Archive for: Текстови објављени у часопису Култура на српском накнадно преведени на стране језике

In this paper we deal with the problem of how viewers interpret feature films. In elaborating the nature of human knowledge of the outside world, we used the P. F. Strawson’s ideas about the primary logical position of material bodies and persons. Our starting position is that in understanding film fiction, viewers build a diegetic world, whose perception carries strong correlation with how the humans perceive reality. This gave us an opportunity to understand the relationship between situation models that are used to categorize the multiplicity of objects on the film screen, or the basic particulars as Strawson named them. Our goal here is to account for sudden shifts in film narration, which often force viewers to radically reorganize their spatial-temporal grid, and the objects it comprises. We want to explain how the change of position and function of one object, or a series of spatially or causally connected objects are sufficient to cause a momentary wholesome change of the situation model, and consequently the perspective through which spectators organize the conceptual field related to the film narration they are facing. Recognizing sight gags as particularly complex narrative figure, the paper describes the doubling of situation models by viewers interpreting specific sight gags. A result of this doubling is the incongruity registered by the viewer, who thus gains an analytical insight into the structure and functioning of individual situation models. To achieve this we analyzed several segments of films made by Buster Keaton in the 1920s.

In this article the role of thought experiments in philosophy will be considered as well as the possibility to show these experiments on movie screens. Thought experiments as mental models can create a fertile connection between philosophy and film, mind and sight, concept and image. First, a short typology of thought experiments which are suitable for filmic interpretation will be given, especially those experiments which are dealing with the problems of annulling the difference between reality and fiction, problems of personal identity and ethical paradoxes. Some of these thought experiments will be illustrated on the example of three movies (Vertigo, The Matrix, and No Country for Old Men). Hitchcock’s Vertigo shows how one person who plays the role of another person can gradually lose sight of the difference between him/her and the taken personality – this identification has tragic consequences for the main characters in the movie. In their science-fiction trilogy, The Matrix, the Wachowski Brothers explore the possibility that human consciousness is manipulated by some intelligent machines and make implicit use of a philosophical thought experiment as presented in Hilary Putnam’s work Reason, Truth and History (the case of “brains in a vat”). The Coen Brothers are thematizing an ethical paradox in No Country for Old Men: Is it possible for a killer to act in accordance with categorical principles? If this is true, should we endorse such behavior? The end of the article briefly discusses a potential heuristic and didactic relevance of the filmic interpretation of thought experiments for philosophy.