Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective

摘要

In the ever increasing number of volumes on the relationship between film and philosophy there are surprisingly few that tackle existentialism. This is surprising not least because many of the familiar films drawn upon as examples in the film philosophy field are solipsistic encounters with the meaning of life (such as Crimes and Misdemeanours and Being John Malkovich) but also because, as Boule and McCaffrey point out in their introduction, 'in the broad brush of film history, which films do not deal with existence or the human condition in some form or another?' (p. 8). This collection is welcome, then, in that it begins to examine the ways in which Sartre's existentialist philosophy might be brought alongside film in a relationship that is profitable for both.