematic object.
Dorsky’s main point here is that when a film avoids being a conduit for the literary and embraces itself as a medium of images complete with potential verisimilitude of human behavior, there is the possibility of something transcendent, when images move beyond story to just exist out of time as sublime art/beauty. Film at its most phenonmenalogical, say. I feel like this is a common idea (at least to me) but he articulates it very well and uses some classic films as examples.
A single lecture so a very fast read but a beautiful and engrossing one. It can remind one of those beautiful cinematic experiences that he writes about.
Dorsky’s main point here is that when a film avoids being a conduit for the literary and embraces itself as a medium of images complete with potential verisimilitude of human behavior, there is the possibility of something transcendent, when images move beyond story to just exist out of time as sublime art/beauty. Film at its most phenonmenalogical, say. I feel like this is a common idea (at least to me) but he articulates it very well and uses some classic films as examples.
A single lecture so a very fast read but a beautiful and engrossing one. It can remind one of those beautiful cinematic experiences that he writes about.
May 9, 2024
Siempre a favor de todo aquello que reinvindica la profundidad más allá de la superficie y defiende el equilibrio entre emoción y narrativa dentro de la experiencia visual.
November 4, 2024
filed under books we should've been assigned in film school. wouldn't have gotten it when i was 18 however
March 20, 2023
Quién no se ha olvidado de sus tristezas al contemplar una obra de arte, quién no se ha sentido sanado al leer y transportarse a otra realidad, al dejarse envolver por una ópera... Dorsky nos habla del cine como otro arte que coloca al espectador ante una experiencia que le va a conmover, para bien o para mal, de ahí su responsabilidad. El cine con su poder de influencia y su capacidad curativa, al poder ser capaz de reflejarnos y elevarnos en su grandeza.
"Todos hemos tenido la experiencia de salir de un cine y no querer ver a nadie, o de mirar el extraño dibujo de la alfombra, las manchas de refresco y demás, apartando los ojos de nuestros compañeros de sesión. (...) El arte ha tenido un largo historial de uso como modelo de salud. ¿Qué es aquello que, en la naturaleza del cine, puede producir buena o mala salud? Es la capacidad del cine para reflejar o reorganizar nuestro metabolismo."
Describir el mundo queda atrás, transmitir una mirada de lo que es el mundo va más allá, no se limita a reproducir, sino que crea.
"Hay una diferencia extremadamente sutil, pero importante, entre una imagen que es en sí misma un acto manifiesto de visión y una que utiliza la visión para representar el mundo."
La intermitencia como acercamiento a la visión real de las cosas y la sutileza como forma de expresar y sugerir lo no mostrado.
"La cualidad de la luz tal y como la experimentamos en el cine es la intermitencia".
(...) incluso nuestra visión parece ser intermitente, lo que explica por qué, en el cine, las panorámicas a menudo parecen artificiales o forzadas. Esto viene del hecho de que uno nunca efectúa una panorámica en la vida real."
"Un segundo aspecto tiene que ver con la naturaleza del montaje, el desarrollo de los acontecimientos o la naturaleza narrativa de nuestras vidas. (...) En cierto sentido, que la película sea verdadera tiene que confiar en su intermitencia. Su montaje tiene que presentar una sucesión de eventos visuales que sean suficientemente incompletos y al mismo tiempo poderosos como para permitir que el sentido más básico de la existencia del espectador "rellene los huecos".(...) Permitir la intermitencia en una película activa la mente del espectador."
Los tiempos relativos de las historias y el tiempo absoluto del ahora. "El ahora es siempre... el ahora."
Ozu, como máximo representante del símbolo de sí mismo, una mirada sobre lo que somos. "Cada plano, cada corte, cada personaje, cada situación de la historia, a la vez que funciona sin duda en el contexto narrativo, no se refiere a nada salvo a sí mismo. Cada momento se abre en el ámbito de lo que en realidad es." (...) "No respetar la pantalla como símbolo de sí misma es tratar a la película como un medio para la información."
