A M E R I C A N U N I V E R S I T Y S T U D I E S

What Is Film?

JULIE N. BOOKS
 In What Is Film?, Julie N. Books critically evaluates three philosophical
doctrines of film realism (transparency, illusionism, and perceptual realism)
and defends her view that films are creative works of art. By examining con-
temporary films, such as computer-animated films and films with computer-
generated images, Dr. Books shows how films are creative works of art, thereby
undermining the long-held view that films are slavish recordings of reality.
This book is ideal for academics and courses on the philosophy of film, film
theory, film history, filmmaking, metaphysics, and the philosophy of art.

JULIE N. BOOKS, Esq. received her A.B. with honors from Princeton Uni-
versity, her J.D. from The College of William and Marys Marshall-Wythe
School of Law, her M.A. in philosophy from New York University, and her
Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is
the author of The Supersensible in Kants Critique of Judgment (2016).
FRONT COVER: OIL PAINTING
SUMMER FANTASY BY JULIE N. BOOKS

A M E R I C A N
U N I V E R S I T Y
www.peterlang.com S T U D I E S
What Is Film?
 SERIES V
PHILOSOPHY

V O L . 224

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 Julie N. Books

What Is Film?

PETER LANG
New York Bern Frankfurt Berlin
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Books, Julie N., author.
Title: What is film? / Julie N. Books.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2016.
Series: American university studies. V, Philosophy; Vol. 224
ISSN 0739-6392
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009089| ISBN 978-1-4331-3408-1 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4539-1870-8 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion picturesPhilosophy.
Classification: LCC PN1995 .B614 2016 | DDC 791.4301dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009089

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Cover illustration: Julie N. Books, Summer Fantasy (1986).

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For my father E. James Books
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1

1 Transparency 9
Introduction 9
Photographs and Transparency 10
Films and Transparency 25
Criticisms of Transparency 35

2 Illusionism 45
Introduction 45
Curries Arguments Against Cognitive Illusionism 48
Arguments Against Cognitive Illusionism 59
Curries Arguments Against Perceptual Illusionism 68
Evaluating Perceptual Illusionism 81

3 Perceptual Realism 89
Introduction 89
viii|Contents

Curries Account of Perceptual Realism 91

Problems with Resemblance Theories 106

4 Summarizing the Doctrines of Film Realism 111

5 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film 117

Introduction 117
Films as Creative Works of Art 118

Conclusion 137
Notes 141
Bibliography 155
 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Bruce A. Aune, Thomas E. Wartenberg, and Gareth Matthews
for helping me with my doctoral dissertation The Ontology of Film (2002), which
I have updated by discussing more recent films in this book. I would also like to
thank my husband, father, friends, and pets for their support. Finally, I would like
to thank the editors at Peter Lang Publishing for their assistance with publishing
this book.
 Introduction

There has been an ongoing philosophical debate about whether films are realistic
mediums that record reality or creative mediums that create new realities. In my
doctoral dissertation The Ontology of Film (2002),1 I discussed three philosoph-
ical doctrines of realism in film, namely transparency, illusionism, and percep-
tual realism. By explaining how these three doctrines were inadequate, I laid the
groundwork for my own theory, which I believed could preserve their strengths
and eliminate their weaknesses. My theory, which I called neo-creationism in
light of the new computer technologies that were being used then to create film
images, said that films are not slavish recordings of reality, but rather creative
works of art that alter and transform reality, as well as create new realities, such
as computer-generated realities. I showed how films are creative works of art by
explaining how filmmakers create the many different artistic components of film
images. I also discussed animated films, computer-animated films, films with spe-
cial effects, and films with computer-generated images that showed the creative
and artistic nature of films.
Since I wrote The Ontology of Film (from 2001 to 2002), there have been
many films with special effects, computer-animation, and computer-generated
images due to the advent of new and improved computer technologies (like per-
formance capture and motion capture) and better computer software programs
2|What Is Film?

(like MASSIVE and Tissue) for making film images. While Tron (1982) heralded the
incipient stages of computer-generated images in films, the explosion of computer-
based images occurred after the blockbuster films Terminator II: Judgment Day
(1991), which featured a liquid metal killing machine (the T-1000), and Juras-
sic Park (1993), which featured realistic dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex,
Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Brachiosaurus. These two films were
highly successful because of their innovative use of special effects and computer-
generated imagery (CGI). After seeing the striking lifelikeness of the computer-
generated character Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) in the
winter of 2002, months after my doctoral dissertation was published, I suspected that
computer-generated images would become more prevalent over time. Sure enough,
since then there have been many more films with computer-generated images in
them, such as the film series Spider-Man, Superman, Men in Black, X-Men, Planet
of the Apes, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the
Caribbean, Transformers, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Star Wars. There have also
been lots of computer-animated films since then, such as The Polar Express (2004),
Madagascar (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Beowulf (2007), Wall-E (2008), Monsters vs.
Aliens (2009), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rango (2011), Ice Age: Continental
Drift (2012), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), and The Peanuts Movie (2015). This
book updates my doctoral dissertation The Ontology of Film (2002) by including a
discussion of some of these newer films, particularly computer-animated films and
films with computer-generated images, that were released after the summer of 2002
and before the end of 2015. By examining these more recent films, I believe that
we can more clearly see how films are creative works of art. I am also confident that
many more films in the future will continue to prove my doctoral dissertation thesis
that films are creative works of art.
Unlike classical works that discussed realism in film in terms of film style,
as with Andr Bazins What Is Cinema? (1967), this book is not about film style,
or about how films should look. It is about the ontology of film, or the study of
the being of films. In other words, it is about trying to understand what films
are. I have titled this book What Is Film? as I try to answer that question by
looking at feature films, the motion pictures that we see in movie theaters today,
and finding a defining feature that they all have in common. While there are
many common features that such films have, such as visual images that appear
to move (hence the popular names motion pictures, moving pictures, and
movies to refer to feature films), I believe the most important feature that is
common to all feature films that we see in movie theaters today is their creative
component. The creator of the film, or filmmaker, has to make creative choices
 Introduction|3

and decisions about how the images in the film are going to look. Similarly,
the artists who help to create those film images, and editors who edit them,
also contribute to the filmmaking process in creative ways. You can look at the
end credits of a feature film to realize how many other workers, such as artists,
animators, designers, and editors, have helped the filmmaker to create the final
version of the film, or final cut of the film. It is this creative component that
makes these films creative works of art. In this book, I will discuss some of the
many different creative components of feature films to demonstrate how such
films are creative works of art.2
Since many films relied on photographic methods of production, such as the
traditional 35mm films that were common before the arrival of digital films, and
photographs were often seen as slavish and non-artistic recordings of reality, many
people believed that films were also slavish and non-artistic recordings of reality.
As Rudolph Arnheim summarized their argument, Film cannot be art, for it
does nothing but reproduce reality mechanically.3 In his influential book Film as
Art (1933, revised in 1957), he rejected that argument and said that films are art
through the diverse ways in which they do not show us reality, even when they are
based on photographic methods of production. Arnheim, and other classical film
theorists, such as Hugo Mnsterberg (The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, 1916),
did not have the luxury of talking about computer-generated images in films as
I do to prove their points about films being works of art. The new computer tech-
nologies have changed the nature of films to allow for more artistic and creative
expressions than ever before. I set out to show how this revolution in filmmaking
affects the ontological status of films as creative works of art.
The reason Arnheim and others felt that they had to defend the nature of
films as being works of art is because of the photographic basis of film images.
Since many films in their time were comprised of photographic images, films were
thought by other film theorists, such as Andr Bazin (What Is Cinema?, 1967), to
be merely mechanical and accurate recordings of reality just like the photographic
images on which films were based. However, as Arnheim and others showed in
their works, and I will show in this book, photographs do not just mechanically
and accurately record reality because the photographer makes creative choices and
decisions when making a photograph. For instance, the photographer selects and
manipulates the composition, the lighting, the colors, and the angles of the shots.
As a result of this deliberate and intentional process of selection and manipula-
tion, the photograph shows viewers what the photographer wants viewers to see,
which may not be the way the world really looked at the time the photograph was
taken. The photograph is thus a creative work of art.
4|What Is Film?

