Film Art And The Third Culture

In the mid-1950s C.P. Snow began his campaign against the 'two cultures' - the debilitating divide, as he saw it, between traditional 'literary intellectual' culture, and the culture of the sciences, urging in its place a 'third culture' which would draw upon and integrate the resources of disciplines spanning the natural and social sciences, the arts and the humanities. Murray Smith argues that, with the ever-increasing influence of evolutionary theory and neuroscience, and the pervasive presence of digital technologies, Snow's challenge is more relevant than ever. Working out how the 'scientific' and everyday images of the world 'hang' together is no simple matter. In Film, Art, and the Third Culture, Smith explores this question in relation to the art, technology, and science of film in particular, and to the world of the arts and aesthetic activity more generally. In the first part of his book, Smith explores the general strategies and principles necessary to build a 'third cultural' or naturalized approach to film and art - one that roots itself in an appreciation of scientific knowledge and method. Smith then goes on to focus on the role of emotion in film and the other arts, as an extended experiment in the 'third cultural' integration of ideas on emotion spanning the arts, humanities and sciences. While acknowledging that not all of the questions we ask are scientific in nature, Smith contends that we cannot disregard the insights wrought by taking a naturalized approach to the aesthetics of film and the other arts.

Murray Smith presents an original approach to understanding film. He brings the arts, humanities, and sciences together to illuminate artistic creation and aesthetic experience. His 'third culture' approach roots itself in an appreciation of scientific innovation and how this has shaped the moving media.

In 1959, C.P Snow wrote an essay entitled 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution' in which he split the intellectual world into two cultures. The first culture is scientific culture; the second culture, on the other hand, includes literary intellectuals and artists. Snow claimed that these two cultures spoke so disparate a language that communication between the two was virtually non-existent. He believed that the self-imposed barriers between science and art played a major role in society's inability to solve the world's problems. As a result, Snow anticipated the need for a 'third culture' created by curious non-scientists that would narrow this cultural divide. I propose that this third culture can be found in a medium that clearly intersects both art and science--and that medium is film. Film looks towards a variety of disciplines for inspiration and ideas and builds upon various fields in order to communicate a message. This multidisciplinary approach is the key uniting the two seemingly incongruous cultures. More specifically, the specific film medium through which the two cultures can best come together is the genre I have dubbed the "personal science film." This genre is a hybrid of the personal essay and the science documentary. This thesis will defend Snow's demand for both a scientifically and artistically literate public, analyze the historical events in which science and art have come together, and ultimately present a way in which Snow's formerly competing cultures can coexist and find common ground. I will discuss the basics of a personal science film, highlighting the many techniques required to reach a broader audience. I will demonstrate how the personal science film can bridge the gap between the artistic and scientific worlds, forming a 'third culture', and thus narrowing the "cultural divide."

A new theory of culture presented with a new method achieved by comparing closely the art and science in 20th century Austria and Hungary. Major achievements that have influenced the world like psychoanalysis, abstract art, quantum physics, Gestalt psychology, formal languages, vision theories, and the game theory etc. originated from these countries, and influence the world still today as a result of exile nurtured in the US. A source book with numerous photographs, images and diagrams, it opens up a nearly infinite horizon of knowledge that helps one to understand what is going on in today’s worlds of art and science.

Art cinema occupies a space in the film landscape that is accorded a particular kind of value. From films that claim the status of harsh realism to others which embody aspects of the tradition of modernism or the poetic, art cinema encompasses a variety of work from across the globe. But how is art cinema positioned in the film marketplace, or by critics and in academic analysis? Exactly what kinds of cultural value are attributed to films of this type and how can this be explained? This book offers a unique analysis of how such processes work, including the broader cultural basis of the appeal of art cinema to particular audiences. Geoff King argues that there is no single definition of art cinema, but a number of distinct and recurrent tendencies are identified. At one end of the spectrum are films accorded the most 'heavyweight' status, offering the greatest challenges to viewers. Others mix aspects of art cinema with more accessible dimensions such as uses of popular genre frameworks and 'exploitation' elements involving explicit sex and violence. Including case studies of key figures such as Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodóvar and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, this is a crucial contribution to understanding both art cinema itself and the discourses through which its value is established.

This eye-opening look at the intellectual culture of today--in which science, not literature or philosophy, takes center stage in the debate over human nature and the nature of the universe--is certain to spark fervent intellectual debate.

This handbook brings together essays in the philosophy of film and motion pictures from authorities across the spectrum. It boasts contributions from philosophers and film theorists alike, with many essays employing pluralist approaches to this interdisciplinary subject. Core areas treated include film ontology, film structure, psychology, authorship, narrative, and viewer emotion. Emerging areas of interest, including virtual reality, video games, and nonfictional and autobiographical film also have dedicated chapters. Other areas of focus include the film medium’s intersection with contemporary social issues, film’s kinship to other art forms, and the influence of historically seminal schools of thought in the philosophy of film. Of emphasis in many of the essays is the relationship and overlap of analytic and continental perspectives in this subject.

Cognitive Film and Media Ethics provides a grounding in the use of cognitive science to address key questions in film, television and screen media ethics. This book extends past works in cognitive media studies to answer normative and ethically prescriptive questions: what could make media morally good or bad, and what, then, are the respective responsibilities of media producers and consumers? Moss-Wellington makes a primary claim that normative propositions are a kind of rigour, in that they force media theorists to draw more active ought conclusions from descriptive is arguments. Cognitive Film and Media Ethics presents the rigours of normative reasoning, cognitive science and consequentialist ethics as complementary, arguing that each seeks progressive elaboration on their own models of causality, and causal projections are crucial for any reflection on our moral responsibilities in the world. A hermeneutics of "ethical cognitivism" is applied in the latter half of the book, with essays each addressing a different case study in film, television, news and social media: cinema that sets out to inspire moral dissonance in the viewer, satirical and humorous depictions of family drama in film and television, the politics of the romantic comedy, formal aspects of screen media bullying in an era dubbed the "television renaissance," and contemporary problems in the conflation of news and social media. Cognitive Film and Media Ethics synthesises current research in social psychology, anthropology, memory studies, emotion and cognition, personality and media selection, and evolutionary biology, integrating wide-ranging concepts from the various disciplines that make up cognitive theory to provide new vantages on the applied ethics of film and screen media.

This volume advances the contemporary debate on five central issues in the philosophy of film. These issues concern the relation between the art and technology of film, the nature of film realism, how narrative fiction films narrate, how we engage emotionally with films, and whether films can philosophize. Two new essays by leading figures in the field present different views on each issue. The paired essays contain significant points of both agreement and disagreement; new theories and frameworks are proposed at the same time as authors review the current state of debate. Given their combination of richness and clarity, the essays in this volume can effectively engage both students, undergraduate or graduate, and academic researchers.