Plano y cortes. Silencios y corcheas, lograr la armonía, el sentido y la belleza:
" Si se ignora lo conmovedor que un corte puede llegar a ser, o si los planos tiene tanto orgullo y están repletos de egoísmo visual como para que cortarlos se convierta en una disrupción de la propia superficie visual, entonces la delicadeza de este contrapunto no podría desarrollarse. (...) Un corte debe funcionar a nivel visual, en términos de forma,
textura, color, movimiento y peso. De algún modo el desplazamiento de un plano a otro tiene que crear una frescura visual para la psique. (...)".
"Un gran corte revela el orden inquietante y poético de las cosas."
"Todos hemos tenido la experiencia de salir de un cine y no querer ver a nadie, o de mirar el extraño dibujo de la alfombra, las manchas de refresco y demás, apartando los ojos de nuestros compañeros de sesión. (...) El arte ha tenido un largo historial de uso como modelo de salud. ¿Qué es aquello que, en la naturaleza del cine, puede producir buena o mala salud? Es la capacidad del cine para reflejar o reorganizar nuestro metabolismo."
Describir el mundo queda atrás, transmitir una mirada de lo que es el mundo va más allá, no se limita a reproducir, sino que crea.
"Hay una diferencia extremadamente sutil, pero importante, entre una imagen que es en sí misma un acto manifiesto de visión y una que utiliza la visión para representar el mundo."
La intermitencia como acercamiento a la visión real de las cosas y la sutileza como forma de expresar y sugerir lo no mostrado.
"La cualidad de la luz tal y como la experimentamos en el cine es la intermitencia".
(...) incluso nuestra visión parece ser intermitente, lo que explica por qué, en el cine, las panorámicas a menudo parecen artificiales o forzadas. Esto viene del hecho de que uno nunca efectúa una panorámica en la vida real."
"Un segundo aspecto tiene que ver con la naturaleza del montaje, el desarrollo de los acontecimientos o la naturaleza narrativa de nuestras vidas. (...) En cierto sentido, que la película sea verdadera tiene que confiar en su intermitencia. Su montaje tiene que presentar una sucesión de eventos visuales que sean suficientemente incompletos y al mismo tiempo poderosos como para permitir que el sentido más básico de la existencia del espectador "rellene los huecos".(...) Permitir la intermitencia en una película activa la mente del espectador."
Los tiempos relativos de las historias y el tiempo absoluto del ahora. "El ahora es siempre... el ahora."
Ozu, como máximo representante del símbolo de sí mismo, una mirada sobre lo que somos. "Cada plano, cada corte, cada personaje, cada situación de la historia, a la vez que funciona sin duda en el contexto narrativo, no se refiere a nada salvo a sí mismo. Cada momento se abre en el ámbito de lo que en realidad es." (...) "No respetar la pantalla como símbolo de sí misma es tratar a la película como un medio para la información."
Plano y cortes. Silencios y corcheas, lograr la armonía, el sentido y la belleza:
" Si se ignora lo conmovedor que un corte puede llegar a ser, o si los planos tiene tanto orgullo y están repletos de egoísmo visual como para que cortarlos se convierta en una disrupción de la propia superficie visual, entonces la delicadeza de este contrapunto no podría desarrollarse. (...) Un corte debe funcionar a nivel visual, en términos de forma,
textura, color, movimiento y peso. De algún modo el desplazamiento de un plano a otro tiene que crear una frescura visual para la psique. (...)".
"Un gran corte revela el orden inquietante y poético de las cosas."
April 1, 2020
fun fact: i created this account mostly so that i could tell someone, anyone, how fantastic ephemeral sublime effervescent poetic beautiful wondrous luminous glancing profound affecting astounding this book is. and because of quarantine boredom. but mostly the first thing.
never have i found a piece of film theory that was so accessible, so straightforwardly written while still maintaining its poeticism and subtlety. dorsky speaks unaffectedly, without pretension or prejudice, truly from the position of a devotee. hey, you could make a religion out of this (i know i have).