Films are creative works of art too, because they also involve human creativity
in the process of making them. In this book, I will show some of the many differ-
ent kinds of creative aspects that go into the making of films. Furthermore, with
animated films, computer-animated films, and films with computer-generated
images, there is no longer a necessary photographic basis for them, which means
that when you see them, you may be seeing absolutely nothing from the real
world. As Ian Jarvie (reiterating Alexander Sesonske) points out, an animated film
may show what never happened anywhere because What is photographed in
animation work are thousands of pictures painted on cels, as with the classic film
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).4 With animated films, which involve
drawing and painting images by hand, and computer-animated films, which
involve using computers to make film images, the process of making film images
is more like making paintings than making photographs because the filmmakers
can control every aspect of how their film images look.
Avatar (2009) is currently the highest-grossing film of all time in the world
due to its innovative use of computer-enhanced special effects and computer-
generated images. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) became the highest-
grossing film of all time in the U.S. just a few weeks after it was released. These
two blockbuster films depict fantasy worlds and computer-generated creatures that
look amazingly realistic, such as the exotic world Pandora with its blue-skinned,
humanoid creatures (the Navi) in Avatar (2009) and the lush planet Takodana
with its orange-skinned pirate queen Maz Kanata and other alien creatures (like
the Rathtars) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Artists and animators cre-
ated these fantasy worlds and their imaginary inhabitants on computers and then
incorporated their computer-generated images into the final film images. As a
result of this creative process, we see an artificial computer-generated reality and
not recordings or reproductions of the real world. Thus, the use of computers for
making images in films has changed the ontology of films so that films are now
more artistic, expressive, intentional, subjective, malleable, and creative. Films
can no longer be seen as slavish photographic recordings of reality that are auto-
matic, mechanical, non-artistic, non-expressive, non-intentional, objective, non-
malleable, and non-creative.
I believe my definition of films as creative works of art is fitting because it
is broad enough to encompass all the feature films, or motion pictures, that we
see in movie theaters today. We could narrow the definition of films to be more
specific, but once we start including more specific features, we have to realize that
there are exceptions, such as films that dont have any movement in them (like
static films5), films that dont have sounds (like silent films), films that arent made
 Introduction|5

of celluloid (like digital films), and so forth. One could object to my definition by
saying that it wont be able to explain how films differ from other creative works
of visual art.6 One obvious difference is that film images appear to move, but since
movement is not a feature of all films, we cannot use that feature as a necessary
feature of all films.7 I therefore prefer that my definition be broad rather than too
narrow so that it can be applied to all films. We can add more specific features to
my definition as needed later.
One could also argue that the material and physical components of films, like
the celluloid filmstrips used in traditional 35mm films and the digital formats used
in digital films (or more precisely digital videos) are also relevant to the discussion of
what films are. Incidentally, digital films are less expensive to make, easier to make,
easier to distribute, easier to edit and manipulate, easier to reproduce, and dont
degrade as fast as celluloid filmstrips, and so they are becoming more popular and
more prevalent. However, the material and physical components of films would not
sufficiently explain the nature and essence of films because films are much more
than their material and physical components. We do not even see the actual cellu-
loid filmstrips when watching traditional films, but rather the flickering film images
that appear to move as a result of rapidly projecting the film images by means of a
projector onto a screen or other viewing apparatus, and with newer formats, such as
digital films (or more precisely digital videos), there are no celluloid filmstrips. This
book will explain what components go into the making of films and film images
to give readers a more comprehensive understanding of the ontology of films. The
films that we typically see in movie theaters, which this book is about, are made
through an intentional process that involves human creativity, and because of that
creative process, I believe films are creative works of art.
In Chapter 1, I will critically discuss the doctrine of transparency that is pre-
sented and defended by Kendall Walton. According to Walton, photographs and
films are transparent because we see through them to the real world as we see
through a window or a lens. The reason we can see through photographs and films
is that the cameras used to make photographic and film images mechanically and
automatically record reality with little or no intervention by the photographer or
filmmaker. I will refute this view by discussing some of the many ways in which
photographers can manipulate the appearances of photographic images. I will also
discuss digital photographs, which make such manipulations easier and faster. Dig-
ital photographs are also not transparent because we do not always see real things
from the real world when we look at them. The filmmaker also exerts influence over
how the final film images look through a creative and artistic process that involves
making decisions about many different aspects of film production. Furthermore,
6|What Is Film?

the transparency doctrine doesnt apply to animated, computer-animated, and

computer-generated film images because we do not always see real things from the
real world when we look at such images. I will discuss contemporary criticisms of
Waltons transparency doctrine made by Nigel Warburton, Nol Carroll, Gregory
Currie, and Thomas Wartenberg. I will summarize their arguments, evaluate their
effectiveness, and discuss how Walton can respond to their arguments.
In Chapter 2, I will discuss the doctrine of illusionism, which says that film
viewers experience an illusion of reality when they watch films. In his book Image
and Mind (1995), Gregory Currie rejects cognitive illusionism because film view-
ers do not behave like people who really believe they are in the presence of axe
murderers, monsters, nuclear explosions, and other subjects that films portray.
Furthermore, he says that if film viewers really believed that they were watching
real events, they would have to suppose that their perspective is that of the camera
and that they are positioned within and move throughout the space of the film.
He says this identification with the camera is psychologically impossible because
it would require film viewers to think of themselves in bizarre locations and per-
forming impossible bodily movements, which is not part of the ordinary expe-
rience of film watching. I will discuss why Curries arguments against cognitive
illusionism are not convincing, and I will offer my own arguments for why film
viewers do not experience cognitive illusions while watching films. I will explain
how certain creative and artistic elements within a film, such as camera angles,
lighting effects, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, and sequencing of shots,
make film viewers aware that they are seeing fictional events. In addition, there are
aspects of film viewing that make film viewers aware that what they are seeing is
not real events that are presently occurring, such as sitting quietly in a dark room,
seeing a rectangular movie screen with a projected image on it from some distance
away, and listening to loud stereo surround sound or digital surround sound.
I will next discuss a more plausible version of illusionism, namely perceptual illu-
sionism, which says that film viewers do not have any false beliefs that what they
are seeing is real; they simply see what appears to them to be real. One example
of a perceptual illusion in films is the illusion of motion. Gregory Currie rejects
perceptual illusionism by arguing that the motion in film images is real. I will
refute Curries arguments and explain how the motion in film images is indeed
a perceptual illusion. I will then discuss how perceptual illusionism can explain
some of our immediate and visceral responses to watching films.
In Chapter 3, I will explain the doctrine of perceptual realism that is endorsed
and defended by Gregory Currie in his book Image and Mind (1995). Currie
argues that film viewing is realistic because it approximates our normal experience
 Introduction|7

of perceiving the real world. He believes that we all have the ability to recognize
certain spatial features of objects, such as their sizes, shapes, colors, and positions;
and this ability enables us to recognize that what we are seeing is something we
have seen before. For example, we can recognize a horse in a film because we can
match the spatial features of the horse on the film screen with the spatial features
of a horse that we have seen before. We are then able to associate those spatial
features that we see on the film screen with a pre-existing concept that we have
of a horse which, when combined with other information that we have from our
perceptions, knowledge, and memory, ultimately results in our judgment that we
are seeing a horse. I will argue that Curries account of perceptual realism is inade-
quate because he does not clearly explain how our perceptual mechanisms work in
recognizing perceptual objects in film images to be like real objects we have seen
before. He is also incorrect in his view that films are photographic representations
of real objects, since films can also be artistically created, non-photographic rep-
resentations of imaginary objects that are not found in the real world, as with the
objects depicted in animated and computer-animated film images. As a result,
film images will not always resemble real objects in the real world with respect to
corresponding spatial features. I will discuss problems with Curries account of
perceptual realism, as well as some problems with resemblance theories in general.
In Chapter 4, I will summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the three
doctrines. The transparency doctrine is useful for explaining how film images can
show us the real world by filming the real world, but it cannot explain animated,
computer-animated, and computer-generated film images that do not show us the
real world, but rather artists drawn and painted images of imaginary worlds. The illu-
sionism doctrine is able to explain our immediate and visceral responses to watching
films, such as our startle responses, but it cannot explain all of our responses, espe-
cially when, for the most part, film viewers do not believe that what they are seeing
is real. Finally, the doctrine of perceptual realism can provide a simple conceptual
framework for understanding how we are able to identify the subject matter of film
images, but the explanation of how our recognitional capacities work in matching
spatial features in film images to spatial features in the real world is not sufficiently
detailed to be a satisfactory explanation of realism in film.
In Chapter 5, I will introduce my own account of the ontology of film,
which I believe can preserve the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses of the
transparency, illusionism, and perceptual realism doctrines. I will explain how
films are creative works of art in which filmmakers make creative decisions about
such things as the subject matter, composition, type and duration of shots, editing
of shots, motions, sounds, textures, and colors. I will show how films are not
8|What Is Film?

