Existentialism In Cinema

Although, cinematography or any other forms of art cannot be considered in a squarely same manner as the traditional philosophical debates, it interpretative potential as mean of conveying even – or even especially – more complex ideas and reflective concepts.

In this paper, I will hold that film can become a powerful and uniquely effective measure of expressing and developing philosophical thoughts, especially in a framework of existential themes. With its ability to expressively portray the essential character of human experience and condition, it can provide the viewer with insights, which cannot be so easily and thoroughly conveyed through the more traditional media, such as written word of philosophical essays.

The capability of cinema

This can be done particularly through the narratives – narratives, which in the motion picture acquire variety of new tools as visual and audial techniques – that materialize the existential ideas of the human condition in the context of the “real” life and viewers own experiences, delivering much more detail to the story through the use of sound tracks, light and shadow, angle or depth of photography. The very figure of an actor – present on the screen as a real flesh and blood person – “familiarizes” the narrative, while the acting style itself gives viewers socially conditioned hints as to what attitude and moods the portrayed character embodies in relation to the existential experience. Coming back to the personal level of the cinematography, it seems that the meaning in the movie picture is conditioned by both the production team and the audience. For the filmmakers, it is apparent that the way they construct the film is done accordingly to the recounts of their own experience and observation of events from their lives; the film itself then, becomes somewhat of a reproduction of the human condition, and therefore, it emphasizes, selects and designates values and resentment known to the viewers as social beings. Consequently, the contingency of the existential experience conveyed in the movie picture indirectly invokes resemblance to our own lives and narratives, proving itself as a capable representation of human condition, so relevant to