MIT: Philosophy of Film

Posted on April 6, 2009 in Filmmaking 360 | 5 Comments

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. MIT has made available free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Below we have posted videos from 2 of their courses “Philosophy of Film” an “Philosophy In Film and Other Media.” You can download these and many other courses from their site for free or view them on their YouTube Channel.

MIT 24.213 Philosophy of Film, Fall 2004
This course is a seminar on the philosophical analysis of film art, with an emphasis on the ways in which it creates meaning through techniques that define a formal structure. There is a particular focus on aesthetic problems about appearance and reality, literary and visual effects, communication and alienation through film technology.

Session 1: syllabus and course requirements, philosophy and film, student introductions, the humanist philosopher, Jean Cocteau, film as cultural communication, readings for the course, meaning and technique are inseparable

Session 2: why study film?, realism and formalism, mathematics as an abstract art form, film and photography, Beauty and the Beast, Cocteau, Citizen Kane

Session 3: Beauty and the Beast, William James, Citizen Kane

Session 4: Orson Welles, The Dead, The Magnificent Ambersons, expectations for student papers

View the complete course: http://ocw.mit.edu/24-213F04

MIT 24.209 Philosophy In Film and Other Media, Spring 2004
This course examines works of film in relation to thematic issues of philosophical importance that also occur in other arts, particularly literature and opera. Emphasis is put on film’s ability to represent and express feeling as well as cognition. Both written and cinematic works by Sturges, Shaw, Cocteau, Hitchcock, Joyce, and Bergman, among others, are considered.

Segment 1: introduction, “The Lady Eve,” movies as an art form, teaching as self-expression, philosophy in film, How can films be philosophical?, savoring films, myths and mythmaking, an overview of the semester, course expectations

Session 2: review of previous session, applying philosophical analysis to art, tree of knowledge, overlap between science technology and art, Reality Transformed, Three Philosophical Filmmakers, myth making, Hitchcock, “The Lady Eve,” myth of the whore/virgin

Session 3: Edward Song, David Levinson, focusing attention, camera work, the nature of love, ideals of romantic love, selling out in “The Lady Eve”