slavish reproductions or recordings of reality, but rather creative works of art that
create new realities, as by changing the appearances of real things in the real world
or by depicting things that do not exist in the real world.
I will conclude by explaining how my account improves upon the transpar-
ency, illusionism, and perceptual realism doctrines. It eliminates the problem with
the transparency doctrine that it cannot explain creative film images which alter
and distort reality and animated, computer-animated, and computer-generated
film images, which do not always involve photographing real things from the
real world. On my account of films as creative works of art, films dont merely
record reality in a slavish and non-artistic way; they also create new realities, such
as computer-generated realities. As a result, my account can explain films that
the transparency doctrine cannot explain. It also addresses the problem with the
illusionism doctrine that it does not explain the fact that film viewers are not sub-
ject to a cognitive illusion in which they have the false belief that they are seeing
real events that are presently occurring. Film viewers are not under any such illu-
sion because they are aware of the artificial viewing conditions under which they
watch films and because they can see the artistic and creative elements within film
images. Thus, film viewers are not likely to be duped into believing that they are
seeing real and presently occurring events.
Finally, my account improves upon Curries theory of perceptual realism
because it can explain film representations that are not the result of photograph-
ing anything real from the real world. For instance, it can explain animated,
computer-animated, and computer-generated film images that are drawn and
painted by hand to show film viewers imaginary worlds that need not resemble
the real world in any significant respects. Artificial colors, textures, sizes, shapes,
positions, and spatial relations can be created on computer screens so that when
film viewers see computer-generated film images, they do not see real colors, tex-
tures, sizes, shapes, positions, and spatial relations in the real world. My account
can explain these non-resemblances to the real world by looking at how filmmak-
ers manipulate artistic and creative elements in film images, just as other visual
artists manipulate artistic and creative elements in their images. Thus, my account
of films as creative works of art is an improvement over the three philosophi-
cal doctrines of film realism, namely transparency, illusionism, and perceptual
realism.
 1

Transparency

Introduction

The transparency doctrine says that we see real objects from the real world when
we look at photographic and film images because the cameras that create photo-
graphic and film images accurately and mechanically record the light rays emanat-
ing from the surfaces of real objects. The beliefs of the photographer or the film-
maker are not relevant to the appearances of the objects photographed or filmed,
as they are with other visual arts, like drawings and paintings, in which artists
creatively manipulate the appearances of the objects they draw and paint as a
result of their beliefs about how those objects should look. The process of making
photographs and films is therefore thought to be distinctly different from the
process of making other pictorial works of art; the former are causal and mechan-
ical, while the latter are intentional and human. According to the transparency
doctrine, photographic and film images not only record the way real objects
looked at a certain time in the past, but they also provide us with direct and
immediate perceptual access to those objects, as though we were looking at them
through a window or a lens. Hence, the appeal of the transparency doctrine is
that it can explain the fact that we use photographic and film images to provide us
10|What Is Film?

with reliable information about the past and why photographic and film images
have such a profound effect on us.
However, the transparency doctrine is untenable because photographers and
filmmakers creatively manipulate their photographic and film images so that they
do not always show viewers the way real objects looked in the real world at the
time of photographing and filming. They can, for instance, superimpose images
to combine different objects from separate images into a single image, change
the shapes and colors of the objects in their images, and manipulate the com-
positional arrangement of the objects in their images. These creative and artistic
ways of manipulating the appearances of photographic and film images under-
mine the transparency notion that photographic and film images give us reliable
information about the world. Furthermore, with digital photography, computer-
generated images, and special effects, photographers and filmmakers can create
images of imaginary objects that do not exist in reality, just as painters are able
to do, thus blurring the traditional distinction between the causal process of the
camera and the intentional process of the artist.
In this chapter, I will explain the reasons why photographs and films are
thought to be transparent. I will critically discuss the arguments made by the
philosopher Kendall Walton for the transparent status of photographic and film
images. I will show why his arguments do not succeed by discussing the artistic
and creative elements in photographic and film images, which can alter and dis-
tort reality, as well as create new realities. Finally, I will evaluate some contempo-
rary criticisms of Waltons arguments for transparency, and I will explain how he
can respond to those criticisms. I will ultimately show that transparency is not a
necessary feature of all photographic and film images.

Photographs and Transparency

Since most films are comprised of a series of still photographs shown in rapid suc-
cession and rely on photographic methods of production, transparency advocates
believe that films are transparent in the same way that photographs are transpar-
ent. To determine whether films are transparent, we therefore have to begin by
examining whether photographs are transparent.
According to the transparency doctrine, a photograph is transparent because
one sees the real object(s) photographed when one looks at it. For example,
a photograph of my great-grandfather is said to be transparent because I literally see
my great-grandfather when I look at it, not just a representation or image of him.
 Transparency|11

The photograph puts me in direct perceptual contact with my great-grandfather.

I see him as though he were standing right in front of me. The term transparent
accentuates the notion that we can see through a photograph just as we can see
through transparent materials, like glasses or windows. A photograph is therefore
like a window through which we see real objects in the real world.
The notion that photographs are transparent initially seems plausible because
photographs are frequently used to record the appearances of real people, places,
and events. For example, if we want to record how our great-grandfather looked
on his ninetieth birthday, we take a photograph of him. Even if the photograph
is in black and white, rather than color, we tend to believe that the photograph
accurately portrays what was in front of the camera at the time the photograph
was taken. Photographs are even used as evidence in courts of law because of their
presumed veracity.
The belief that photographs are able to accurately record reality comes pri-
marily from the mechanical way in which photographs are made. Throughout
history, cameras have been viewed as mechanical devices that can accurately
record reality. In the seventeenth century, for instance, the presumption was that
the camera obscura provided a scientifically accurate way of seeing the world.1
The camera obscura was a box that admitted light through a small hole in one
side and projected an inverted image of what was in front of it on the opposite
side. Artists believed that they could make their paintings more realistic if they
painted the world as seen through the lens of a camera obscura. For example,
seventeenth-century Dutch Baroque artists, such as Vermeer, painted the circles
of confusion and halation of highlights in their paintings that they saw on
the viewing screens of their camera obscuras.2 It didnt matter to them that such
things could not be seen by the naked eye. The early aim of cameras to accurately
record reality continued throughout the evolution of photography. Technological
innovations, such as light-sensitive paper, specialized lenses, and color film, were
motivated by the desire for greater realism and accuracy.
Today, cameras are still believed to be capable of accurately recording reality by
automatically and mechanically recording the light rays reflected off of the surfaces
of objects. This process begins when the shutter of the camera opens to let light
into the chamber, which exposes the photosensitive film inside. The film is then
removed from the camera and developed by agitating it in various chemicals to pro-
duce negatives. Each negative is then placed in an enlarger device, which has a lens
to focus the image on the negative and an aperture control to adjust the amount of
light passing through the negative. Once the image on the negative has been trans-
ferred to the printing paper by exposing it to light, the printing paper is immersed
12|What Is Film?