like the films dorsky describes, this is far from simply being a poetic work, either. dont let the arcing language or trim length fool you: there is real substance here, a breadth of film understanding that takes years to perfect and arrive by. i am consumed by the need to see dorsky speak in person, to sit in one of his visiting lectures, or even simply to watch one of his films and hope that, by some mystic transmutative property, i will absorb even a portion of his knowledge. the fact that it might be months, if not forever, before i get to do so... otherwise, suggested viewing for this piece: andrei rublev, tarkovsky (read my writeup of it here).
the only danger here is that you may fall more in love with the text than the subjects it describes. consider it a social hazard, or something.
oh, to see the whole world reduced to light itself...!
never have i found a piece of film theory that was so accessible, so straightforwardly written while still maintaining its poeticism and subtlety. dorsky speaks unaffectedly, without pretension or prejudice, truly from the position of a devotee. hey, you could make a religion out of this (i know i have).
like the films dorsky describes, this is far from simply being a poetic work, either. dont let the arcing language or trim length fool you: there is real substance here, a breadth of film understanding that takes years to perfect and arrive by. i am consumed by the need to see dorsky speak in person, to sit in one of his visiting lectures, or even simply to watch one of his films and hope that, by some mystic transmutative property, i will absorb even a portion of his knowledge. the fact that it might be months, if not forever, before i get to do so... otherwise, suggested viewing for this piece: andrei rublev, tarkovsky (read my writeup of it here).
the only danger here is that you may fall more in love with the text than the subjects it describes. consider it a social hazard, or something.
oh, to see the whole world reduced to light itself...!
October 2, 2015
One of the most significant books or essay on Film written by a major film maker. interestingly, he does not mention any of his work or his peers in the avant-garde that is left up to us. The film makers that he does mention are Rossellini, Ozu, Antonioni, Ford, Godard and tangentially, Bresson and Tarkovsky. It is also a revision of the unmentioned Deren's ideas of vertical and horizontal.
January 21, 2008
A wonderful little book from one of the great American experimental filmmakers. This book will send you into the stratosphere.
March 21, 2010
'It is the fear of direct contact with the uncontrollable present that motivates the flight into concept.'
September 7, 2025
"the concreteness of heaven and earth, and the verticality of the human spine, are Ford's cosmic architecture. the cuts are crystalline synapses of confidence igniting the cinematic air."
August 29, 2023
This one’s gotta be a yearly re-read for me ❤️🔥❤️🔥
“The word ‘devotion’ as I am using it, need not refer to the embodiment of a specific religious form. Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world” (18).
“We are part of our experience and yet we can see through it. We can see through it, yet we are not free from it. We are both appreciators and victims of material existence” (19).
“A great cut brings forth the eerie, poetic order of things” (51).
“When a film is fully manifest it may serve as a mirror that realigns our psyches and opens us to appreciation and humility. The more film expresses itself in a manner intrinsic to its own true natureD the more it can reveal for us” (55).
“The word ‘devotion’ as I am using it, need not refer to the embodiment of a specific religious form. Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world” (18).
“We are part of our experience and yet we can see through it. We can see through it, yet we are not free from it. We are both appreciators and victims of material existence” (19).
“A great cut brings forth the eerie, poetic order of things” (51).
“When a film is fully manifest it may serve as a mirror that realigns our psyches and opens us to appreciation and humility. The more film expresses itself in a manner intrinsic to its own true natureD the more it can reveal for us” (55).
June 4, 2023
A brilliant application of late Heidegger to film? Definitely a great companion to Byung-Chul Han’s work on art, technology and culture.
