Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
ShareThis
Javascript must be enabled to continue!

Choisir de choisir — croire en ce monde

View through CrossRef
In the philosophy of Pascal and Kierkegaard and the cinema of Bresson and Dreyer, Deleuze finds “a strange thought,” an “extreme moralism that opposes the moral,” and a “faith that opposes religion.” This thought may be described as an immanent ethics of “choosing to choose,” such that one may thereby “believe in this world.” Pascal’s wager and Kierkegaard’s leap of faith are usually treated as exclusively theological concepts, but Deleuze—by way of a Nietzschean adaptation of Pascal and Kierkegaard—sees these concepts as a means of understanding a specific mode of existence, in which one “chooses to choose,” and thereby commits oneself to the perpetual responsibility of choosing. In the work of Dreyer and Bresson, Deleuze discovers a cinematic counterpart of this philosophy of “choosing to choose,” a cinema in which apparently religious concerns actually manifest an immanent ethics of modes of existence. This cinema highlights the fundamental vocation of modern cinema, which is to make possible a “belief in this world.” The problem facing modern directors is that the world seems nothing but a bad film, a collection of predictable and empty clichés devoid of any possibility of genuine creativity. Modern cinema’s answer to this challenge is to disrupt conventional ways of seeing and disclose already present alternatives to those conventions, such that new possibilities of existence are suggested. In this way, modern cinema allows a revived “belief in this world.” No longer a world of clichés, the world as transformed through modern cinema is one in which new modes of existence are envisioned, modes based on an ethics of perpetually “choosing to choose.” This cinematic ethics finally provides a means of understanding the proper relationship between cinema and philosophy, both of which have a common purpose, even if they have separate spheres of activity.
Consortium Erudit
Title: Choisir de choisir — croire en ce monde
Description:
In the philosophy of Pascal and Kierkegaard and the cinema of Bresson and Dreyer, Deleuze finds “a strange thought,” an “extreme moralism that opposes the moral,” and a “faith that opposes religion.
” This thought may be described as an immanent ethics of “choosing to choose,” such that one may thereby “believe in this world.
” Pascal’s wager and Kierkegaard’s leap of faith are usually treated as exclusively theological concepts, but Deleuze—by way of a Nietzschean adaptation of Pascal and Kierkegaard—sees these concepts as a means of understanding a specific mode of existence, in which one “chooses to choose,” and thereby commits oneself to the perpetual responsibility of choosing.
In the work of Dreyer and Bresson, Deleuze discovers a cinematic counterpart of this philosophy of “choosing to choose,” a cinema in which apparently religious concerns actually manifest an immanent ethics of modes of existence.
This cinema highlights the fundamental vocation of modern cinema, which is to make possible a “belief in this world.
” The problem facing modern directors is that the world seems nothing but a bad film, a collection of predictable and empty clichés devoid of any possibility of genuine creativity.
Modern cinema’s answer to this challenge is to disrupt conventional ways of seeing and disclose already present alternatives to those conventions, such that new possibilities of existence are suggested.
In this way, modern cinema allows a revived “belief in this world.
” No longer a world of clichés, the world as transformed through modern cinema is one in which new modes of existence are envisioned, modes based on an ethics of perpetually “choosing to choose.
” This cinematic ethics finally provides a means of understanding the proper relationship between cinema and philosophy, both of which have a common purpose, even if they have separate spheres of activity.

Related Results

Regiments of the Theatre: Reenactment in Theatre and Military Culture
Regiments of the Theatre: Reenactment in Theatre and Military Culture
La reconstitution militaire, discipline en émergence, révèle un champ d’exercice dans lequel le monde du théâtre et la culture militaire convergent. C’est à la fois la militarisati...
La fin d’un monde. À propos de Sans soleil, de Chris Marker 1
La fin d’un monde. À propos de Sans soleil, de Chris Marker 1
En 1982, le film Sans soleil, de Chris Marker, préfigurait les possibilités multimédiatiques d’oeuvres subséquentes — le film Level Five (1996) et le CD-ROM Immemory (1997). Marker...
Henri Heine et les dieux de la Grèce
Henri Heine et les dieux de la Grèce
Par-delà l'allemand grécisant et homérisant utilisé par Heine dans les poèmes de La Mer du Nord, l'opposition entre paganisme antique et christianisme développée dans Les Dieux de ...
Images technologiques : ce qu’il advient de la mémoire
Images technologiques : ce qu’il advient de la mémoire
Avec l’apparition de la photographie, l’image a cessé d’être uniquement représentative, elle est devenue aussi mémoire du monde. Et le cinéma, en l’animant et en se repliant sur le...
Remarques sur la nouvelle
Remarques sur la nouvelle
La nouvelle représente pour moi d'abord et avant tout une tradition. Tradition familiale, puisque mon père, écrivain allemand (Theodor Bohner, Lachendes, Liebendes Rom, Bâle, Orell...
« Quant à ce beau discours du mespris du monde ... »: Foi calviniste et plaisirs mondains chez quatre grandes dames de la Réforme en France
« Quant à ce beau discours du mespris du monde ... »: Foi calviniste et plaisirs mondains chez quatre grandes dames de la Réforme en France
Le rejet des « vanités de ce monde » tient, on le sait, une place prépondérante dans la théologie calviniste. Cette étude explore le rôle de ces « plaisirs mondains » dans le...
La dialectique de l’espace dans Harry Potter: le motif du passage secret
La dialectique de l’espace dans Harry Potter: le motif du passage secret
L’oeuvre de J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, présente deux systèmes spatiaux: le monde des Moldus et celui des Sorciers, fonctionnant selon des règles que le personnage Moldu et/ou Sorc...
Whitfield Lovell: Autour Du Monde
Whitfield Lovell: Autour Du Monde
This essay examines recent work by the American artist Whitfield Lovell, who has been collecting and using vintage accoutrements—the material culture of late-nineteenth- and early-...

Back to Top