in chemical baths (i.e., developer, stop bath, and fixer) to form the finished print,
or final photographic image. As a result of this mechanical process of capturing
light rays to form images on film and then permanently fixing those film images on
paper, we tend to believe that photographs accurately record reality.
Contemporary philosopher Kendall Walton believes that photographs are
transparent in the sense that when we look at photographs of objects, we see the
objects themselves that were photographed. He says, we see, quite literally, our
dead relatives themselves when we look at photographs of them.3 In making this
claim Walton does not mean that we mistake the photographs of our dead rela-
tives for our dead relatives themselves, since we can see easily distinguish photo-
graphs of objects from photographed objects by the frames around photographs,
the walls on which photographs are hung, the flat surfaces of photographs, etc.4
He means that when we look at a photograph of our dead relatives, we see our
dead relatives as we would see them if they were right in front of our eyes.
Due to the mechanical way in which photographs are made, Walton believes
that there is counterfactual dependence between a photograph of a real object and
the real object photographed, meaning that if the real object had been different,
the photograph of it will necessarily be correspondingly different.5 For example, if
my great-grandfather had a different appearance, the photograph of him would be
correspondingly different to reflect that different appearance, regardless of what
the photographer believes. But the painting of my great-grandfather can show
anything that the painter wants to paint. For example, the painter can paint my
great-grandfather with golden brown hair and without any wrinkles to make him
look younger. What the painter believes about how my great- grandfather should
look in the painting is relevant to how he appears in the painting, but what the
photographer believes about how my great-grandfather should look is not rele-
vant to his appearance in the photograph.
Walton allows for the existence of creative photographs that can distort real-
ity, and even mislead us, but he believes that for the most part photographs are
necessarily accurate, or especially close to the facts.6 For example, even if a
photograph involved creatively merging an image of a face with an image of a
hand, as in Jerry Uelsmanns photograph called Symbolic Mutation (1961), the
image of the face is accurate in showing us the real face that was photographed,
and the image of the hand is accurate in showing us the real hand that was pho-
tographed. The reason Walton thinks photographs are necessarily accurate is that
photographs preserve the causal pathways between the photograph and the real
object(s) photographed.7 The real objects being photographed cause their images
because the light rays emanating from those objects travel in an unimpeded
 Transparency|13

fashion to the film in the camera, just as the light rays emanating from real objects
that we see travel in an unimpeded fashion to the retinas in our eyes.8 Walton
believes that if the causal pathways between the real objects and the film inside
the camera are not significantly impeded, then we can trust that when this film is
developed, the resulting photographs are accurate; we will see the real objects that
were photographed when we look at them.
However, Walton does not adequately discuss the many different ways that
the photographer can impede upon these causal pathways when creating photo-
graphs and thereby undermine photographic accuracy. Even amateur photogra-
phers know from personal experience that the image that one gets at the end of
the developing process is not always the same as what was seen when the pho-
tograph was taken. For example, I remember taking photographs of bright blue
skies and blue waters one sunny summer day in Venice, but when I got those
photographs back from the developers, they showed pink skies and gray waters
due to improper developing.
Also, when I was taught photography at the Duke Ellington School of the
Arts in Washington D.C., I learned different ways to manipulate the appearances
of my black-and-white photographic images by using different developing tech-
niques in the darkroom. I could change the size and composition of my photo-
graphic image by raising and lowering the head of the enlarger that holds the
negative in place, moving the position of the negative in the enlarger, cutting up
the negative, or varying the size of the printing paper. I could also adjust the lens
of the enlarger to make the photographic image appear in focus or out of focus
and the aperture size to make the image appear lighter or darker. I could even
superimpose images by holding objects between the negative and the printing
paper. Finally, I could get different degrees of lightness and darkness in the image
by burning and dodging techniques and by varying the durations of time that the
printing paper was left to soak in various chemical baths. Walton fails to discuss
these kinds of impediments to the causal pathways that can affect the appearances
of photographic images, perhaps because they occur after the snapping of the
shutter.
But the photographer can also affect the appearances of her photographic
images before the snapping of the shutter. The photographer can manipulate the
sizes and appearances of her photographic images through her choice of camera
types (e.g., a camera obscura, box camera, or fixed-focus camera). She can stand
close to the objects or far away, thereby influencing how large or small the objects
will appear in her photographic images. She can also choose her composition by
photographing the angles that look the most visually appealing to her. She can
14|What Is Film?

use artificial light sources and different kinds of flashes to bring out the details
of objects photographed in low-light conditions. By selecting certain filters (e.g.,
ultraviolet, polarizing, and color filters), she can create different lighting effects.
She can also control the amount of light entering the camera, and hence the light-
ness and darkness of her images, through her choice of aperture size and shutter
speed. By selecting certain lenses (e.g., wide-angle, telephoto, macro, and zoom),
she can control the size, scope, and range of focus, and with her choice of film
and film speed, she can affect the color and clarity of her photographic images.
Thus, the photographer can manipulate the appearances of photographs by
making choices about such things as the subject matter, composition, camera
types, camera angles, light sources, flashes, filters, aperture sizes, shutter speeds,
lenses, films, film speeds, printing papers, and developing techniques. These exam-
ples of human intervention in the creation of photographs undermine the trans-
parency view that photographs mechanically and accurately record reality, since
they show that people can manipulate photographic images so that they do not
always show us the way that real objects looked when they were photographed.
Walton would probably respond to my argument by saying that even though
there are different ways in which people can manipulate photographic images,
the causal pathways between the real objects photographed and the camera are
essentially intact because at the moment when the button controlling the shutter
is depressed, the light rays coming off those objects being photographed pass
through the aperture of the camera and are captured mechanically and accurately,
thereby preserving the fidelity of photographs to reality.
But the fidelity of photographs to reality depends on more than just the
mechanical process of the shutter opening to let light rays into the camera. The
camera has to let in the right amount of light to properly expose the film inside
the camera and the image on that film has to be properly developed, or else the
image will be too light or too dark to be seen. As Edward Martin points out, it is
difficult to believe that an overexposed or an underexposed photographic image
captures anything at all about the real world.9 When we look at these photo-
graphs, we see a blank white piece of paper and a pitch black piece of paper. They
tell us nothing about how the photographed objects looked at the time the shutter
was snapped.
Walton distinguishes these overexposed and underexposed photographs of
his great-grandfather from the accurate photograph of his great-grandfather by
saying that they do not meet his causal pathway requirement. He says that Mar-
tins photographs are caused by the opening and closing of the shutter, and not
by his great-grandfather.10 I believe that Walton speaks imprecisely when he says
 Transparency|15

that his great-grandfather caused the accurate photographic image, but not the
inaccurate photographic images. It seems to me that Waltons great-grandfather
had nothing to do with whether the image was properly or improperly exposed.
When Walton says that his great-grandfather caused the accurate image, he
cannot mean that his great-grandfather somehow caused the appropriate
amount of light to get through the aperture of the camera to create a properly
exposed image. I doubt that Waltons great-grandfather has that kind of power
over light rays. What he probably means is that the source of the light rays in his
accurate photograph was his great-grandfather. But if that were the case, then
he is incorrect to distinguish the two cases by saying that his great-grandfather
caused the image in his accurate photograph but not in Martins inaccurate pho-
tograph, since his great-grandfather was the source of the light rays in Martins
inaccurate photographs as well.
I believe that Walton should distinguish his accurate photograph from Martins
inaccurate photographs by noting the different amounts of light going through
the aperture of the camera, instead of distinguishing them on the grounds that
his great-grandfather caused the accurate photograph but not Martins inaccurate
photographs.
Thus, Walton has not effectively explained why overexposed and underex-
posed photographs are not transparent when they do have unimpeded causal
pathways between the real objects photographed and the camera, and yet they
are not accurate in showing us the real objects photographed. The mechanical
and automatic snapping of the shutter does not ensure accuracy or fidelity to
reality, since the film inside the camera could still be improperly exposed to light
or improperly developed. The photographer must regulate the amount of light
that enters the camera to expose the film properly (i.e., by adjusting the size of
the aperture and the shutter speed) and must develop the film images in a manner
that will allow them to be visible.
If Walton were to concede that the mechanical process also requires a certain
amount of light going through the aperture of the camera, we would then want
to know what is the right amount of light necessary for a transparent photograph.
There will obviously be differing amounts of light going through the aperture of
the camera, and it is not clear if we can call a photograph transparent with some
amounts of light rather than others. If Walton were to pick an amount of light
that is sufficient for a transparent photograph, that amount would no doubt vary
with the photographic equipment. For example, a relatively small amount of light
might be sufficient for some speed films but not for other speed films, or for some
types of cameras and not for other types. Specifying the amount of light that
16|What Is Film?

