European cinema and continental philosophy
film as thought experiment

This groundbreaking volume for the Thinking Cinema series focuses on the extent to which contemporary cinema contributes to political and philosophical thinking about the future of Europe's core Enlightenment values. In light of the challenges of globalization, multi-cultural communities and post-nation state democracy, the book interrogates the borders of ethics and politics and roots itself in debates about post-secular, post-Enlightenment philosophy. By defining a cinema that knows that it is no longer a competitor to Hollywood (i.e. the classic self-other construction), Elsaesser also thinks past the kind of self-exoticism or auto-ethnography that is the perpetual temptation of such a co-produced, multi-platform 'national cinema as world cinema'. Discussing key filmmakers and philosophers, like: Claire Denis and Jean-Luc Nancy; Aki Kaurismäki, abjection and Julia Kristeva; Michael Haneke, the paradoxes of Christianity and Slavoj Zizek; Fatih Akin, Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière, Elsaesser is able to approach European cinema and assesses its key questions within a global context. His combination of political and philosophical thinking will surely ground the debate in film philosophy for years to come.

Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Series page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 European Cinema into the Twenty- first Century Enlarging the Context? -- 2 Film as Thought The 'Film and Philosophy' Debate -- Introduction -- Film and philosophy: a new alliance or old friends? -- A new ontology of film -- The wider horizon: what is cinema good for? -- Cinema - humanism's last hope or the true face of technological determinism? -- The film that thinks -- The mind-game film -- Automatism: after Deleuze -- Trust and belief in the world -- From the animated to the automated -- Conclusion -- 3 Film as Thought Experiment -- European films as thought experiments -- The always imperfect actuality: Melancholia and The White Ribbon as thought experiments -- The Dardenne Brothers -- Conclusion -- 4 'Europe'A Thought Experiment -- Political Europe as a philosophical issue -- Three Colours: Blue, White, Red -- Democracy deficit, liberty and the empty centre -- The multicultural deficit -- Inclusion/exclusion -- The Other, the stranger, the neighbour -- Does ethics precede politics or does politics exceed ethics? -- Human rights: beyond politics or bound by politics? -- The politics of victimhood -- Homo sacer and bare life -- Mutual interference in the internal affairs of the Other -- The third deficit: equality - social justice or radical equality -- Jacques Rancière and radical equality -- Summary: what is Europe as a thought experiment? -- 5 A Cinema of Abjection? -- Two films from Cannes -- Cinemas of abjection: B é la Tarr, Pedro Costa - Michael Haneke, Agnès Varda -- Abjection defined and retained -- The abject in art -- The abject in political theology and ethics -- Abject nations? -- Abject reciprocity as 'relations without relations' -- The abject in American cinema -- Abject spectatorship in European cinema -- The abject is not a victim -- Abjection as withdrawal: the cinema of the Dardenne Brothers -- Abjection: a Europe on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- Conclusion

6 Post-heroic Narratives and the Community to Come -- European cinema does not exist -- The 'European' community: heroicand post-heroic narratives -- Jean-Luc Nancy and the inoperative community -- 7 Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy and Beau Travail -- Becoming abject -- 8 Hitting Bottom Aki Kaurismäki and the Abject Subject - The Man Without A Past -- Post-human, post humous and post-mortem agency -- Mutual interference -- Staying outside without stepping outside -- Abjection and the abject subject -- Amnesia: a productive pathology -- Conclusion -- 9 'Experimenting with Death in Life'Fatih Akin and the Ethical Turn -- Prelude -- The ethical turn -- 'Auf der anderen Seite': Jacques Rancière -- 'Auf der anderen Seite': Fatih Akin -- The third part(y): Alain Badiou and the nature of 'evil' -- 10 Black Suns and a Bright Planet Lars von Trier's Melancholia as Thought Experiment -- End-of-the-world movies -- Cosmic and man-made disasters -- End of cinema? -- Cinema as thought experiment -- 'What if . . .' -- Critical contexts, hermeneutic moves and frames of reference -- Male and female depression - with Lacan, Žižek and Stanley Cavell -- Julia Kristeva's Black Sun of Melancholia -- The maternal in Melancholia -- The anatomy of melancholy and the autonomy of art -- Thought experiments and mathematical game theory -- Cinema/melancholy -- 11 Anatomy Lesson of A Vanished Country Christian Petzold's Barbara -- Abject bodies, abject nation -- Authorial identity -- A thought experiment -- Barbara: rebel among the resigned or abject among abjects? -- Anatomy lesson -- 12 Control, Creative Constraints and Self-Contradiction The Global Auteur -- The author: impossible and indispensable -- Questions of access and control -- Double occupancy, self-exoticism and 'serving two masters' -- Creative constraints -- The auteur as Ulysses -- Creative constraints and the author function:beyond self-expression and genre -- Performative self-contradiction -- Michael Haneke -- From 'servant of two masters' to 'performative self-contradiction': the philosophical turn -- Bibliography -- Filmography -- Index