Cinema

by Alain Badiou

For Alain Badiou, films think, and it is the task of the philosopher to transcribe that thinking. What is the subject to which the film gives expressive form? This is the question that lies at the heart of Badiou's account of cinema. He contends that cinema is an art form that bears witness to the Other and renders human presence visible, thus testifying to the universal value of human existence and human freedom. Through the experience of viewing, the movement of thought that constitutes the film is passed on to the viewer, who thereby encounters an aspect of the world and its exaltation and vitality as well as its difficulty and complexity. Cinema is an impure art cannibalizing its times, the other arts, and people - a major art precisely because it is the locus of the indiscernibility between art and non-art. It is this, argues Badiou, that makes cinema the social and political art "par excellence," the best indicator of our civilization, in the way that Greek tragedy, the coming-of-age novel and the operetta were in their respective eras.

Genres: Film, Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Alain Badiou, Ph.D., born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School EGS. Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.

Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please understand that I'm an enthralled cinephile with no formal education in the disciplines of either the cinema or philosophy both of which are Badiou's ball whack. I found Badiou's essays dense and highly politicized as well as skewed to his native French movie culture. I'm not interested in politics overmuch and I'm not especially familiar with French cinema so that's another factor in my response to this book. I didn't find many of the essays scintillating though a few of them were interesting.

I was excited to see Badiou covered some American movies such as "Perfect", "Magnolia", and "The Matrix" with varying degrees of clarity. Here's an example of his writing. It's the first paragraph on the "Matix" essay, "Against empiricism, and with Platonism, one must always verify that the visible - the apparent figure of what is certain (we must see to believe, like St. Thomas) - is really nothing but an especially aleatory index of the real." I share this to help you judge if this is the type of discussion you might find productive. It wasn't to me much to my regret.

I would also suggest a recent viewing of whatever film is understand discussion prior to reading Badiou's essay about it because he gets into specifics that can be incomprehensible unless you're very familiar with that specific movie. What is great about this book are the film suggestions. If you have knowledge and interest of French Cinema you'll probably love this book.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The seventh art” is interpreted by Alain Badiou.

The book is a series of questions mostly from Badiou’s writings. This would make a great TV interview series.

We are exposed to a different view of some of our favorite or at least well-known Cinema. Maybe a few new films will be discovered for your collection.

It was interesting to hear his insight on what film can be without regurgitating the films themselves.

If your world revolves around Cinema then this book is a must for your collection.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

a lot of the writing in here just didn't do much for me, maybe because i'm not very familiar with badiou's work. however the 70s essays from when he was extremely maoist are very sick, there's one on how to identify revisionist(in the marxist sense) films and one about the idea of progressivism in art and both are great.