results in a transparent photograph is undoubtedly a difficult task, but I think

Walton needs to address this topic to strengthen his account of transparency.
Consequently, the mechanical process of capturing light rays and the accu-
racy obtained by preserving causal pathways are not enough to ensure that a pho-
tograph will be transparent, as was shown by Martins examples of overexposed
and underexposed photographs. Walton could improve his account by discussing
the amount of light that is needed to properly expose the film in the camera and
the kinds of human interventions that are needed to properly develop the film
image in a manner that will allow it to be visible, since a photograph cannot
be transparent if the image is not visible. He could also improve his account
by explaining how creative acts of human intervention that are involved in the
making of final photographic images do not undermine his notion that photo-
graphs are transparent.
Given some of these limitations with Waltons transparency doctrine, why
is it so popular? I think that it is popular because of the long-standing view that
photographs automatically and mechanically record reality without any acts of
creative human intervention. Throughout the history of photography, people
have argued that the purpose of photography was to record reality in this fashion.
Andr Bazin, a French film critic, wrote in his book What Is Cinema? (1967) that
photography satisfied our appetite for illusion by a mechanical reproduction in
the making of which man plays no part and that with photographs, an image
of the world is formed automatically, without the creative intervention of man.11
His views were later echoed by the American philosopher Stanley Cavell, who
said that photography overcame the subjectivity of painting by automatism, by
removing the human agent from the task of reproduction.12
More recently, the English philosopher Roger Scruton has also argued that
films are not art forms because of the photographic basis of their production.13
The American philosopher Nol Carroll finds three main rationales to Scrutons
argument that films are not art forms, namely causation, control, and aesthetic
interest.14 First, there is the causation argument, which says that photographs
(and film images that are based on photographs) have to be caused by some real
object that the camera is capturing the light rays off of. For example, if I see a
photograph or a film image of a tomato sitting on a table, then there was a real
tomato sitting on a real table when the photograph or film image was taken of
those real objects. Contrast that with a painting, where an artist could paint a pic-
ture of a tomato sitting on a table when there is no real tomato and no real table
in view of the artist. He or she could simply imagine a tomato sitting on a table
and paint what is in his or her imagination. As Scruton says, if a photograph is a
 Transparency|17

photograph of a subject, it follows that the subject exists, and if x is a photograph

of a man, there is a particular man of whom x is the photograph.15
Second, there is the control argument, which says that photographers and
filmmakers cant exert control over the contents of their photographs and film
images, and so such images cannot be works of art because there is just a mechan-
ical and automatic process at work. For example, with an instamatic camera, you
just push one button and a photographic image appears within seconds on the film
that gets automatically ejected from the camera. You obviously cant control how
that photographic image looks, since all you are doing to make that photographic
image is loading the film cartridge into the camera and pushing one button. As
Scruton says, The causal process of which the photographer is a victim puts
almost every detail outside of his control.16 He adds that if the photographer tries
to exert control of the image, as by touching up or altering the image, then the
photograph has become a painting instead.17 Since the photographer lacks control
over how his or her image looks, unlike the painter who intentionally controls
every aspect of how his or her painting looks, Scruton believes that the subject
of an ideal photograph will look pretty much like what was photographed. For
Scruton, an ideal photograph is one that is the result of a causal process and has
not been tampered with, as by changing or editing the image. Also, the subject of
an ideal photograph must appear roughly as it appears in the photograph.18 We
can call this requirement of his the resemblance requirement.
Finally, there is the aesthetic interest argument, which says that if we take an
interest in a photograph or film image, we are not taking an interest in the photo-
graph or film images themselves, but rather the contents of those images. Scruton
says, The photograph is transparent to its subject, and if it holds our interest it
does so because it acts as a surrogate for the thing which it shows. Thus if one
finds a photograph beautiful, it is because one finds something beautiful in its sub-
ject.19 For example, if I look at a photograph of an Arabian horse, then according
to Scruton, I would regard the subject, the Arabian horse, as being beautiful, and
I would not be taking an aesthetic interest in the photograph itself, such as the way
the photograph frames the horse or lights up the horse to make it look beautiful.
Each one of these three arguments can be refuted. First, the causation argu-
ment fails because there is much more going on with making a photographic
image and a film image than just this non-creative, mechanical aspect. That
non-creative, mechanical aspect may be one part of the process of making photo-
graphic and film images, but it is by no means the only part of the process. The
photographer and filmmaker can manipulate their photographic and film images
to look the ways they want them to look, which may not be an accurate reflection
18|What Is Film?

of the way things looked in the real world when those things were being photo-
graphed and filmed, which means that the appearances of things in photographic
and film images do not have to resemble the appearances of things in the real
world being photographed and filmed (thus destroying the resemblance require-
ment). There are many parts of the process of making photographic and film
images that involve creative interventions. Also, in photography and filmmaking,
there are many ways in which photographers and filmmakers can exert control
and influence over how their final film images look, which I will discuss in more
detail later in this book.
Scruton says that a photograph stands in a causal relation to the subject of
the photograph, which means that the subject of the photograph actually existed
and appeared in the photograph to look as it did when the photograph was taken.
However, this view is incorrect because there are photographs in which the subjects
do not always look like they did when the photographs were taken and in which
the subjects of the photographs do not exist, as with some digital photographs.
Similarly with films, there are film images that show film viewers the appearances
of things that look quite unlike the way they looked in the real world, and there
are film images that show film viewers the appearances of things that do not exist
in the real world, as with some computer-animated and computer-generated film
images. I will give specific examples of some of these digital photographic images,
computer-animated film images, and computer-generated film images later in this
book. These examples will show how photographic and film images are creative
works of art and not slavish recordings of reality.
Second, this editing and manipulating process that is frequently used by
both photographers and filmmakers shows that photographers and filmmakers
are indeed exercising control over their photographic and film images. Above all,
with digital photographs and digital films or computer-generated films, we can
more clearly see how photographers and filmmakers are intentionally creating
and manipulating their images, which may look nothing like what was in front of
their eyes in the real world that was photographed or filmed.
Scruton would counter my argument by saying that these kinds of photo-
graphic and film images that involve intentional control over the images are more
like paintings, and thus are not applicable. He gives examples of photographers
choosing their colors, adding or subtracting wrinkles, selecting skin textures,
painting things out or in, touching things up, and altering and pasting things
as he pleases, but in such cases he says, the photographer has now become a
painter.20 I would disagree by saying that even when photographers and film-
makers exert control over their photographic and film images and make creative
 Transparency|19

