Article

The view from outside: On

a distinctively cinematic
achievement

Philosophy and Social Criticism

2016, Vol. 42(2) 154170
The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0191453715588993
psc.sagepub.com

Mario De Caro
Universita` Roma Tre, Rome, Italy and Tufts University, Medford, USA

Enrico Terrone
Universita` di Torino, Turin, Italy and Kate Hamburger Kolleg Recht als Kultur, Bonn, Germany

Abstract
What aesthetic interest do we have in watching films? In a much debated paper, Roger Scruton
argued that this interest typically comes down to the interest in the dramatic representations
recorded by such films. Berys Gaut and Catharine Abell criticized Scrutons argument by claiming
that films can elicit an aesthetic interest also by virtue of their pictorial representation. In this
article, we develop a different criticism of Scrutons argument. In our view, a film can elicit an
aesthetic interest that does not come down to an interest in the dramatic representation or in the
pictorial representation. We will argue that this is a distinctively cinematic interest. In section I we
outline Scrutons argument. In section II we point out an interest in how the cinematic medium
presents the portrayed subject as detached from the spectators environment. In section III, by
referring to Wittgensteins account of the contemplation from outside, we contend that the
interest in films introduced in section II can count as an aesthetic interest. In section IV we argue
that both documentaries and fiction films can elicit this kind of interest. In section V we compare
the three different kinds of aesthetic interest that, in our view, a film can elicit. In section VI we
describe the corresponding kinds of cinematic achievements.

Keywords
aesthetics, film, representation, Roger Scruton, Ludwig Wittgenstein

What aesthetic interest do we have in watching films? In a much debated paper, Roger
Scruton (1981) argued that this interest typically comes down to the interest in the dramatic representations recorded by such films. Berys Gaut (2002 and 2010) and Catharine

Corresponding author:
Mario De Caro, Department of Philosophy, Universita` Roma Tre, via Ostiense 234, Roma, 00146, Italy and
Department of Philosophy, Miner Hall, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.
Email: Mario.decaro@uniroma3.it

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155

Abell (2010) criticized Scrutons argument by claiming that films can elicit an aesthetic
interest also by virtue of their pictorial representation. In this article, we develop a different criticism of Scrutons argument. In our view, a film can elicit an aesthetic interest
that does not come down to an interest in the dramatic representation or in the pictorial
representation. We will argue that this is a distinctively cinematic interest.

I Scrutons argument
Scruton focuses on films that are photographic recordings of dramatic representations
and argues that their aesthetic interest lies in the dramatic representation, not in its photographic recording. Thus, as long as it is a form of art, film is parasitic on theater, from
which it borrows so many conventions (Scruton, 1981: 577).
According to Scruton, a representation is an artifact that portrays a subject by conveying the thoughts of the maker towards that subject. In his view, pictorial representations
(such as paintings and drawings) portray a subject and convey thoughts about it primarily
by highlighting its visual appearances. Likewise, dramatic representations (such as
novels or plays) portray a subject and convey thoughts about it primarily by highlighting
its actions. Instead, a recording is an artifact that presents a subject by putting us in perceptual contact with it through a merely causal link to it.
Scruton claims that a recording, unlike a representation, does not communicate
thoughts, i.e. it does not convey the thoughts of the maker towards the presented subject.
A sound recording of a concert, for example, just makes us hear that concert, without
communicating the thoughts that the sound engineer may have in regard to the recorded
concert. Scruton contends that a film functions in the same way: A cinematic record of
an occurrence is not a representation of it, any more than a recording of a concert is a
representation of its sound (1981: 599).
In order to make this point, Scruton introduces the notion of an ideal photograph,
which he characterizes as a photograph that is a mere recording. An ideal photograph
presents the look of a subject by virtue of a purely causal (i.e. not intentional) link to
it. The photographer can choose the framing at will, but she has no voluntary control over
what is recorded once the framing has been fixed.1
Employing the notion of an ideal photograph, we will henceforth call ideal film a
film that is based on ideal photographs. An ideal film is not edited or, if it is edited, the
editing is not intended to convey the makers thoughts towards the portrayed subject, but
it is just a means to the end of effectively showing this very subject. In this respect it is
helpful to go back to Scrutons analogy between a film and a sound recording of a concert. In an ideal film there may be editing in the sense in which in a sound recording there
may be editing in order to cut the pauses that the orchestra made between the movements
of that concert. What the notion of an ideal film excludes, however, is the editing
intended to be experienced as the intentional juxtaposition of unconnected images . . .
that we see and which determines our understanding of the sequence (Scruton, 1981:
6012).2
Using the notions of an ideal photograph and an ideal film, Scrutons argument can be
outlined as follows.
Given that,

