Film, literature and non-cognitive affect

Abstract

In as much as the study of film has drawn in philosophy, it has tended to draw on the French and the German traditions. However, for the past twenty years an increasing literature has grown up in the Anglo-American tradition. Thanks in part to the publication of the anthology Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Theory, this has tended to be brought under the heading of ‘cognitive film theory’ (Bordwell and Carroll 1996). This, as the editors of the anthology attempt to make clear, is misleading in suggesting a common approach rather than, as is characteristic of Anglo-American philosophy, an eschewal of grand theory and a journeyman approach to problems. Having said that, the editors of the anthology provide a broad characterization of the cognitive approach which fits with the approach taken in this chapter: We think that cognitivism is best characterised as a stance. A cognitivist analysis or explanation seeks to understand human thought, emotion, and action by appeal to processes of mental representation, naturalistic processes, and (some sense of) rational agency. (Bordwell and Carroll 1996: xvi)