Robert Pippin, "Filmed Thought: Cinema as Reflective Form" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
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What is Robert Pippin’s new book *Filmed Thought* about?
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This is New Books in Film, a podcast on the New Book Net New Books Network. I am Bill Schaefer, your host for today's podcast. I am talking today to Professor Robert Pippen. Author of Film Thought, a work in the philosophy of film, published in two thousand and twenty by the University of Chicago Press. Pippen is a philosopher known principally for his work in the area of German idealism, particularly Hegel, although he has previously published widely in film philosophy, including the Western genre, Filmoir, and Hitchcock. I should point out that Professor Pippen is currently ensconced somewhere in the depths of a forest, and that he is talking with me today over a landline which will have implications for the sound quality of this podcast.
So now to my introduction to uh the book we are discussing today, Film Thought. Each chapter in film thought treats a film in depth, including works by Hitchcock, Ray, two films apiece for these first two Malik, Sirk, Almodavar, Polansky, and the Darden Brothers. Although the book does engage with a number of philosophical concepts Particularly from the work of Hegel and Cavell, I imagine many readers will be relieved to find that it does not treat the films it addresses as mere illustrations of ideas already stated in propositional form. It does not take the form of this scenario illustrates Descartes' evil demon or this one is an example of the trolley problem. Instead, Pippen's gambit is to treat films themselves as forms of thought in their own right.
He is interested at least as much in questions of expression, the non propositional ways in which films present their worlds and ideas using camera movements, the dynamics of sound, misencen, and so on, as in correlating them with conclusions already formed within philosophy. For me this gives his writings the feeling of a genuine engagement with the potentialities of the cinema. rather than an assertion of superior knowledge. The phrase that came into my head as I read film thought with apologies to Spinoza was We do not know what a film can do. The ideas explored in film thought address such questions as the limits of moral judgment. The dimensions of cinematic irony, the critical possibilities of genre films, and the intriguing problem of unknowingness.
I found film thought constant consistently provocative and inspiring for my own work in film studies and a constant pleasure to read. Robert Pippen, welcome to New Books in Film. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about your background and you how you came to write this book that moves between the film the world the worlds of film and philosophy.
Uh well uh thank you for inviting me to do this still.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Robert Pippin’s new book *Filmed Thought* about?
0:00–13:49
2
How does Pippin explore moral judgment and cinematic irony in film?
13:49–26:39
3
What ethical questions does Pippin raise in his analysis of Hitchcock’s *Rear Window*?
26:39–41:01
4
How does Pippin define “unknowingness” and its role in Hitchcock’s *Shadow of a Doubt*?
41:01–58:18
5
What moral and political critique does Pippin find in Polanski’s *Chinatown*?
58:18–1:12:26
6
How does Pippin interpret irony and social critique in Douglas Sirk’s *All That Heaven Allows*?
1:12:26–1:25:34
7
What does Pippin say about genre irony in the Western *Johnny Guitar*?
1:25:34–1:34:15
8
How does Pippin describe cinematic intelligibility in the films of the Darden brothers?
1:34:15–1:39:34
Speakers
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