Abstract

In my review, I analyze the main points of Shawn Loht’s book “Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience” (2017), in which the author makes not only an attempt to develop the phenomenology of cinema, but also to substantiate it as a kind of philosophy—philosophy through watching a movie. The content of the book can be reduced to three major components: 1) clarifying M. Heidegger’s attitude to cinema and evaluating the contribution of his philosophy to the analysis of cinema; 2) revealing cinema viewing as one of the ways of human existence; 3) substantiating cinema art as revealing the truth of being. To implement these tasks, Sh. Loht develops the phenomenology of cinema as a kind of cinema philosophy. Despite the fact that Heidegger expressed his negative attitude towards cinema and photography in his work “Time of the World Picture,” since they serve to technically represent the world, turn it into a picture and strengthen the position of a person as a representative subject, Loht substantiates the understanding of cinema as an artistic creation, which, according to Heidegger’s philosophy of art, reveals the truth of being. Using such concepts of Heidegger’s presence analytics as being-in-the-world, project, understanding, disposition, interpretation, speech, S. Loht describes the motion picture as a thing in the world that Dasein encounters, and the cinematic experience as a way of human existence. The author understands phenomenology as a method that focuses on phenomena as a person experiences them. Loht concludes that movies are fundamentally phenomenological. The subject of the phenomenology of cinema is the space between the viewer and the screen, the discovery and understanding that the viewer produces. The phenomenology of cinema is the phenomenology of the presence of the moviegoer. The core question is, is it possible to philosophize with the help of cinema? Loht answers in the affirmative, but this philosophizing will be phenomenology. The viewer philosophizes while watching the film, which is based on the self-understanding of the presence, the philosophical reflections of the viewer are caused by the film.