Sophia asked:

I have to make a digital movie for my philosophy class with a philosophical theme, and I have no idea
what is or is not philosophical. So, if you could help me chose some themes?

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I think there are two issues here; on one hand we can ask about the role movies play in dealing with
philosophical themes and on the other hand we can ask about the role philosophy can play in shaping
our view of the film medium.

Many movies have dealt with philosophical themes, such as freewill, the nature of consciousness,
human beings place and role in the world. The best 'philosophical movie' is in my opinion 2001 A
Space Odyssey.For a look at how philosophical concerns enter film narratives take a look at Mary
Litch's Philosophy through Filmand Christopher Falzon's Philosophy Goes to the Movies( Routledge
Press 2002). Of course at this narrative level film is part of a wider cultural milieu that also deals with
philosophical themes, including literature, theater, poetry, and music.

What then is the distinguishing feature of film that sets it apart from other mediums? The obvious
answer is that, more than merely telling a story, film deals with imagery. Or rather the image as such,
the nature of the image, the fact that it can represent the real world, but also that it can and does play
with that world, such that the image itself could become our reference point rather than what the
image is of.

Film creates Image in a way that theater, or narratives do not, even in a way that photography does
not. Why? Because in film we have a dynamic image which introduces considerations of time and
space, Here Deleuze's Cinema 1: The Movement Imageand Cinema 2: The Time Imageare key
references.

So the very fact that we make films, create these images, and what these images mean is itself a
philosophical theme. If then I had to make a digital movie with a philosophical theme, I would make a
movie about the philosophy of making movies about the nature and role of the image or perhaps the
philosophical implications of digital technology

An excellent account of the role of digital imaging plays in destabilizing our access to the world and
our assumptions about time, reality and appearances see Bernard Stiegler's essay "The Discrete
Image" in Echographies of Televisionby Derrida and Stiegler 2002, Polity Press.

Stiegler compares digital images with 'analogue reproducibility'. That is, conventional photography
and cinema. He claims that the former is immune from the so called 'objectivity of the lens', (it's the
old saying 'the camera doesn't lie') and that it is able, in a way the latter is not able, to disrupt our trust
in the past, our memories, our archives, our history. Such that the traditional link between the object
and the image of that object is broken (in fact it's the essence of the digital camera to lie, what then
becomes of the notion of the Truth when there is no longer the object of the Truth?). Stiegler
concludes, with the suggestion that " Life is always already cinema". If that is calling out for
Hollywood treatment I don't know what is.

Brian Tee