Book description
Has any film director had a greater impact on popular culture than
Steven Spielberg? Whether filming Holocaust heroes and villains,
soldiers, dinosaurs, extraterrestrials, or explorers in search of the
Holy Grail, Spielberg has given filmgoers some of the most memorable
characters and wrenching moments in the history of cinema. Whatever
his subject -- war, cloning, slavery, terrorism, or adventure -- all
of Spielberg's films have one aspect in common: a unique view of the
moral fabric of humanity. Dean A. Kowalski's Steven Spielberg and
Philosophy is like a remarkable conversation after a night at the
movie theater, offering new insights and unexpected observations about
the director's most admired films. Some of the nation's most respected
philosophers investigate Spielberg's art, asking fundamental questions
about the nature of humanity, cinema, and Spielberg's expression of
his chosen themes. Applying various philosophical principles to the
movies, the book explores such topics as the moral demands of
parenthood in War of the Worlds; the ultimate unknowability of the
"other" in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and
Schindler's List; the relationship between nature and morality in
Jurassic Park; the notion of consciousness in A. I.: Artificial
Intelligence; issues of war theory and ethics in Munich; and the
foundation of human rights in Amistad. Impressive in scope, this
volume illustrates the philosophical tenets of a wide variety of
thinkers from Plato to Aquinas, Locke, and Levinas. Contributors
introduce readers to philosophy while simultaneously providing deeper
insight into Spielberg's approach to filmmaking. The essays consider
Spielberg's movies using key philosophical cornerstones: metaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, axiology, aesthetics, and political philosophy,
among others. At the same time, Steven Spielberg and Philosophy is
accessible to those new to philosophy, using the philosophical
platform to ponder larger issues embedded in film and asking
fundamental questions about the nature of cinema and how meanings are
negotiated. The authors contend that movies do not present philosophy
-- rather philosophy is something viewers do while watching and
thinking about films. Using Spielberg's films as a platform for
discussing these concepts, the authors contemplate questions that
genuinely surprise the reader, offering penetrating insights that will
be welcomed by film critics, philosophers, and fans alike.
""This book explores perennial issues such as love and
friendship, faith and reason, democracy and citizenship, virtue and
evil, existentialism and authenticity, and feminism and
pragmatism." --news. uky. edu, University of Kentucky News"
--
Dean A. Kowalski is associate professor of philosophy at the
University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. He is editor of The Philosophy of
The X-Files and author of Classic Questions and Contemporary Film: An
Introduction to Philosophy.
