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What's a Philosopher Doing at the Movies?

<<< Philosophy professor Tom Wartenberg says you don't have to leave your brain at the box office when you watch movies. There's philosophical content in all kinds of films, he says. All that's required is watching closely, and then thinking and talking about what you've seen.

Students in some of Tom Wartenberg's philosophy courses are as likely to learn about Chaplin as Camus, Hitchcock as Hegel, and Scorsese as Spinoza. Ask him how film and philosophy are related, and he smiles. "People think of philosophers as sitting in their studies contemplating eternal verities, and believe that is very different from the here-and-now of film, but the two really aren't worlds apart," Wartenberg says. It seems a natural duo to the cochair of the film studies minor and teacher of courses on philosophy and film.

He says there's philosophical content in all kinds of films, from "art" films like Breaking the Waves to popular movies such as Moonstruck. All that's required is watching closely and then thinking and talking about how the filmmaker is approaching issues. "One of the pleasures of film for me is talking about it afterwards, and I see classroom discussion as an extension of that," Wartenberg adds.

His students get plenty of opportunity for such discussions, since he uses films in various courses. In History of Modern Philosophy, Wartenberg evokes medieval times by showing The Name of the Rose. In his film courses, he sometimes chooses movies that illustrate philosophical ideas (Kurosawa's Rashomon, for example, portrays philosophical relativism by viewing a crime from four perspectives). On other occasions, his students look at movies as works of art and ask questions such as "What makes a film good or bad?"

Students should pay attention to a film's content and form, he says. "I became interested in films for their ideas, but the more I study film, the more I appreciate the craft of it. If you separate the craft from the ideas, you ignore the way the medium of film transmits ideas to the audience."

Wartenberg aims to show students a range of films they don't have access to at malls, and is happy when they realize how great these films can be. For example, recent classes were fascinated with Chaplin's comedies, which many had never seen before. Wartenberg admits, though, that some students think he chooses films that have only philosophical interest. (They hated Goddard's Weekend.) But it was two "mall movies," White Palace and Pretty Woman, that sparked Wartenberg's next book. It's about "transgressive couples," he explains, cross-class, homosexual, or interracial pairs and the way films use them to make social commentary.

"You don't have to rent The Seventh Seal and discuss whether or not there is a God" to look at films philosophically, Wartenberg says. "You can look at any film and reflect on what it's saying about our society."