Engaging the Moving Image (Yale Series in the Philosophy and Theory of Art)

Noël Carroll, a brilliant and provocative philosopher of film, has gathered in this book eighteen of his most recent essays on cinema and television—what Carroll calls “moving images.” The essays discuss topics in philosophy, film theory, and film criticism. Drawing on concepts from cognitive psychology and analytic philosophy, Carroll examines a wide range of fascinating topics. These include film attention, the emotional address of the moving image, film and racism, the nature and epistemology of documentary film, the moral status of television, the concept of film style, the foundations of film evaluation, the film theory of Siegfried Kracauer, the ideology of the professional western, and films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yvonne Rainer. Carroll also assesses the state of contemporary film theory and speculates on its prospects. The book continues many of the themes of Carroll’s earlier work __Theorizing the Moving Image__ and develops them in new directions. A general introduction by George Wilson situates Carroll’s essays in relation to his view of moving-image studies. Contents 7 Foreword 9 Introduction 21 Chapter 1. Forget the Medium! 29 Chapter 2. Film, Attention, and Communication: A Naturalistic Account 38 Chapter 3. Film, Emotion, and Genre 87 Chapter 4. Ethnicity, Race, and Monstrosity: The Rhetorics of Horror and Humor 116 Chapter 5. Is the Medium a (Moral) Message? 136 Chapter 6. Film Form: An Argument for a Functional Theory of Style in the Individual Film 155 Chapter 7. Introducing Film Evaluation 175 Chapter 8. Nonfiction Film and Postmodernist Skepticism 193 Chapter 9. Fiction, Nonfiction, and the Film of Presumptive Assertion: Conceptual Analyses 221 Chapter 10. Photographic Traces and Documentary Films: Comments for Gregory Currie 253 Chapter 12. The Essence of Cinema? 283 Chapter 13. TV and Film: A Philosophical Perspective 293 Chapter 14. Kracauer’s Theory of Film 309 Chapter 15. Cinematic Nation Building: Eisenstein’s The Old and the New 331 Chapter 16. The Professional Western: South of the Border 351 Chapter 17. Moving and Moving: From Minimalism to Lives of Performers 373 Chapter 18. Prospects for Film Theory: A Personal Assessment 385 Credits 429 Index 431

In 1936, twenty-year-old Edward Weismiller became the youngest poet to win the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. Today, more than sixty years later, he retains that distinction. Yale University Press here reintroduces Edward Weismiller - now the oldest living Younger Poet - with the publication of his latest book of poetry. Weismiller’s is "a talent that has kept faith with itself and its sources," says W. S. Merwin, current judge of the Younger Poets Series.

In Walking Toward the Sun, youthful lyricism has given way to plainness of speech - even spareness. These poems are honest and unflinching, always striking in their prosody. They will remind some readers of Yeats, for they convey nobility in the face of old age, infirmity, and disappointment. Weismiller sings powerfully about a world of loss, but he is never grim or despairing. The poet in old age remains hopeful, open to possibility, and always aware of beauty in the smallest places.

Noël Carroll, film philosopher, has gathered in this book 18 of his most recent essays on cinema and television - what Carroll calls 'moving images'. The essays discuss topics in philosophy film theory, and film criticism