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1. the specific aesthetic interest in an artifact portraying a subject rests upon its
capacity to be a representation, i.e. to communicate the makers thoughts towards
that subject;
and that
2. an ideal photograph does not communicate the makers thoughts about the portrayed subject;
then it follows that,
3. an ideal photograph cannot elicit any specific aesthetic interest.
But since,
4. an ideal film is based on ideal photographs;
then it follows that
5. the aesthetic interest in an ideal film does not lie in its photographic recording but
only in the dramatic representation that it recorded.3
Gaut (2002, 2010) and Abell (2010) have challenged this argument by arguing that
films, even when based on ideal photographs, can count as pictorial representations.
More specifically, Gaut argues that an ideal film can communicate thoughts about the
portrayed subject by virtue of a capacity to record reality in different ways that ideal
photography itself possesses:
Film can convey thoughts because it has the capacity to record reality in different ways. It is
because of the plasticity of its recording capacities that film can be representational that is,
scenes can be filmed in different ways: by selecting different optical points of view, different lenses, different camera movements, different film stocks, different techniques of
editing, different aspect ratios, and so on. These variations in ways of recording can
communicate something about the scenes recorded. Thus photography and film are representations (i.e., they can communicate thoughts), and can do so because objects and events
can be recorded in different ways. (2010: 42; emphases added)

In this way, Gaut challenges premise (2) of Scrutons argument. Instead Abell for the
sake of the argument accepts premise (2), but challenges the inference from premise
(4) to conclusion (5). She claims that an ideal film can communicate the makers
thoughts about the portrayed fictional characters, even if the photographs constituting
that film are, by themselves, nothing but recordings of the actors performances. As
an example of that she mentions the use of low angles in Orson Welles Citizen Kane:
The scene from Citizen Kane . . . represents Kane as behaving threateningly by filming
Orson Welles from a low angle, with the result that Kane looms over the other character.
Since we are assuming, with Scruton, that photographs exhibit a high degree of accuracy,

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it follows that the scene depicts Welless height more or less accurately. However, it represents Kane as being taller and more threatening than it represents Welles as being. (Abell,
2010: 283; emphases added)

Despite the differences in their arguments, Gaut and Abell agree that ideal films can
work as pictorial representations. According to them, ideal films can communicate the
makers thoughts about the portrayed subject, thereby eliciting, pace Scruton, an aesthetic interest that goes beyond the interest in the dramatic representation.
However, a sympathizer of Scrutons argument could reply to Gaut and Abell by
restricting the notion of an ideal film so that it could not be applied to the kinds of film
that they propose as counter-examples. According to the restricted notion, an ideal film is
one that not only presents the look of a subject by virtue of a purely causal link to it,
namely a recording, but also avoids exploiting that recording as a way of communicating
the makers thoughts about the portrayed subject. The ideal film yields an appearance,
but the appearance is not interesting as the realization of an intention.
This restricted notion is compatible with the fact that there are a few parts of a film
that work as pictorial representations by communicating the makers thoughts about the
portrayed subject. Indeed, this notion is aimed to capture what normally constitutes the
film as a recording and our interest in it. The expressive shots highlighted by Gaut and
Abell are pictorial virtuosities that we can occasionally encounter during a film, but it is
quite exceptional to encounter films that are completely, or even mostly, made of expressive shots of that kind. The shots highlighted by Gaut and Abell are just, so to say,
expressive peaks on the non-expressive horizon that normally constitutes a film as a
photographic recording of a dramatic representation.
It might seem that, by so restricting the notion of what counts as an ideal film, this
reply could run the risk of making this notion aesthetically uninteresting. We believe that
there is no such risk. There are many aesthetically interesting films, or at least parts
thereof, that comply with this restricted notion of an ideal film. Consider, for example,
the use of long static shots in works by directors such as Ozu Yasujiro, Pedro Costa, Tsai
Ming Liang, or Hou Hsiao-hsien. With examples like these in mind, we will challenge
Scrutons argument in a different way. We will assume, with Scruton, that an ideal film
is such that no makers thoughts on the portrayed subject are communicated by virtue of
the photographic recording. However, we will criticize Scrutons conclusion by disputing premise (1) of his argument. More specifically, we will argue that there are films, or
at least parts thereof, that can elicit an aesthetic interest that goes beyond the interest in
the dramatic representation. They can do so even if they fit the restricted notion of an
ideal film, by virtue of which the photographic recording does not communicate the
makers thought about the portrayed subject.4

II The argument from detachment

There can be three kinds of interest towards pictures in general. The first is an interest in
the subject that has been depicted; for example, in watching Lumie`re Brothers LArrivee
dun train en gare de La Ciotat there may be an interest in the train that was filmed. The
second is an interest in the way in which the maker has intentionally configured the

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picture; in our example, there may be an interest in the way in which the Lumie`re Brothers exploited the diagonal lines in order to emphasize the movements and convey a sense
of dynamism. The third is an interest in the way the subject appears in the picture, regardless of the way in which that picture has been made; in our example, there may be an
interest in seeing a train in an unfamiliar way, which is slightly different from the way
in which we can normally see trains in real life.5 Scruton argues that, in the case of pictures based on ideal photography, there is no interest of the second kind (i.e. the interest
in the configuration by the maker), while the third kind of interest (i.e. the interest in the
presentation by the picture itself) boils down to the first one (i.e. the interest in the presented subject). He writes:
In some sense looking at a photograph is a substitute for looking at the thing itself; consider,
for example, the most realistic of all photographic media, the television . . . Television is
like a mirror: it does not so much destroy as embellish that elaborate causal chain which is
the natural process of visual perception. (Scruton, 1981: 588)

