On Film (Thinking in Action) Book

Few movies of recent times have caught and shocked our imagination as the Alien cinematic quartet and the quest of Sigourney Weaver's Flight Lieutenant Ellen Ripley. But what deeper issues about the nature of film and philosophy does the Alien story raise? On Film shows how these films are themselves examples of philosophy in action. By bringing a philosopher's eye to film, Stephen Mulhall reflects on what these films tell us about the relation of human identity to the body, explores the nature of sequeldom and how the Alien narrative renews itself over time, and asks what logic, if any, underlies the apparently Darwinian universe the alien beings inhabit. He also asks if it is significant that each film belonged to a different director, and in what sense that director is the film's "author." Throughout, he asks w the timely question of what it means to read a film on its own terms, before we excitedly read theories into it.Read More