Devotion…is born out of the vastness and depth of our view. Out of darkness, behind all light, this vastness abides in nowness….When a film is fully manifest it…opens us to appreciation and humility.” P.55
“If we do relinquish control, we suddenly see a hidden world, one that existed all along right in front of us. In a flash, the uncanny presence of this poetic and vibrant world, ripe with mystery, stands before us.” P.45
“[A] shot must express both the seer and what is seen, then the film’s view isn’t totally conscious…So the question becomes: how does a filmmaker selflessly unite the viewer with what is seen?” P.49
“A great cut brings forth the eerie, poetic order of things.” P.51
Devotion…is born out of the vastness and depth of our view. Out of darkness, behind all light, this vastness abides in nowness….When a film is fully manifest it…opens us to appreciation and humility.” P.55
“If we do relinquish control, we suddenly see a hidden world, one that existed all along right in front of us. In a flash, the uncanny presence of this poetic and vibrant world, ripe with mystery, stands before us.” P.45
“[A] shot must express both the seer and what is seen, then the film’s view isn’t totally conscious…So the question becomes: how does a filmmaker selflessly unite the viewer with what is seen?” P.49
“A great cut brings forth the eerie, poetic order of things.” P.51
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2022
My new bible— it’s literally about the transcendental experience of good movies. Anyone and everyone interested in making art, telling stories, or film studies (meh lol) should read, then re and re-read this little book-length essay. Just wish it were longer and referred to some more examples outside of the classic canon. But upon reading it, I could think of so many films I love that fit his idea of devotional cinema, from big-studio blockbusters to weird indie experimental things, and that’s what’s so amazing. Dorsky makes space for it all without pretension. His devotion is just to good art that makes us feel beyond ourselves.
May 11, 2023
The whole concept of devotional cinema is really interesting, especially when it comes to thinking that going to the cinema has the same conceptual framework as experiencing ritualistic events. However, many things that annoy me here are the canonical examples of film/filmmaker as what is considered a perfect representation of experiencing devotion in cinema - there is a hardcore romantic tone with these cannons that irks me. Well, perhaps it suits the concept, canon=biblical=devotion. Would love to read Nathaniel Dorsky talking about devotional cinema through his own cinema.
February 27, 2019
Excellent little book. A sample quote from the text:
"The word “devotion” need not refer to the embodiment of a specific religious form. Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world. It is alive as a devotional form".
"The word “devotion” need not refer to the embodiment of a specific religious form. Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world. It is alive as a devotional form".
February 13, 2023
Expected a bit more insight into Dorsky's particularly unique method of filmmaking, and while it does illuminate his approach to an extent, this lecture largely discusses a bigger philosophical, almost religious approach to the medium (or any kind of artmaking, really) which is the line between subjectivity and objectivity, balancing the known past and the unknown future to engage with something that is truly present.
July 3, 2019
This might work better in a longer form, with more room to expand it's arguments and more time to sit with the ideas. As a brief little bit of text it's interesting but I need more of Dworsky's idea of poetic film and more about how we can receive film and open ourselves to the experience in a devotional manner.
November 27, 2023
“Devotion is not an idea or a sentiment. It is born out of the vastness and death of our view. Out of darkness, behind all light, this vastness abides in nowness. It reveals our world. It is accurate and humbling and yet, for all its pervasiveness, it is not solid.”
(Seriously: what was in the air in early 2000s Princeton?)
One of the most delightful love letters to cinema I’ve ever read.
(Seriously: what was in the air in early 2000s Princeton?)
One of the most delightful love letters to cinema I’ve ever read.
November 6, 2024
“All is present, all is considered, all is working moment to moment. Like our hands, the trees, the drama of the seasons, and the warming and expiring heavens, the basic elements of film must partake in the beauty of the deepest practicality.“
really charming little book, glad it was gifted to me, will be referring back to it in the future for sure.
really charming little book, glad it was gifted to me, will be referring back to it in the future for sure.
January 31, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyed this. I think I’ll get a lot more out of it once I go and familiarize myself with the films he used as examples. Nonetheless it felt like this was the equivalent of a friend saying, “Just be truly yourself, man, and the right people will understand you”.
February 9, 2022
Paul Schrader recommended this in a master class and it is well worth the read. Some ideas I'd never considered before... and highlights include great analyses of sequences in The Passion of Joan of Arc and La Notte.
September 8, 2023
an excellent little book about the relationship between consciousness and cinema. dorsky charts the mechanics on how both work, and why certain ways of expressing time, image, materiality, subject, alchemy and intermittence make cinema work ...
November 28, 2018
I would get more out of this slim volume if I'd seen more of the films he discusses. Beautiful, poetic style.
December 30, 2019
This book is great. The exact thing I often look for in films.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews