Julian Hanich 
What Film Is Good For [EPUB ebook] 
On the Values of Spectatorship

For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually 
good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an answer. Their responses range from the most personal to the most theoretical—and, together, recast current debates about film ethics. Movie watching here emerges as a wellspring of value, able to sustain countless visions of ‘the good life.’ Films, these authors affirm, make us reflect, connect, adapt; they evoke wonder and beauty; they challenge and transform. In a word, its varieties of value make film 
invaluable.

 

Daftar Isi

Contents


Acknowledgments 

Foreword by Mike Figgis 


Introduction: Film Ethics as Delivering the Goods 

Martin P. Rossouw and Julian Hanich


PART ONE. ADAPTIVE GOODS

1. . . . A Portal to Another World: On Cinema, Climate Change, and a Good Apocalypse 

Jennifer Fay

2. . . . Scaling Down: On the Unsustainable Pleasure of Large-File Streaming 

Laura U. Marks

3. . . . It’s Invaluable: On Film Spectatorship in the Era of Covid-19 

Sarah Cooper

4. . . . Stabilities and Mobilities: On the Generic Values of Emplacements, Displacements,  

and Outplacements 

Timothy Corrigan


PART TWO. EMPATHETIC GOODS 

5. . . . Lies, Loops, or Liberation: On the Dis/Obedience of Feeling More 

Michele Aaron

6. . . . Public Engagement: On Postcolonial African Cinema’s Critical Value 

Litheko Modisane

7. . . . Shedding Light on Abject Lives: On Global Cinema as Ethical Art 

Seung-hoon Jeong

8. . . . Empathy: On Its Limitations and Liabilities 

Malcolm Turvey

9. . . . Political Impact: On the Societal Vibrancy of Film 

Jens Eder


PART THREE. SENSTITIVE GOODS 

10. . . . Moral Reflection: On the Reflective Afterlife of Screen Stories 

Carl Plantinga and Garrett Strpko

11. . . . Challenge and Discomfort: On Situated Elitist Pleasures in Art and Indie Film 

Geoff King

12. . . . Heterocosmic Connections: On the Many Worlds and World Values of Cinema 

Daniel Yacavone

13. . . . Depth of Experience: On Early Phenomenology and the Value of Boredom in the Cinema 

Christian Ferencz-Flatz

14. . . . Striking Beauty: On Recuperating the Beautiful in Cinema 

Julian Hanich


PART FOUR. REVIVING GOODS 

15. . . . Wondering Offscreen: On Cinema’s Transformations of Our Relation to the Unseen 

Jaimie Baron

16. . . . Coming to Wonder: On Cinema’s Renewal of Vision 

Catherine Wheatley

17. . . . Moral Improvement: On How Watching Films Might Make Us Better People 

Thomas E. Wartenberg

18. . . . Cinematic Ethics: On Film as Transformative Experience 

Robert Sinnerbrink

19. . . . Spiritual Exercises Before a Screen: On “Film as Philosophy” and Its Transformational 

Ethics 

Martin P. Rossouw


PART FIVE. COMMUNAL GOODS 

20. . . . Remembrance and Reflection: On Social Justice Cinema in the #Black Lives Matter Era 

Maryann Erigha Lawer

21. . . . Making Movie Generations: On the Cultural Work of Hollywood Remaking 

Kathleen Loock

22. . . . Reaching Unlettered Audiences: On Global Blockbuster Cinema and Its Oral Affinities 

Sheila J. Nayar

23. . . . Love of Community and Reality: On André Bazin and the Good of Cinema 

Dudley Andrew


PART SIX. MEDIAL GOODS 

24. . . . Projection and Protection: On Cinemagoing as Playing Hide-and-Seek with Reality 

Francesco Casetti

25. . . . An Animated and Animating Medium: On Hegel, Adorno, and the Good of Film 

Nicholas Baer

26. . . . The Bigger Picture: On Watching Films on a Cinema Screen 

Martine Beugnet

27. . . . Quality Time: On Resisting What’s Next, or Staying with the Credits 

Tiago de Luca


PART SEVEN. UNSETTLED GOODS 

28. . . . Wanton Destruction: On Cinema’s Antisocial Thrills 

Adrian Martin

29. . . . Alienating Interventions: On What the “Bad” in David Lynch’s Films Is “Good” For 

Annie van den Oever and Dominique Chateau

30. . . . Dangerous Situations: On Whether Cinema Is Poisonous 

Michel Chion

31. . . . Good for Nothing? On How Films Help Us through the Night 

Tom Gunning

32. . . . Medium-Sized Matters: On Whether Cinema Has Made Any Difference 

Mark Cousins


Afterword by Radu Jude 

List of Contributors 

Index 

 

Tentang Penulis

Julian Hanich is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Groningen. He is author of The Audience Effect: On the Collective Cinema Experience and Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear.Martin P. Rossouw is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Image Studies at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is author of Transformational Ethics of Film: Thinking the Cinemakeover in the Film-Philosophy Debate.