Reality Transformed: Film and Meaning and Technique

by Irving Singer

Overview

A new look at film that succeeds in combining the realist and formalist sides of an ongoing debate.

In Reality Transformed Irving Singer offers a new approach to the philosophy of film. Returning to the classical debate between realists and formalists, he shows how the opposing positions may be harmonized and united. Singer concentrates on questions about appearance and reality, the visual and the literary, and the interplay between communication as a goal and alienation as a hazard in films of every sort. In three exemplary chapters, he provides suggestive readings of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice, and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. Reality Transformed will interest the general reader as well as students in all fields related to film studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262692489
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/25/2000
Series:	The Irving Singer Library
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Irving Singer was Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He was the author of the trilogies The Nature of Love and Meaning in Life, Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-Up, Mozart and Beethoven: The Concept of Love in Their Operas, all published by the MIT Press, and many other books.

What People are Saying About This

Noel Carroll

Accessibly written, Reality Transformed is a sensitively observed and thoughtful contribution to film humanism. Treating film as an art in the deepest sense of the word, Irving Singer shows readers why they should take film seriously and how to do it.

Richard Macksey

Singer's approach to film theory is distinguished by an admirable clarity of style... and a sustained effort to harmonize apparently conflicting theoretical positions.

Endorsement

Singer's approach to film theory is distinguished by an admirable clarity of style... and a sustained effort to harmonize apparently conflicting theoretical positions.

—Richard Macksey, Johns hoplins University

From the Publisher

Accessibly written, Reality Transformed is a sensitively observed and thoughtful contribution to film humanism. Treating film as an art in the deepest sense of the word, Irving Singer shows readers why they should take film seriously and how to do it.

—Noel Carroll, Monroe Beardsley Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin

I was quickly won over by the grace of the text and the wisdom of the author. Singer's argument is extremely well structured, elegantly written, and compelling.

—Richard Allen, New York University

Singer's approach to film theory is distinguished by an admirable clarity of style... and a sustained effort to harmonize apparently conflicting theoretical positions.

—Richard Macksey, Johns hoplins University

Richard Allethe Arts

Singer's argument is extremely well structured, elegantly written, and compelling.

Richard Allen

I was quickly won over by the grace of the text and the wisdom of the author. Singer's argument is extremely well structured, elegantly written, and compelling.

Editorial Reviews

There has been a traditional split in film studiesbetween the Bazinians and the Eisensteinians—those who believe themedium has a special aptitude for reality and those who would stress itspurely formal and autonomous characteristics. This soberly argued bookattempts to make peace using philosophical humanism. Taking as hispremise the currently unfashionable idea that narrative cinema hassomething to do with life, Singer demonstrates how it transforms ourcommon experience into art.—Sight & Sound—

There has been a traditional split in film studies between the Bazinians and the Eisensteinians–those who believe the medium has a special aptitude for reality and those who would stress its purely formal and autonomous characteristics. This soberly argued book attempts to make peace using philosophical humanism. Taking as his premise the currently unfashionable idea that narrative cinema has something to do with life Singer demonstrates how it transforms our common experience into art.

—Sight & Sound—

From the Publisher

There has been a traditional split in film studies between the Bazinians and the Eisensteinians–those who believe the medium has a special aptitude for reality and those who would stress its purely formal and autonomous characteristics. This soberly argued book attempts to make peace using philosophical humanism. Taking as his premise the currently unfashionable idea that narrative cinema has something to do with life Singer demonstrates how it transforms our common experience into art.

—Sight & Sound

Reviews

There has been a traditional split in film studies between the Bazinians and the Eisensteinians–those who believe the medium has a special aptitude for reality and those who would stress its purely formal and autonomous characteristics. This soberly argued book attempts to make peace using philosophical humanism. Taking as his premise the currently unfashionable idea that narrative cinema has something to do with life Singer demonstrates how it transforms our common experience into art.

Sight & Sound

Singer (philosophy, MIT) returns to the classic debate between realist and formalist theories of film to posit that a union of the two is required. To the realist, film is a recording of the reality of the physical world, and finding the best method of capturing reality on film is the ultimate goal. For the formalist, film becomes art through the techniques used to transform reality for aesthetic purposes. But to Singer, techniques matter only for the meanings they generate with the audience; a film audience sees the world and its reality shaped by the technical maneuvers of the filmmaker to convey his conception. Singer illustrates his theory and addresses other ideas about film with discussions of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, and Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice. This well-argued and well-written essay is recommended for academic collections.--Marianne Cawley, Charleston Cty. Lib., SC

Library Journal