Scrutons account overlooks three crucial differences between mirrors, on the one hand,
and photographic media such as cinema and television, on the other hand.6 First, repeatability: a photographic recording fixes an image, thereby making it repeatable, whereas
the mirror cannot fix an image (Gaut, 2010: 30). Second, isolation: a photographic
recording, by fixing an image and making it repeatable in whichever context, isolates
the photographed object from the context it would normally be seen to inhabit (Lopes,
2003: 443). Third, detachment: a photographic recording, unlike a mirror, provides the
spectator with the visual experience of a space that is detached from the spectators body
and immediate surroundings.
In this sense Noel Carroll characterizes the focus of the cinematic experience as a
detached display (1996: 70). Unlike what is normally shown by a mirror, what is shown
by a film cannot be localized by the spectator in the spatio-temporal system that centres
on the spectators body. The cinematic display does not provide us with egocentric
information, i.e. information allowing our perceptual system to estimate the absolute
directions of displayed things and the absolute distance between a displayed thing and
our body (thereby possibly guiding motor actions, as we do, for example, when we use
a mirror to shave, or when we drive a car). Instead, the cinematic display only allows us
to estimate relative directions and distances between the displayed things themselves (cf.
Vishwanath, 2014: 154).
The phenomenology of the cinematic experience is, therefore, sharply different from
the phenomenology of the mirror experience; and that is why we can have a distinctive
interest in seeing things through the medium of film.7 Such an interest is neither a mere
interest in the depicted subject nor an interest in the thoughts of the maker towards that
subject. It is rather an interest in seeing things in the distinctive detached way that the
medium of film provides us with.
It remains to be shown, however, that such an interest is an aesthetic interest. Scruton
characterizes the aesthetic interest at play in films in terms of contemplative attitudes
and claims that representation is important to us because it enables the presentation of
scenes and characters toward which we have only contemplative attitudes: scenes and

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characters which, being unreal, allow our practical natures to remain unengaged (1981:
585). However, it is to be asked whether representation, understood as the communication of thoughts about the presented subject, is the only means to achieve the end of
eliciting such contemplative attitudes towards that subject.
Here, Scruton appears to conflate two distinct possibilities, i.e. the possibility of eliciting contemplative attitudes towards a portrayed subject, on the one hand, and the possibility of communicating thoughts about that very subject, on the other. Yet, there are
things, as, for example, landscapes, that can elicit contemplative attitudes from the
beholder without requiring that she or he sees them as expressions of the thoughts of
a maker. Likewise, an ideal film, by virtue of its distinctive detachment, can elicit contemplative attitudes towards the portrayed subject, even if it does not communicate the
makers thoughts about that subject.
The real problem of Scrutons view does not lie in the notion of an ideal film, but in
his account of the aesthetic interest. He states that the camera . . . is unable to make any
precise or cogent analysis of what it shows (1981: 600) and then he infers that an ideal
film cannot elicit any specific aesthetic interest from the spectator. In this way he conflates the aesthetic interest in a picture that depicts a subject with the interest in a picture
conceived of as an interpretation of the subject [by the maker], a way of seeing it (ibid.:
586), a thought about its nature (ibid.: 587), a comment [on it] (ibid.: 589). However,
the communication of thoughts by the maker is not a necessary requirement for the possibility of eliciting an aesthetic interest from the spectator.
Several relevant accounts of the aesthetic interest, including those offered by Kant
(2000[1790]: part I) and Schopenhauer (1883[1819]: book III), characterize it in terms
of contemplative attitudes, just as Scruton does. Yet, such accounts, differently from
Scrutons, disentangle the aesthetic interest from the makers communication of
thoughts. In the same line, but more radically, Wittgenstein conceives of the aesthetic
contemplation independently from any expression of thoughts.

III Wittgensteins thought experiment

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and other writings from his early period,
Wittgenstein connects aesthetics to ethics, inasmuch as they both concern a sphere
of values that is beyond the reach of expression: It is clear that ethics cannot be
expressed. Ethics are transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one) (Tractatus
6.421).8 Wittgenstein characterizes ethics and aesthetics as belonging to the dimension of the inexpressible (the mystical, as he calls it), which is outside the reach of
the kind of representation on which Wittgensteins picture theory of language
focuses.
As pointed out by Pasquale Frascolla (2007: 213), what the picture theory austerely imposes is that the sphere of values, and the Mystical, ought not to be forced
into the mould of a language which, because of its structural limitations, is not able to
express it, thereby letting the ineffable make itself manifest in a purged language.
Such a purged language does not involve expressions of thoughts, interpretations,
or comments; indeed, it is not a real language, but rather the way in which the ineffable shows itself to a proper contemplation. Wittgenstein (Tractatus 6.45)

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characterizes it in the following terms: The contemplation of the world sub specie
aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole. The feeling of the world as a limited
whole is the mystical.
In the Notebooks, Wittgenstein specifies this kind of contemplation as a view from
outside:
The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen
sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connexion between art and ethics. The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aeternitatis
from outside. (1961: 7.10.16)

