Tina Chanter
Appropriating Levinas's ethics of transcendence, Sam B. Girgus inaugurates a new direction for film studies. His particularly welcome focus on time and the feminine opens up the cinema of redemption in crucially important ways. Highlighting the infinite demand the other makes on us as singular beings, thinking through the way time is out of joint or unhinged by trauma, and taking on board feminist critiques of Levinas, Girgus sets a very high standard for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps.
— Tina Chanter, DePaul University
Dudley Andrew
Sam B. Girgus daringly and deftly presses the case for cinema's ultimate philosophical consequences. He even presses the case for an ethics that goes beyond philosophy. We may believe we are familiar with the classic Hollywood and European art films we love, but Girgus makes us take another look, a long Levinisian look that finally faces up to the faces on the screen. When we then look away, we realize we have found something more about the films, about Levinas, and about the limitations of our viewing of films and our living of life. Nothing could be healthier.
— Dudley Andrew, R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University
Cynthia Lucia
Sam B. Girgus does what few scholars adopting an interdisciplinary approach achieve: he closely and clearly traces the inextricable relationship involving form, content, and meaning. I can't commend Girgus enough for his ability to unearth the most profound and affecting insights within the films he discusses. His readings are models of the very best in film analysis. Truly an outstanding achievement.
— Cynthia Lucia, Rider University
