Being and Film: A Fictive Ontology of Film in Tarkovsky’s Solaris

by Christine Reeh-Peters

This book develops the so-called solaristic ontology of film by building a philosophical system based on an inquiry into the nature of film, being and reality. This solaristic system appropriates the aesthetic ideas and principles of thought present in the 1972 sci-fi movie Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky. This movie is the main center of analysis here since it is highly symptomatic of the mediums philosophical self-reflexivity and its intriguing correlation with reality and being. The solaristic science is a fictional science introduced in the movies diegesis and dedicated to the investigation of the planet Solaris, an unattainable challenge. In this sense, the solaristic system closes the films narrative by telling a philosophical story on the planet Solaris. The book thus details a philosophical form of concept art, and, at the same time, builds on previous results of film philosophy, as well as the speculative turn in contemporary philosophy.

186 pages, Hardcover

Published March 22, 2021