Skip to main content
University of California Press
Cart(opens in new window)
Download Cover Image(opens in new window)Google Books Preview(opens in new window)

What Film Is Good For

On the Values of Spectatorship
by Julian Hanich (Editor), Martin P. Rossouw (Editor)
Hardcover Paperback eBook
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Aug 2023
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 432
ISBN: 9780520386822
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 34 b/w images
Read an Excerpt(opens in new window)
Recommend to your Library (PDF)(opens in new window)Rights and Permissions

About the Book

For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an answer. Their responses range from the most personal to the most theoretical—and, together, recast current debates about film ethics. Movie watching here emerges as a wellspring of value, able to sustain countless visions of "the good life." Films, these authors affirm, make us reflect, connect, adapt; they evoke wonder and beauty; they challenge and transform. In a word, its varieties of value make film invaluable.
 

About the Author

Julian Hanich is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Groningen. He is author of The Audience Effect: On the Collective Cinema Experience and Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear.

Martin P. Rossouw is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Image Studies at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is author of Transformational Ethics of Film: Thinking the Cinemakeover in the Film-Philosophy Debate.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments 
Foreword by Mike Figgis 

Introduction: Film Ethics as Delivering the Goods 
Martin P. Rossouw and Julian Hanich

PART ONE. ADAPTIVE GOODS
1. . . . A Portal to Another World: On Cinema, Climate Change, and a Good Apocalypse 
Jennifer Fay
2. . . . Scaling Down: On the Unsustainable Pleasure of Large-File Streaming 
Laura U. Marks
3. . . . It’s Invaluable: On Film Spectatorship in the Era of Covid-19 
Sarah Cooper
4. . . . Stabilities and Mobilities: On the Generic Values of Emplacements, Displacements, 
and Outplacements 
Timothy Corrigan

PART TWO. EMPATHETIC GOODS 
5. . . . Lies, Loops, or Liberation: On the Dis/Obedience of Feeling More 
Michele Aaron
6. . . . Public Engagement: On Postcolonial African Cinema’s Critical Value 
Litheko Modisane
7. . . . Shedding Light on Abject Lives: On Global Cinema as Ethical Art 
Seung-hoon Jeong
8. . . . Empathy: On Its Limitations and Liabilities 
Malcolm Turvey
9. . . . Political Impact: On the Societal Vibrancy of Film 
Jens Eder

PART THREE. SENSTITIVE GOODS 
10. . . . Moral Reflection: On the Reflective Afterlife of Screen Stories 
Carl Plantinga and Garrett Strpko
11. . . . Challenge and Discomfort: On Situated Elitist Pleasures in Art and Indie Film 
Geoff King
12. . . . Heterocosmic Connections: On the Many Worlds and World Values of Cinema 
Daniel Yacavone
13. . . . Depth of Experience: On Early Phenomenology and the Value of Boredom in the Cinema 
Christian Ferencz-Flatz
14. . . . Striking Beauty: On Recuperating the Beautiful in Cinema 
Julian Hanich

PART FOUR. REVIVING GOODS 
15. . . . Wondering Offscreen: On Cinema’s Transformations of Our Relation to the Unseen 
Jaimie Baron
16. . . . Coming to Wonder: On Cinema’s Renewal of Vision 
Catherine Wheatley
17. . . . Moral Improvement: On How Watching Films Might Make Us Better People 
Thomas E. Wartenberg
18. . . . Cinematic Ethics: On Film as Transformative Experience 
Robert Sinnerbrink
19. . . . Spiritual Exercises Before a Screen: On “Film as Philosophy” and Its Transformational 
Ethics 
Martin P. Rossouw

PART FIVE. COMMUNAL GOODS 
20. . . . Remembrance and Reflection: On Social Justice Cinema in the #BlackLivesMatter Era 
Maryann Erigha Lawer
21. . . . Making Movie Generations: On the Cultural Work of Hollywood Remaking 
Kathleen Loock
22. . . . Reaching Unlettered Audiences: On Global Blockbuster Cinema and Its Oral Affinities 
Sheila J. Nayar
23. . . . Love of Community and Reality: On André Bazin and the Good of Cinema 
Dudley Andrew

PART SIX. MEDIAL GOODS 
24. . . . Projection and Protection: On Cinemagoing as Playing Hide-and-Seek with Reality 
Francesco Casetti
25. . . . An Animated and Animating Medium: On Hegel,Adorno, and the Good of Film 
Nicholas Baer
26. . . . The Bigger Picture: On Watching Films on a Cinema Screen 
Martine Beugnet
27. . . . Quality Time: On Resisting What’s Next, or Staying with the Credits 
Tiago de Luca

PART SEVEN. UNSETTLED GOODS 
28. . . . Wanton Destruction: On Cinema’s Antisocial Thrills 
Adrian Martin
29. . . . Alienating Interventions: On What the “Bad” in David Lynch’s Films Is “Good” For 
Annie van den Oever and Dominique Chateau
30. . . . Dangerous Situations: On Whether Cinema Is Poisonous 
Michel Chion
31. . . . Good for Nothing? On How Films Help Us through the Night 
Tom Gunning
32. . . . Medium-Sized Matters: On Whether Cinema Has Made Any Difference 
Mark Cousins

Afterword by Radu Jude 
List of Contributors 
Index 
 

Reviews

"Readers will find What Film is Good For an expansive toolkit to make use of going forward."
— Cineaste
"One of the most commendable aspects of What Film is Good For is its accessibility. While grounded in scholarly inquiry, the anthology remains engaging and approachable for general readers, academics, and cinephiles alike. . . . It is written by and for people who take cinema seriously, and it is rousing to read such varied and thought-provoking chapters on the value of film, all of which ultimately affirm the meaningfulness of this beloved medium. . . . a true treasure for an academic anthology to prove so stirring."
 
— Alphaville
"The range of [contributors] is excellent and imaginative. . . . The contributions are short (mostly around ten pages each), which works very effectively. Not only does it maximize the number of contributions included (thirty-two chapters, plus the editors’ introduction, a foreword by Mike Figgis, and an afterword by Radu Jude), but it means that in the most successful cases the chapters are both concentrated and suggestive."
— The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
"What Film Is Good For is a wonderfully ambitious and timely collection that takes the form, in a sense, of a questionnaire—one that importantly does not seek or need a singular response to the question it asks, as if film could only be good in one way or for one thing, or simply not at all. The diversity of responses collected here is itself a profound lesson in how capacious a moral claim need be if moral it truly is."—Brian Price, author of A Theory of Regret

"Whether one agrees with the writers' propositions, the pleasure of thinking through the claims, pondering these questions of worth, value, profit, loss, the many 'good fors' as well as the occasional 'not good for,' is a good, indeed, an excellence in itself, opening to a vast and valuable conversation."—Janet Staiger, author of Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema and Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception

"Their volume bookended by two marvelous pieces by filmmakers (Mike Figgis and Radu Jude), Julian Hanich and Martin Rossouw have assembled a peerless group of contributors to explore a wide range of compelling questions about film ethics and the value(s) of spectatorship. The result is a foundational volume for Screen Studies."—Catherine Grant, founding author of Film Studies for Free

Awards

  • Ray and Pat Browne Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture 2024, Popular Culture Association