The aesthetic experience, understood as a case of view sub specie aeternitatis, requires a
special perspective that allows the spectator to contemplate things from outside. What is
at stake here is something that is independent from interpretations or comments, something that simply shows itself to a beholder who enjoys the proper point of view. In a
personal note dated 1930, Wittgenstein further specifies such a view by means of the following thought experiment:
Nothing could be more remarkable than seeing someone who thinks himself unobserved
engaged in some quite simple everyday activity. Lets imagine a theatre, the curtain goes
up and we see someone alone in his room walking up and down, lighting a cigarette, seating
himself, etc. so that suddenly we are observing a human being from outside in a way that
ordinarily we can never observe ourselves; as if we were watching a chapter from a biography with our own eyes, surely this would be at once uncanny and wonderful. More wonderful than anything that a playwright could cause to be acted or spoken on the stage. We
should be seeing life itself. But then we do see this every day & it makes not the slightest
impression on us! True enough, but we do not see it from that point of view. (1998: 43)

This extreme case one that is more wonderful than anything that a playwright could
cause to be acted or spoken on the stage seems to match what above we called an
ideal film. Theater represents life as acted or spoken on the stage, whereas an ideal
film can show life itself and, by means of the peculiar cinematic detachment, can
allow spectators to contemplate life precisely from that point of view i.e. from
outside.
Therefore, Wittgensteins account of the contemplative experience suggests that an
ideal film can elicit a distinctive aesthetic interest, which lies in the possibility of contemplating life from outside. This interest is enabled by the distinctive detachment of
the cinematic experience. Only the medium of film can elicit an experience like that
the medium of theater cannot. That is because theater and film involve sharply different phenomenologies. While theater makes the spectator experience another environment by means of the actors who play in her environment, film makes the spectator
experience another environment, wholly detached from his or her environment.9
Therefore, whereas the spectator of a play necessarily perceives the portrayed events
as acted or spoken on the stage, the spectator of a film can enjoy a view from outside on life itself.10

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IV From fictional incompetence to fictional neutrality

The phenomenological difference between theater and film entails an important difference in what they can present. A play can only make the spectator experience dramatic
representations of events, whereas a film can make the spectator experience either dramatic representations of events or events themselves. For example, in watching a play
portraying a battle, the experience of the play involves awareness of perceiving the dramatic representation of a battle, not the battle itself. By contrast, when a film portrays a
battle, we need, in principle, non-cinematic information in order to ascertain whether we
perceive the dramatic representation of a battle or the battle itself. For example, we
immediately recognize that a filmed medieval battle is a dramatic representation instead
of a real event, by virtue of the non-cinematic information that in the Middle Ages film
had not been invented yet. Therefore, a play can be a dramatic representation of fictional
events or, at most, a dramatic representation of real events, whereas a film has a third
option, i.e. the direct presentation of real events in a detached way, namely as a documentary.11 In theater, unlike what happens in film, there cannot be documentaries but,
at most, historical plays.
According to Scruton (1981: 588), only the third option the direct presentation of
real events is available to ideal films, since they exhibit what he calls fictional
incompetence. That is to say, they are unable to portray, at least directly, any fictional events. Ideal films can only indirectly portray fictional events by recording dramatic representations, but a dramatic representation is a real event, even in the case in
which it portrays fictional events.12 However, an important distinction should be made
here that Scruton neglects, that between the genealogy of fiction films (which concerns the point of view of the maker) and their phenomenology (which concerns the
point of view of the spectator). Scrutons claim that ideal films exhibit fictional
incompetence is correct only if one considers their genealogy, not if one focuses
on their phenomenology. Even if fiction films are obtained by means of photographic
recordings of dramatic representations, not necessarily are they experienced as recordings of dramatic representations. Actually, most fiction films are made in order to elicit the impression that one directly perceives fictional events (even though from
outside, in a detached way), not dramatic representations of fictional events. The emotional power of many films significantly depends upon the possibility of eliciting from
the spectator the impression of directly perceiving events, in spite of the spectators
knowledge that these events are fictional.
If one wants to make an ideal film that portrays fictional events, one has of course to
record a dramatic representation of fictional events. Yet, when we watch an ideal film
that portrays fictional events, we are not forced to focus on the dramatic representation
of those events. Rather, we are often inclined to directly focus on fictional events. Robert
Hopkins calls this phenomenon collapse, since the tier of the dramatic representation
collapses in the visual experience of the film when we cease to be aware of theatrical
representations, and simply see in the movie the story it tells (Hopkins, 2008: 149). In
this way, the medium of film can function as a way of narrating a story by showing the
viewer moving pictures in which she sees (nothing but) the events that compose the tale
(ibid.: 154).13

