The Thought of Stanley Cavell and Cinema: Turning Anew to the Ontology of Film a Half-Century after The World Viewed

Stanley Cavell was, by many accounts, America’s greatest philosophical thinker of film. Like Bazin in France and Perkins in England, Cavell did not just transform the American capacity to take film seriously as a subject for philosophical criticism, he had first to invent that legitimacy. Part of his efforts involved the creation of several key—now canonical—texts in film studies, among them the seminal The World Viewed along with Pursuits of Happiness and Contesting Tears. This collection offers a concerted group effort to analyze and reflect anew upon Cavell's still-scintillating contributions to the very thought of film—and its philosophical significance. Mounted by some of today’s most compelling writers on cinema, these investigations take careful account of Cavell’s legacy, once and ongoing. In these pages, seasoned scholars and emerging talent artfully and expertly explore what precisely Cavell bequeathed— what endures, what stands in need of revision or updating, and how his writing remains vital and essential to any contemporary approach to the philosophy of film