Jack Purcell. Philosophy Department. Middle Tennessee State University

Though Plato did not, of course, have access to modern cinema, he nonetheless had/has insights that are interesting and relevant to cinema and to cinematography. Plato's preoccupation with questions revolving around the Sophists could be construed as a cinematic approach to philosophy. The most overt "image" from Plato's writings pertinent to cinema, is the imagery displayed in the allegory of the cave. The `oi polloi, as they are chained in the cave and directed toward the shadows dancing on the wall, could be construed as a cinematic rendering of certain social, educational, ontological, epistemological, and political concerns.

In at least two of the tropes employed in the Republic, viz. the divided line and the allegory of the cave, Plato ostensibly does two things. First, he attempts to render an account of the problem of distinguishing the real from the copy (the sham, or simulacrum). In this sense, Plato's concerns with Greek culture, society, and politics, find their paradigmatic nemesis in the rhetoric of the Sophists. A principal concern of the early dialogues is how to distinguish between the real (and with respect to philosophy, this is a concern with the real philosopher) and the copy (in this case, the Sophist or copy of the real philosopher).1 The problem is, to put it simply, that one cannot readily tell the difference. Plato thus attempts to formulate a means by which to adjudicate the distinction between the philosopher and the Sophist, and the means for making that distinction. To all "appearance" they are the same. In this scenario, one way of construing the individuals who carry the statues in front of the fire in the cave, is that at least some of these individuals are representative of the Sophists, or at least of the Sophists' students, the Sophistic influence. Assuming that there may be at least one philosopher carrying these statues in front of the fire, so as to cast an image or shadow on the wall, the others who bear these statues simply mimic the philosopher, at best. One thus, in the end, discovers a multiplicity of images. Amongst this multiplicity of images, however, the 'oi polloi are incapable of distinguishing between them and hence are unable to determine which are the "good" and which the "bad." The problem, at least on one telling of Plato's story, is of course that they cannot distinguish between them precisely because their entire world is a world of copies, at best, and simulacra, at worst.

The significance of this imagery, with respect to cinema, is that the images cast onto the wall of the cave are projected as cinematic images. In part, the point of Plato's imagery is to contrast the "common" understanding of knowledge, truth, and reality with what seemed an obvious "un-reality," the cinematic projection of images. Plato's view of culture and society in part prefigures Jean Baudrillard's interpretation of contemporary society as dominated by images, with the exception that for Plato this view arose as a deep rooted concern. Plato's concern was that society, through the prolixity of images, would entirely divorce itself from the real and from truth, or at least that this divorce from the real would encourage the reign of anarchy.2 In short, Plato's nightmare was the reign of simulacra. This leads to the second point.

Plato's tropes are also used to articulate an account of how to demarcate the limits that establish the bounds of the real and the copy. In both the divided line and the allegory of the cave, Plato attempts to contrast the upper levels of each trope with the lower levels, i.e. the real with the image. Instead of providing the real itself (which from the time of Plato to the present can be construed as the dream of epistemology, if not of philosophy), however, Plato provides only an image of the real. One is, at best, confronted with an analogy or likeness of the forms or the real. Presumably, though, this analogy is a good image or copy of 'reality.' So, Plato is not concerned that all imagery is bad, but again that one must have some means by which to adjudicate between the bad and the good image. But if one is to judge one image better than another, then, according to a traditional logic, one must discover a non-imagistic standard or paradigm that will legitimize the distinction between images. Plato's resolution of this problem was, of course, to posit the Forms. The problem, however, is that the best Plato can give is an image of these forms or paradeigmata.3 So in the final analysis, a distinction must be made between images, by appeal to a paradigmatic image that functions as a substitute for the real. In the end, Plato is inextricably ensconced within the cinematic world of images.

But can an epistemology based on images provide an adequate means of analysis whereby judgments can be made within a context composed entirely of images? Within modern cinema, it could be argued that, in its entirety the cinema is illusion. The stage, the actors, the dialogue, the events, etc. are not what they seem to be. They represent nothing. Cinema is simply the space of fantasy, of complete illusion.4 Is, then, an evaluation of cinema to be made in terms of degrees of coincidence with images of experience, or in terms (however explicit or implicit) of a comparative analysis of a variety of films? Is there, as Plato seemed to suggest, a worthwhile and a worthless pedagogy of cinema? Perhaps the more pressing question is whether Plato himself had in mind something to which his images appealed, i.e. something of which "good" images were the representation. Or might it be argued that the paragons of knowledge, the Forms, were themselves nothing more than images?

Дата добавления: 2015-07-10