Cinema Illuminating Reality: Media Philosophy through Buddhism

Description

A new critical approach to cinema and media based on Buddhism as a philosophical discourse   How can a philosophical discourse generated in Asia help us reframe and renew cinema and media theory? Cinema Illuminating Reality provides a possible way to do this by using Buddhist ideas to examine the intricate relationship between technicity and consciousness in the cinema. The resulting dialogue between Buddhism and Euro-American philosophy is the first of its kind in film and media studies. Victor Fan examines cinema’s ontology and ontogenetic formation and how such a formational process produces knowledge, political agency, and in-aesthetics. Buddhism allows Fan to deconstruct binary thinking and reimagine media as an ecology, rethinking cinema in relational terms between the human and the machine. Along the way, Fan considers a wide variety of case studies from around the globe, while paying special attention to how contemporary Tibeto-Sinophone filmmakers have adopted relational thinking to detail ways of rebuilding a world that appears to be beyond repair. From Chinese queer cinema to a reexamination of Japanese master Ozu’s work and its historical reception to Christian Petzold’s 2018 existential thriller Transit, CinemaIlluminating Reality forges a remarkable path between Buddhist studies and cinema studies, casting vital new light on both of these important subjects. Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Dependent Originations Note on Languages Introduction: Cinema: A Technicity-Consciousness Chapter 1: Meontology Chapter 2: The Karma-Image Chapter 3: The Insight-Image Chapter 4: Cinema Ecology Chapter 5: In-Aesthetics Conclusion: Cinema and Nonviolence Multilingual Glossary of Buddhist Terms, Names, and Titles Notes Filmography Index About the Author