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The phenomenon of collapse makes room for a unitary phenomenological

account that concerns both fiction and non-fiction ideal films. In fact, at a basic phenomenological level there is no difference between the experience of fiction films
and the experience of documentaries. Our perceptual system responds to both kinds
of film in the same way: the deepest feature of the cinematic experience, namely
detachment from the spectators environment, is at work in both cases. Detachment
is the common phenomenological root of both experiences. That is why we can
somehow enjoy an ideal film even if we do not know whether it is fiction or
non-fiction. In any case we experience the portrayed environment from outside, that
is, as detached from our environment, independently of the fact that the film is fiction or non-fiction.
By highlighting the phenomenon of collapse, Hopkins suggests that film can
make spectators experience fiction films as photographic recordings of fictional
events. However, Dominic Lopes (2003: 443) suggests that photographic recordings make us perceive the portrayed events as isolated from their context, and
that, by virtue of such isolation, those recordings can elicit a peculiar aesthetic
interest. The combination of Hopkins and Lopes suggestions indicates that the
spectator of a fiction film can experience fictional events in isolation from their
context. Furthermore, the spectator experiences those events in isolation from her
or his own context, that is, in a detached way. We contend that such a view from
outside enables contemplation and therefore sustains a distinctive aesthetic
interest.
Obviously, an ideal film needs a dramatic representation in order to become a
fiction film. Yet, once it has been made, it can be indistinguishable from a recording of a real event. As a photographic recording of a dramatic representation, the
fiction film gains a feature that the dramatic representation does not have, i.e. the
possibility of being perceptually indistinguishable from the photographic recording
of a real event.14 The genealogical vice that Scruton calls fictional incompetence
ultimately turns into a phenomenological virtue that we will call fictional neutrality. From a genealogical point of view, an ideal film exhibits fictional incompetence since in order to make it fictional one needs to record a real dramatic
representation of fictional events. From a phenomenological point of view, instead,
an ideal film exhibits fictional neutrality, since the distinctive sense of detachment
it elicits from the spectator can characterize the experience of both fiction and nonfiction.15
In section III of this article we have argued, by appealing to Wittgensteins
account of the contemplation from outside, that the cinematic detachment elicits a
distinctive aesthetic interest. Now we contend that, by virtue of fictional neutrality,
this interest can concern both documentaries and fiction films. Both in the case of
documentaries and of fiction films we are interested in perceiving, from outside,
events that theater could make us perceive only through the experience of a dramatic
representation. Thus, an ideal film can elicit a distinctive aesthetic interest even in
the case of fiction that is, an interest in perceiving fictional events in a detached
way, as if those events were directly recorded instead of being dramatically
reconstructed.

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V Three kinds of cinematic interest

Scruton highlights a first kind of aesthetic interest that we can have in fiction films, i.e.
the interest in the dramatic representation that the film makes us see. This is an interest
generated by a strong representational medium through which the dramatic action is filtered (Scruton, 1981: 600). Let us call it dramatic interest.
According to Scruton, this is the only aesthetic interest that we can have in films but,
as seen above, this claim is exaggerated. Nevertheless, undeniably, the dramatic interest
is among the aesthetic interests that films can elicit. The attention of film critics to the
screenplay, to the production design and to the performances of the actors is a clear clue
that the interest in the dramatic representation has a relevant role in the aesthetic appraisal of films. Furthermore, some film-makers emphasize the fact that their films actually
are the recording of dramatic representations by deliberately revealing the artificial
nature of acting, sets and mise-en-sce`ne. Consider, for example, Brechtian films (Hopkins, 2008: 155) such as Jean-Luc Godards La chinoise or expressionistic films such as
Robert Wienes Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Scruton, 1981: 599). In these cases, the
medium of film openly feeds the aesthetic interest highlighted by Scruton, since the dramatic representation embodies the makers thoughts about the portrayed events.
The claim that the interest in the dramatic representation is the only aesthetic interest
elicititive by films can be challenged in two different ways. First, one can point out that
also the photographic recording can function as a pictorial representation. That is, also
the photographic recording, by working as a pictorial representation, can embody
thoughts about the portrayed events so as to elicit an aesthetic interest. Let us call it pictorial interest.
Abell exemplifies this kind of interest by referring to a scene from Citizen Kane that
is aesthetically valuable because, by photographing Welles from a low angle, it
expresses the thought that Kane is threatening (2010: 285; emphasis added). Likewise,
Gaut focuses on Sidney Lumets Twelve Angry Men by observing:
As the tension increases in the jury room over the jurys decision, the increasingly confrontational scenes are shot with progressively longer lenses. The strategy conveys the sense that
the characters have less and less space to move in and are pressed one up against the other.
(2002: 308; emphases added)16

In this article we have argued that there is a third kind of aesthetic interest elicited by
films, in addition to the interest in the film as a dramatic representation and to the interest
in the film as a pictorial representation. Let us call it contemplative interest.
This is not an interest in the way in which thoughts about the portrayed events are
communicated by means of acting, sets and mise-en-sce`ne. Nor is this an interest in the
way in which thoughts about the portrayed events are communicated by means of shots
and editing, or even by means of the musical score. Rather, the contemplative interest
concerns the way in which the cinematic medium makes us experience the portrayed
events from outside, in a detached way, without the need of any comment.
The contemplative interest seems to play a quite relevant role in the history of film
and film criticism. In his influential review of Vittorio De Sicas Ladri di biciclette,

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Andre Bazin praises a kind of cinematic achievement that elicits such an interest. The
spectator no longer experiences actors playing characters but characters as such:
The very concept of actor, performance, character has no longer any meaning. An actorless
cinema? Undoubtedly. But the original meaning of the formula is now outdated, and we
should talk today of a cinema without acting, of a cinema of which we no longer ask whether
the character gives a good performance or not, since here man and the character he portrays
are so completely one. (Bazin, 2004: 56)