interventions, they are still photographers and filmmakers (not painters) who are
creating photographic and film images (not painted images), and these kinds of
photographic and film images are creative works of art (not slavish reproductions
of reality).
Third, viewers are taking an aesthetic interest in more than just the con-
tent of the photographic and film images, but also the creative ways in which
that content is being presented to them. For instance, they may notice how the
lighting effects affect the atmosphere and mood of a scene in photographic and
film images. In films, they may also notice the editing techniques that can help
to make the images flow more quickly and easily or to make the images appear
more disjointed and unsettling. They may also notice the compositional arrange-
ments, colors, contrasts, special effects, and other creative interventions by the
photographer and filmmaker, all of which add to their aesthetic interest in the
photographic and film images for their own sakes and as they are in themselves.
With digital photographs and computer-generated films that allow for even more
creative expressions and creative manipulations of photographic and film images,
we can more clearly see that viewers respond to and appreciate the creative, artis-
tic, and aesthetic aspects of photographic and film images. Thus, Scrutons argu-
ments will not work to undermine the notion that films are art forms because of
the many creative and artistic interventions that photographers and filmmakers
use when making their photographic and film images.
Walton also says that photography is a mechanical medium that does not
involve the subjective beliefs of the photographer. He says that the beliefs of the
photographer are irrelevant to how the photographic image looks, whereas the
painters beliefs are relevant to how the painting looks.21 In making this distinc-
tion, Walton is correct about one thing. At the moment when the photographer
pushes the button on her camera to open the shutter, thereby allowing light rays
to enter the camera and expose the film inside, her beliefs about how the scene
should look do not have any impact on the recording process, since the camera
captures the light rays mechanically and automatically.
However, Walton fails to recognize that the photographer does have beliefs
that are relevant to the appearance of the final photographic image. Prior to snap-
ping the shutter, the photographer can manipulate elements of the scene to be
photographed. For example, if the photographer believes that the scene is not ade-
quate compositionally, she can compose the scene by rearranging objects, adding
objects, or removing objects at the scene being photographed. If she believes that
the scene does not have the appropriate lighting, she can use different kinds of arti-
ficial lights, filters, and flashes to illuminate the scene. If she wants to incorporate
20|What Is Film?

fanciful or artificial elements to the image of the scene, she can add her own props
to the scene prior to photographing it.
We can further see how the photographers beliefs are relevant in Waltons
dinosaur hypothetical.22 In this hypothetical Walton asks us to imagine that an
explorer emerges from an African jungle with photographs of dinosaurs and
sketches of dinosaurs that were shot and drawn from life in the jungle. Walton
says that with the sketches we would have to rely on the explorers judgments
about what he thought was there in the jungle, while with the photographs we
would not have to rely on his judgments of what he thought was there in the
jungle. The photographs show us what was there, regardless of what the explorer
thought was there. We can therefore correctly infer the existence of the dinosaur
from looking at the photographs of the dinosaur, but we cannot do so from look-
ing at the sketches of the dinosaur.
But the photographers beliefs are relevant to what the final photographic
image reveals. For example, if a photographer sees an elephant in the jungle with
pink skin, she could believe that elephants shouldnt be shown to have pink skin,
and so she could use the appropriate color filters to give the elephant in her image
the skin color that she thinks elephants should have, such as dark gray skin. Also,
if she sees an elephant in the jungle that is the size of a large dog, and she believes
that elephants should be shown to be much larger, she could use the appropriate
lenses to make the elephant appear larger than it really is. Furthermore, if the ele-
phant she sees is lying inert on the ground, she can use the appropriate film speed,
shutter speed, and aperture setting to make it look like it is moving. Conversely,
if the elephant is running quickly away from her, she can use the appropriate film
speed, shutter speed, and aperture setting to make it look as though the elephant
is standing still in front of her. There might not even be a real elephant at the scene
to be photographed. With digital photography, the photographer can insert an
image of an elephant into the photographic image. We can see by these examples
that the photographers beliefs about how the final photographic images should
look are relevant to what the final photographic images reveal.
Walton might further respond to my argument by noting that the photog-
rapher doesnt have to be present at the scene for the camera to record what the
elephant looks like, while the painter must be present at the scene to paint what
it looks like to her. But I would point out that the photographer does have to
be present for some key aspects of the photographing process. For instance, the
photographer has to be present to take the camera to the desired location and to
set up the photographic equipment in such a way that the scene can be properly
 Transparency|21

photographed. If the photographer does not set up the photographic equipment

properly, she might get a distorted image or no image at all!
Walton might respond by arguing that there are mechanical devices that can
travel to desired locations and take photographs without people being present to
set up the photographic equipment, like the machines that take photographs of
the topography of distant planets or remote objects in space. But those machines
are not autonomous agents that can decide where, when, and how they should
photograph objects. Human beings have to equip them with the appropriate pho-
tographic equipment for the conditions under which they will be photographing
objects, and they have to program them in advance to take photographs at prese-
lected times and in predetermined ways. In addition, the image on the film inside
the camera would not be seen if it was not taken out of the camera and properly
developed. During this developing process, the photographer can manipulate
the appearance of the final photographic image. She can, through various cre-
ative interventions, make the image look as she believes the scene should look,
which might be nothing like the original scene that she photographed. She could
inscribe or draw shapes on its surface, add colors to the image by painting on its
surface, use burning and dodging techniques to create or eliminate shadows, vary
the exposure times to lighten or darken the image, and superimpose images. The
photographer can therefore manipulate the appearances of her final photographic
images so that they do not reveal the appearances of real objects in the real world.
Walton would probably grant that there are ways to change the appearances of
photographs during the developing process, but he might also point out that pho-
tographs can be developed mechanically and automatically with minimal human
intervention. For instance, the photographic images from instamatic cameras are
developed automatically and within a few seconds after being ejected from the
camera without having to take the film to a developer. Once the shutter button is
depressed to expose the film inside the camera, the photograph is automatically
and mechanically ejected from the camera, and once ejected from the camera and
exposed to the light outside the camera, it instantly develops itself. As a result,
Walton could argue that some photographs are capable of being developed with
little or no human intervention.
But the developing process of these cameras still requires that a human being
push a button to open the shutter and thereby expose the film inside the camera.
The camera cannot decide when to expose the film on its own. Even with time-
lapse photography, in which the photographer does not have to be present at the
scene being photographed, the cameras is set to record the scene at certain times
22|What Is Film?

that are preselected in advance by the photographer. A person must therefore be

present in the making of a photograph, just as with the making of a painting.
Walton does acknowledge that his two conditions for transparent pho-
tographs, namely mechanicalness and accuracy, are not enough to ensure that
we see through photographs because machines that are sensitive to light could
produce accurate verbal descriptions of real objects, and yet we do not see real
objects through them. He therefore adds a further condition for seeing through
photographs, namely that photographs preserve real similarity relations between
what we see through them and what we see in the real world. He says that accu-
rate machine-generated descriptions do not preserve these real similarity relations
because the words get between us and what we are reading about, thereby block-
ing our view of what we are reading about, while photographs do preserve these
real similarity relations because they do not block our view of what they are pho-
tographs of.23 As a result, Walton believes that we can see through photographs,
but not mechanically generated and accurate verbal descriptions.
But it is conceivable that a mechanically generated and accurate verbal
description could preserve real similarity relations. For example, a mechanically
generated, accurate verbal description containing precise measurements of engine
parts, which tells a machinist how to rebuild an engine, could preserve real simi-
larity relations. It could show the valve specs, clearances, and torque values, which
are essential to building a reliable and working engine. A photograph of the same
engine parts could show how those parts appear in relation to one another and
roughly how they fit together, but it could not show the machinist how to assem-
ble those parts in such a way that the engine works.
Furthermore, a photograph will not always preserve real similarity relations
between what we see through it and what we see in the real world. There are
many different ways in which a photograph could fail to preserve real similarity
relations. For instance, black-and-white photographs fail to preserve the colors of
things in the real world. Also, photographs do not always preserve the spatial rela-
tions of objects in the real world. Through distorting lenses, creative developing
techniques in the darkroom, or digital manipulation of photographic images, the
photographer can change the spatial relations of objects in the final photographic
image so that they do not reveal the actual spatial relations of real objects in the
real world when they were photographed.
Walton employs this final condition of preserving real similarity relations to
ensure that photographs of real objects show us the real objects that were pho-
tographed, but the creative ways in which photographs can be made means that
photographs of real objects do not have to show us the real objects that were
 Transparency|23

