Cavellian Fantasy Film Criticism

This chapter explains Cavell’s notion that reality and fantasy coexist in our world and the world on film. It begins by examining the close relationship that he believes exists between thinking about certain kinds of philosophical problems in the fields of epistemology and ethics and the study of films. This relationship is encapsulated in his often-quoted statement that, “film is a moving image of skepticism.” The first section discusses Cavell’s realist conception of the relationship between a photographically-based image of the world and the world itself and his views on philosophical skepticism and its basis in language use. The second section provides a detailed overview of Cavell’s philosophical film criticism. He interprets specific films in ways that illuminate how those films can be said to engage in philosophy. Cavell’s film criticism also contains an important evaluative dimension which involves judgements about the aesthetic qualities of a film, both in terms of the film itself and how those aesthetic qualities relate to other films.