According to Bazin, the main aesthetic interest of Ladri di biciclette does not rests upon
the spectators acknowledgment of acting as a dramatic representation, but rather upon
the lack of such an acknowledgment. And what is true of the acting is true also of all the
other representational aspects of film, both dramatic and pictorial:
Just as the disappearance of the actor is the result of transcending style or performance, the
disappearance of the mise en sce`ne is likewise the fruit of a dialectical progress in the style
of the narrative. If the event is sufficient unto itself without the direction having to shed any
further light on it by means of camera angles, purposely chosen camera positions, it is
because it has reached that stage of perfect luminosity which makes it possible for an art
to unmask a nature which in the end resembles it. That is why the impression, made on
us by Ladri di biciclette is unfailingly that of truth . . . This supreme naturalness, the sense
of events observed haphazardly as the hours roll by, is the result of an ever-present although
invisible system of aesthetics. (Bazin, 2004: 578; emphases added)

The purpose of a film understood, following Bazin, as an ever present although invisible
system of aesthetics is not to communicate thoughts about the portrayed facts. Rather a
film of this kind seems to be primarily aimed at making us perceive life from outside.
Similarly to Wittgenstein, who, as said above, compares the view from outside to something more wonderful than anything that a playwright could cause to be acted or spoken
on the stage, Bazin (2004: 60) characterizes the ideal cinematic experience as involving
no more actors, no more story, no more sets . . . no more cinema.17

VI Three kinds of cinematic achievement

Bazins review of Ladri di biciclette highlights a distinctive kind of aesthetic interest that
complies with what we have called contemplative interest. Yet Bazin goes too far in
suggesting that this is the only interest we can have in a film such as Ladri di biciclette.
Indeed, one could also have a dramatic interest in, say, the structure of Ladri di
biciclettes screenplay or a pictorial interest in, say, the way in which De Sica exploits
the close-up.
Bazin exaggerates in suggesting that the contemplative interest is the uppermost cinematic interest, just as Scruton exaggerates in stating that the dramatic interest is the only
aesthetic interest in films. Conversely, other scholars exaggerate in arguing that the only
aesthetically relevant interest in films is the pictorial interest: for example, Rudolf Arnheim (1956) states that sound films are less valuable than silent films insofar as sound
diverts our attention from the pictorial representation.

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165

A much more promising approach consists in treating the dramatic interest, the pictorial interest, and the contemplative interest as three complementary dimensions of the
whole aesthetic interest in films. From this perspective, we can distinguish three ways in
which a film can succeed in eliciting aesthetic interest. If a film reaches a dramatic
achievement, it is because it especially succeeds in drawing the spectators attention
to what the dramatic representation of the film communicates about the portrayed
events. If a film reaches a pictorial achievement, it is because it especially succeeds
in drawing the spectators attention to what its pictorial representation communicates
about the portrayed events. If a film reaches a contemplative achievement, it is because
it especially succeeds in drawing the spectators attention to the portrayed events as such,
which are seen in a detached way. To establish which films exemplify which kinds of
achievements is an empirical matter over which film critics and historians should have
jurisdiction. Here we limit ourselves to suggest the Marx Brothers Duck Soup as an
example of dramatic achievement, Stanley Kubricks Barry Lyndon as an example of
pictorial achievement, and Kenji Mizoguchis Ugetsu Monogatari as an example of contemplative achievement.
The contemplative achievement deeply differs from both the dramatic and the pictorial achievements, inasmuch as it exploits the phenomenological transparency of the cinematic medium instead of its opacity. While both the dramatic achievement and the
pictorial one emphasize the capacity of the cinematic medium to embody thoughts (in
the former case in the form of a dramatic representation, in the latter in the form of a
pictorial representation), the contemplative achievement elicits the impression of perceiving events from outside, in a detached way. The latter achievement is especially
remarkable in the case of fiction films, since in that case the film-maker succeeds in making the spectators experience the photographic recording of a dramatic representation
neither as a dramatic representation nor as a photographic recording, but as a view from
outside on events that seem to unfold while the spectator perceives them.18
Another trait of the contemplative achievement is worth noting. While the dramatic
and the pictorial achievements bring into the phenomenology of the film some stages
of its genealogy (respectively the theatrical stage and the pictorial stage), the contemplative achievement involves a phenomenology that plays down as much as possible the
genealogy of the film. Therefore, whereas the dramatic achievement leads the spectator
to focus on the eloquence of sets and actors, in the contemplative achievement sets and
actors as such withdraw from the cinematic experience, letting the spectator focus on the
portrayed events. Analogously, whereas the pictorial achievement leads the spectator to
focus on the eloquence of shots and camera movements, in the contemplative achievement the cinematic frame functions only as a perceiving device that might be compared
to a window or a telescope. Still, unlike real windows or telescopes, the cinematic frame
completely detaches the presented events from the spectators environment, thereby providing him or her with a view from outside on those events.
Another way of accounting for the specificity of the contemplative achievement is in
functional terms. In this kind of achievement, the dramatic representation and the photographic recording are just means to the end of eliciting the impression of perceiving the
portrayed events from outside. The shots, for example, do not exhibit any expressive
ambitions and merely fulfill the primary function of showing the portrayed events, just