photographed. For example, a photographer could photograph real raindrops that

look like streaking missiles by using a very slow shutter speed, a photographer
could photograph a real daytime scene that looks like a nighttime scene by using
dark-colored filters, and a photographer could photograph a real face that looks
like a cartoon face by superimposing an image of an artistically drawn face onto
the image of a real face during the developing process.
Although Walton might readily concede the existence of these different
ways to creatively manipulate photographs, he would probably deny that they
undermine his transparency doctrine by arguing they are not typical of most
photographs. But many professional photographers know how to utilize these
creative techniques, and they often employ them to maximize the mediums
expressive potential. For example, Ansel Adams (19021984) exploited light
and dark contrasts to make his photographs of American landscapes look more
dramatic than they would otherwise be. The pictorialists of the late nineteenth
century, such as Alfred Stieglitz (18641946), also intervened in the photo-
graphic process by smearing Vaseline on their lenses, scratching the negatives,
and painting chemicals on their prints to simulate brushstrokes, thereby show-
ing that photography was a hand-made process involving human intervention
similar to the arts of drawing and painting.24 Through the use of gum printing
in the 1890s, photographers were able to paint onto the surface of the wet print,
thereby allowing them to alter colors, tones, and contrasts and to paint brush-
marks on the surface of the print, similar to the ways that painters manipulate
paints on the surface of their canvases. With photo-montage and composite
photographs (made by combining different images into one single image), pho-
tographers could also show things that were not the result of photographing real
objects in a real-life setting, like the photograph on the front page of the New
York Graphic of the actor Rudolph Valentino (18951926) standing in a white
robe next to similarly clad white-robed figures, representing angels in heaven
standing beside him after his death.25 In addition, a photographer can produce
multiple exposures of a single image by intentionally failing to advance the film
and can combine multiple images on the same print in the darkroom during the
developing process. For instance, Jerry Uelsmann produced dreamlike images
by combining several negatives into a single print.26 Thus, throughout the his-
tory of photography, photographers have creatively manipulated the appear-
ances of their photographic images.
Furthermore, photographs can be digitally created and manipulated in ways
that alter their appearances by adding or subtracting certain selected features,
changing their colors, or changing their compositions, such as the photograph
24|What Is Film?

of O. J. Simpson on the cover of Time Magazine (June 27, 1994) that involved
digitally darkening his skin tones, thereby making him look more sinister. While
Walton says that a photograph is always a photograph of something which actu-
ally exists,27 we can see by looking at digital photographs that that is no longer
the case. For example, the photographs of missing children can be digitally altered
to show what they would look like as adults by changing their hair styles, thin-
ning their faces, adding mature features such as wrinkles, inserting adult-sized
teeth, and changing skin tones.28 These photographs do not show viewers the
appearances of individuals who actually exist or once existed when the original
photographs were taken; they show projections of how individuals might look
in the future after they have aged. Thus, a photographers beliefs about how the
photographic image should look are relevant to the way the photograph turns out
in its final form.
Furthermore, we are not always seeing what was originally photographed
when we look at digitally manipulated photographic images. With digital pho-
tography, you can place a subject in a completely different scene than the one in
which it was photographed; for example, you can combine an image of yourself
with an image of Elvis in such a way that it looks like you are shaking hands with
Elvis.29 A well-known example of such digital recombinations was the image of
seven astronauts that was digitally created by replicating the 1969 NASA image
of the astronaut Edwin Aldrin, Jr. walking on the surface of the moon. There was
also a widely circulated Internet image depicting a male tourist standing on the
platform of a building with a commercial airplane flying toward him, which many
people believed was a photograph of the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center
bombings. It was actually a digital image made by combining separate and unre-
lated images on a computer, not by photographing a real event.
Also, with digital photography, you can use filters to create different effects,
such as artistic filters which allow you to add bas-relief, watercolor, charcoal, and
mosaic patters to your images and geometric filters that allow you to change per-
spectives, change the orientation of the image in three dimensions, and distort
images within geometric shapes.30 In addition, you can airbrush away distracting
or unwanted areas of your image by duplicating a similar part of the image and
pasting it into the part of the image that you want to remove. Since digital pho-
tographs dont always involve showing the real objects that were photographed
when viewers look at them, they are not always transparent. Thus, there are many
ways in which photographers can alter their final photographic images so that
they do not show viewers the appearance of the real objects that were photo-
graphed, or even any real objects at all.
 Transparency|25

In conclusion, Walton believes that photographs are transparent because they

allow us to see the real objects that were photographed. Because he believes pho-
tographs are produced mechanically, are necessarily accurate, and preserve real
similarity relations, when we look at photographs, he says we see the real objects
that were photographed. But I believe that when we look at photographs, we do
not always see the real objects that were photographed because of the many diverse
and creative acts of human intervention that frequently take place in the process
of creating the final photographic images. Thus, not all photographs are trans-
parent, and transparency is not a necessary feature of the photographic medium.

Films and Transparency

The transparency doctrine is further undermined when we look at the creative

nature of films. Transparency advocates believe that since films are comprised of
a series of still photographs and rely on photographic methods of production,
they must be transparent in the same way that photographs are transparent. They
believe that a film is transparent if it allows us to see what was filmed in the real
world, that is, the real objects, people, and places, and not the fictional world that
is represented by such real things. The primary argument for the transparency of
a film is that the cameras used to make a film allow film viewers to see what was
filmed by mechanically and accurately recording whatever was in front of the
cameras at the time of filming.
In this section I will discuss some of the ways that films are different from
photographs, and I will explain how those differences can show that films are
creative mediums that do not always show film viewers the real world that was
filmed. I will also discuss some of the many creative aspects of film production
that can result in images that distort reality and create new realities. There are
also films that dont involve photographing or filming real objects from the real
world, such as animated films, computer-animated films, and films that employ
computer-generated images. Animated films, computer-animated films, and
computer-generated images are not transparent because they do not show us the
real world, but rather imaginary worlds that are created by artists. As a result,
transparency is not a necessary feature of all films and film images.
The tendency to equate films with photography is rooted in the early history
of film. Siegfried Kracauer wrote in his synopsis of the history of film that The
basic properties [of film] are identical with the properties of photography. Film,
in other words, is uniquely equipped to record and reveal physical reality and,
26|What Is Film?

hence, gravitates towards it.31 Andr Bazin, in his discussion of the origins of
cinema, similarly equated films with photography. He wrote that in photographs
an image of the world is formed automatically, without the creative intervention
of man, and in cinema, which was inspired by photography, there is an integral
realism, a recreation of the world in its own image, an image unburdened by the
freedom of interpretation of the artist or the irreversibility of time.32
But we no longer think of films as being mechanical and accurate record-
ings of reality that are devoid of human creativity. Films in contemporary soci-
ety are looked upon as creative art forms. We describe filmmakers as artists, not
technicians. We think of film schools as art schools, not technical schools. Films
are viewed as creative mediums in which people can express ideas, tell stories,
and offer glimpses of imaginary worlds. We recognize that films do not simply
mechanically and accurately record real objects, people, places, and events as they
naturally exist in the real world. They can also present images of imaginary objects,
people, places, and events that are intentionally drawn and painted to look like (or
unlike) real objects, people, places, and events in the real world, as with animated
and computer-animated film images. Even documentary films that purport to
record exactly what was in front of the camera can be edited in creative ways after
filming, that is, their images can be altered so they dont accurately reflect the real
objects or events that were filmed. Through the many different ways in which film
images can be creatively manipulated, film viewers tend to believe that films are
creative mediums that do not slavishly record reality.
Furthermore, the creative nature of films is readily apparent when we look at
what is involved in making films. The filmmaker has to select the subject matter
of each shot and determine how he wants to arrange the various elements in each
shot, he must determine the cameras position relative to the objects he is filming,
he must decide whether the camera should move or not and what kinds of move-
ments to use, he must regulate the amount and intensity of light, he must select
the type of film, and he must choose what type of lenses to use (e.g., wide angle,
normal, or telephoto). He can also create many different types of shots that can
alter and distort reality. With a fade-out shot, he can gradually darken the image,
and with a fade-in shot, he can gradually lighten the image; with a dissolve shot,
he can make one image appear as another image disappears; and with an Iris shot,
he can block out one part of the image, while another part, usually in the shape
of a circle or oval, retains the main image.33 He can make a freeze shot in which a
single frame is reprinted many times so that it looks like a still photograph when
it is projected, a process shot in which the background scenery is projected onto
a translucent screen while the real action is filmed in the foreground, and a matte
 Transparency|27