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as the television shots of a football match normally do. As Bazin writes in his review of
Roberto Rossellinis Paisa`, The camera, as if making an impartial report, confines itself
to following a woman searching for a man, leaving to us the task of being alone with her,
of understanding her, and of sharing her suffering (2004: 367; emphases added). In this
case, the main aesthetic function that the camera carries out is not that of making comments on the portrayed events, but rather that of making an impartial report. In the contemplative achievement, the shot becomes a mere link in a chain that relates the
portrayed events to the spectators experience and the camera plays its functional role
at the beginning of the chain in the same way in which the projector does at the end
of it.19 Analogously, the performances of the actors do not aim at suggesting thoughts
about the portrayed characters; rather, they are means to the end of conveying, as vividly
as possible, the life of the characters to the experience of the spectators.20
To sum up, there are several features that spectators can aesthetically praise in a film.
Scruton is right in pointing out that one can appreciate the way in which the dramatic
representation of events communicates thoughts about the portrayed events; but this is
not the whole story. Gaut and Abell are right in indicating that one can also appreciate
the way in which the photographic recording, by working as a pictorial representation,
communicates thoughts about the portrayed events; but this is not the whole story either.
In fact, while watching a film one can also appreciate the way in which it raises the
impression of perceiving events from outside, in a detached way, regardless of the communication of the makers thoughts about those events. This is the contemplative
achievement, which constitutes the films aesthetic novelty. While the dramatic achievement can also be reached by theater and the pictorial achievement can also be reached by
painting, the contemplative achievement is distinctive of the medium of film. Only films
allow us to see life from outside.
Acknowledgements
We are especially grateful to Catharine Abell, Diego Marconi and Nola Semczyszyn for their
helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. We also want to thank the organizers and
the audiences of the conferences in which our article was presented as a talk: Dubrovnik
Conference on the Philosophy of Art, Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik (April 2014);
VI Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics, Villa Finaly, Florence (June 2014); American Society
of Aesthetics Annual Meeting, Hotel Contessa, San Antonio, Texas (October 2014).

Notes
1. Scruton wrote:
By an ideal I mean a logical ideal. The ideal of photography is not an ideal at which photography aims or ought to aim. On the contrary, it is a logical fiction, designed merely to capture
what is distinctive in the photographic relation and in our interest in it. It will be clear from this
discussion that there need be no such thing as an ideal photograph in my sense, and the reader
should not be deterred if I begin by describing photography in terms that seem to him to be
exaggerated or false . . . The ideal photograph [like painting] stands in a certain relation to
a subject: a photograph is a photograph of something. But the relation is here causal and not
intentional . . . The ideal photograph [like painting] yields an appearance, but the appearance

De Caro and Terrone

2.
3.
4.

5.

6.
7.
8.

9.

10.

11.
12.

167

is not interesting as the realization of an intention but rather as a record of how an actual object
looked. (Scruton, 1981: 5789)
In other words, the notion of an ideal film excludes the kind of expressive editing that film
theorists often call montage.
A corollary of this conclusion is that an ideal film that is a documentary, and consequently
lacks any dramatic representation, cannot have any aesthetic value.
Gaut (2002: 3056) contemplates a similar possibility when he suggests that the communication of thoughts . . . should not be held to be a necessary condition for something being
an artwork, but he does not actually pursue further this line of reasoning.
Studies in the history of cinema reveal that the panic reactions of the audiences of LArrivee
dun train en gare de La Ciotat are nothing but a legend. Reliable reports rather talk of reactions of curiosity, which were connected to an interest in the visual medium as such: The curiosity of seeing familiar and well-known scenes through a new technological invention in an
unfamiliar way and to experience them differently appears to be the central motive for visiting
the Cinematographe Lumie`re in the spring and summer of 1896 (Loiperdinger, 2004: 101).
This kind of interest in the visual medium as such connects pictures, understood as visual artifacts, to some natural visual phenomena as, for example, shadows or reflections in the water,
which can be interesting to contemplate in themselves.
In this comparison with mirrors, we do not consider photography since a mirror image has a
temporal dimension that a photograph lacks.
Hereafter, we will use film to designate the medium of motion pictures in general. In this
sense, both cinema and television rest upon the medium of film.
As convincingly argued by Hans-Johann Glock, the Tractatus has two parts (a logical one,
which concerns the symbolic representation in thought and language, and a mystical one,
which concerns the realm of ethical and aesthetic values) and the saying/showing distinction
holds these two parts together, by proscribing both propositions about the essence of symbolic representation and mystical pronouncements about the realm of value (1996: 330).
As pointed out by Gregory Currie (2014: 8), while watching a film, we are not, and we
know that we are not, in egocentric relations to the actors as we see them, as we are when
we see actors on a stage; we do not think of ourselves as ten feet in front of the film
actor, or shifting position relative to the actor when we move to a better seat in the
cinema. To that it can be added that, when we watch a film, we do not only perceive
the characters as detached from our environment, but also feel that it is absolutely impossible for them to step into our space. That is why Woody Allens The Purple Rose of
Cairo is a fairy tale whereas Alfred Hitchcocks Rear Window tells instead a story that
might really happen.
It could be observed that photography, like film and unlike theater, can also make us perceive
an environment from outside. Yet photography, unlike film, cannot make us perceive life from
outside, since the perception of life requires a perception of time and change that photography
cannot supply. In this sense the aesthetic experience we are describing is distinctively
cinematic.
Also television broadcasts of events count as documentaries in this broad sense.
In this sense Scrutons point reveals an analogy with a quip attributed to director Jean-Luc
Godard, according to which fiction films are nothing but documentaries about actors.

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13. It follows that some aesthetically interesting effect might be found across films of various
origins, and not found beyond the limits of cinema an effect sufficiently central to those
films in which it does occur, and sufficiently widespread, to be of real importance (Hopkins,
2008: 155).
14. This is why only in film, and not in theater, there can be mockumentaries, that is, works of
fiction that are presented as documentaries (as, for example, Peter Jacksons Forgotten Silver).
15. The notion of fictional neutrality seems to grasp a key feature of the cinematic medium a
feature that underlies the experiences of both fiction and non-fiction films. Dominic Lopes
(1998: 345) characterizes this feature in terms of ontological neutrality, George Wilson
(2011: 47) in terms of naturally iconic images, Robert Stecker (2013: 148) in terms of nonexistence and Gregory Currie (2014: 5) in terms of recessiveness of the medium.
16. Even Scruton grants that there are films of course not ideal films that can count as pictorial
representations (and not only dramatic representations). As an example in this sense he mentions Sergei M. Eisensteins Potemkin. He praises in particular the sequence that contains one
of Eisensteins most striking visual metaphors. A stone lion rises to its feet and roars. This
amazing image . . . acts as a powerful comment on the impotence of imperial splendor precisely because it startles us into a recognition of the underlying thought (Scruton, 1981:
601; emphasis added). Instead, as an example of a film that fails in its attempt to count as
a pictorial representation, he mentions Michelangelo Antonionis Leclisse, where the camera, striving again and again to make a comment, succeeds only in inflating the importance of
the material surroundings out of all proportion with the sentiments of the characters. The effect
is to render the image all-engrossing, while at the same time impoverishing the psychology
(Scruton, 1981: 600; emphases added).
17. One could wonder whether such a view from outside on life itself is only a necessary condition for the kind of aesthetic interest that we have called contemplative interest or if it is also
a sufficient condition. Wittgensteins quotation seems to suggest that for him the condition is
also sufficient, but in this case one should conclude that also TV shows such as The Big
Brother elicit an aesthetic interest of this kind. Indeed, the film critics of the Cahiers du
cinema (562 [January 2002]: 46), the influential journal founded by Bazin, put Loft Story,
i.e. the French version of The Big Brother, among the 10 best films in 2001. In a similar vein,
Andy Warhols films such as Empire or Sleep can be seen as ways of stating the aesthetic
interest of a mere view from outside on life itself (cf. Wartenberg, 2007: 129). However,
unlike Wittgenstein, Warhol and the critics of the Cahiers du cinema, we doubt that a view
from outside on whichever event is sufficient for an aesthetic experience. We believe that
these events should be valuable in some respect to be specified. But the discussion of this point
is beyond the scope of this article.
18. The already mentioned LArrivee dun train en gare de La Ciotat, by the Lumie`re Brothers,
can be assessed as an achievement of this kind:
The apparent naturalness of the passengers who pay no attention to Louis Lumie`re and
his Cinematographe is an artificial achievement. The impression of documentary
authenticity, which film historians emphasize with regard to this film, is achieved by
the extras strictly following Louis Lumie`res direction. As in a feature film, the passengers rushing back and forth on the platform are not really passengers but performers
impersonating passengers on the platform. (Loiperdinger, 2004: 109)

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19. As Bazin puts it in his review of Paisa`:

The unit of cinematic narrative in Paisa` is not the shot, an abstract view of a reality
which is being analyzed, but the fact. A fragment of concrete reality in itself multiple
and full of ambiguity, whose meaning emerges only after the fact, thanks to other
imposed facts between which the mind establishes certain relationships. Unquestionably, the director chose these facts carefully while at the same time respecting their
factual integrity. (Bazin, 2004: 37)
20. The difference between the contemplative achievement and the other ones can also be rooted
in history. The former can be connected to Wittgensteins ideal of expressive parsimony,
which was in turn connected to the cultural tendency that had developed in Vienna at the
beginning of the 20th century. This tendency can be found in particular in the works of Karl
Kraus and Hugo von Hofmannsthal in literature, Arnold Schonberg in music, and Adolf Loos
in architecture:
Wittgensteins attitude, in fact, is in line with a general stream of thought which was to
be found in the Viennese culture of that time, eminently represented even in fields
which were far from scientific enquiry. It was a tendency which strongly stressed the
exigency of not disguising thoughts in deceptive forms, and which insisted that the
commitment to attaining as much clarity as possible in every field of expression was
an unrenounceable moral duty. (Frascolla, 2007: 221)
In the contemplative achievement a film minimizes the disguise of thoughts, and attains as
much clarity as possible in approximating to what Wittgenstein would call life itself. Instead,
the dramatic and the pictorial achievements, especially if taken together, seem rather to aim
for the Wagnerian ideal of the total work of art, one that synthesizes the dramatic representation with the expressive power of other visual and auditory forms of art.

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