shot in which two separate shots are printed onto a single piece of film.34 Since
films involve a sequence of shots, he can change the order of the shots by editing
them so that they form a sequence that is comprehensible to the viewer. He can
thereby create a different arrangement of shots that does not reflect what was seen
at the time of filming. These different ways to make shots and edit them demon-
strate the creative nature of film production.
Finally, contemporary film viewers tend to believe that films are creative
mediums because of the unusual things that they see depicted in films that they
could not possibly see in the real world, such as people who are fatally shot
numerous times but dont die, people who can fly and perform superhuman feats,
alien creatures and monsters, and animals conversing with humans. These glaring
disparities between the film world and the real world cause contemporary film
viewers to recognize that films are creative mediums that depict fictional stories.
They recognize that the actor Christopher Reeve, who played the fictional char-
acter Superman in films, is not being shot with real bullets and cant really fly
or bend steel; the man wearing a lizard suit stomping on cars and buildings is
not really a giant, radioactive lizard named Godzilla; and the animals filmed in
the same scene with the actor Eddie Murphy are not really speaking English to
him. By reflecting on how real people and real objects that are filmed are made
to represent such fictional things, they recognize the creative artistry involved
in making films. The use of flamboyant and mind-dazzling special effects, hair-
raising action stunts, computer-generated images of things that dont exist in the
real world, fantastic creatures, and surrealistic, fantasy worlds in todays films (as
in the blockbuster film Avatar in 2009 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015)
have also made film viewers aware of the creative artistry involved in the making
of films. Contemporary film viewers therefore tend to believe that films are cre-
ative mediums in which filmmakers present a fictional world as they want it to be
seen, rather than the real world as it is.
There are fundamental differences between photographs and films that can
show that films are creative mediums that do not always involve mechanically
and accurately recording reality and showing film viewers the real world, or what
was actually seen and heard at the time of filming. First, with photographs there
is one single image that purportedly shows what was in front of the camera at the
time the photograph was taken. But with films there is a series of images that is
projected on a film screen, which may or may not accurately reflect the original
order of images that was filmed.
Films do not always show film viewers the original order of images filmed
because that order of images can be manipulated by the filmmaker through
28|What Is Film?

the editing process, which involves cutting and pasting images to form a differ-
ent arrangement of images. For example, if we see the final sequence of images
projected on the film screen of one actor riding a horse across the plains in
the opening scene of the film followed by another actor fictionally killing the
horseback-riding actor at the conclusion of the film, that final sequence that we
see on the film screen may not reflect the original sequence of images that was
filmed. The killing scene could have been filmed well before the horseback-riding
scene. Thus, the order of the final film images that film viewers see projected on
the film screen may not allow them to see the original order of images that was
filmed because the filmmaker can change the order of images later after filming.
Second, films differ from photographs because they can give viewers the
appearance of motion through the rapid succession of images that are projected
on the film screen (typically 24 frames per second to create realistic-looking
motion). Still photographs of horses running show images of horses legs that look
frozen in place, whereas films of horses running show images of horses legs that
appear to move. Due to the phenomenon of the persistence of vision, in which
the human eye is able to see an image for one-tenth of a second after it disappears,
we experience an illusion of movement when we watch the rapid succession of
images on the film screen.35
Although films can show the motions of objects in a highly realistic fashion,
not all films show film viewers the way real objects moved in the real world at the
time of filming. The motion in films can be creatively transformed by manipu-
lating camera angles and movements and employing different film speeds. For
instance, in Vertigo (1958), the dolly-out, zoom-in shots, which make real objects
appear in focus and out of focus, give film viewers the impression that the room
is spinning around Jimmy Stewart as he looks down from atop a high, spiral stair-
case, even though in reality the room did not spin around in such a fashion when
the scene was being filmed. In Chariots of Fire (1981), we see images of people
running in extreme slow motion, when in reality the actors being filmed were
running at a brisk pace. Also, in the film The One (2001), we see images of Jet Li,
the actor, fighting himself in slow-motion action sequences, but these images do
not show the film viewer what was actually filmed. Jet-Li was not filmed fighting
himself, and not all of his movements were in slow motion at the time of filming,
but were slowed down later by altering the speed of the film. Thus, the motions
of objects in films can be creatively altered by manipulating the camera angles,
camera movements, and film speeds.
Third, films differ from photographs in being capable of employing sound.
Films can employ synchronous sound, which is sound that occurs at the same
 Transparency|29

time that the image is being recorded, or non-synchronous sound, which is sound
that occurs at a different time than the recording of the image. Diegetic sounds
are sounds that are presented as originating from a source within the film world,
while nondiegetic sounds are sounds that are presented as coming from a source
outside the space of the narrative.36 Synchronous sounds can allow film viewers
to hear the real sounds that were recorded at the time of filming, such as the
voices of actors and actresses, because the film medium is capable of accurately
recording those sounds when the shots are being filmed through microphones
and other recording devices, thereby heightening the realism of the film medium.
But although such sounds can be accurately captured on film, they are usually
played at a significantly louder volume in movie theaters (e.g., through stereo sur-
round sound speakers) so audiences of hundreds of people can clearly hear them.
They can also be electronically distorted, enhanced, synthesized, and re-created in
ways that do not enable film viewers to hear exactly what was heard at the time
of filming.
Furthermore, the non-synchronous film sounds added to the film sequences
at a later time generally do not allow film viewers to hear the sounds that were
heard when the scenes were being filmed. For instance, the ominous staccato
music that we hear when a man-eating great white shark attacks unsuspecting
victims in Jaws (1975) is certainly not reflective of the sounds that were heard
when the attack scenes were being filmed. In addition, non-synchronous sounds
in films can be inserted into the film images after the process of filming has ended.
For instance, after the film has been shot, dubbing of voices can occur (as in films
dubbed into different languages) and dubbing of songs can occur, so the songs
can be sung by someone other than the actor or actress who sung the song when
the scenes were initially shot.37 Finally, sound effects that do not correspond to
any sounds that were heard at the time of filming can be artificially created and
added to the film images later. Thus, by electronically distorting, enhancing, syn-
thesizing, artificially creating, and re-creating sounds, the sounds that film viewers
hear when watching a film are not necessarily the sounds that were heard at the
time of filming.
Thus, films differ from photographs in being capable of showing a sequence
of images, depicting motion, and employing sound. Although these differences
can be used to heighten the realism of the film medium, they can also be creatively
manipulated by the filmmaker in ways that do not show film viewers the real
world, or what was actually seen and heard at the time of filming. These differ-
ences also show that even though most films do rely on photographic methods
of production, they are not simply mechanical and accurate recordings of reality
30|What Is Film?

that are devoid of creative human intervention. As a result, films are not always
transparent.
The transparency advocate would argue that films are like photographs
because they involve the use of cameras to record the light rays from objects by
photochemically registering the light onto sensitized film. It is true that the cam-
eras used to make films are like the cameras used to take photographs in that
they both record the light rays emanating from the surfaces of objects. But the
cameras used to make films are also different from the cameras that take still pho-
tographs. They take many pictures, or frames, each second, as opposed to a single
picture each second. They are usually equipped with sound-recording devices so
that sounds and not just images are recorded. Finally, the cameras are soundproof
so that the synchronous sounds can be directly recorded on the filmstrip without
recording the whirring sounds of the camera.38
The transparency advocate would further argue that these differences do not
detract from the fundamental commonality of the two mediums. The fact that
cameras used to make films are able to take more pictures, are equipped with
sound-recording devices, and are soundproof does not undermine the recording
process, but enhances it. They would say that since the cameras used in making
films are essentially similar to the cameras used in making photographs in that
they both record the light rays emanating from objects, films show us the real
world just like photographs do.
But films are not transparent simply because they rely on photographic
methods of production. There are many creative aspects of film production that
result in images that distort and alter reality, rather than accurately record reality,
thus undermining the transparency notion that films allow us to see whatever
was filmed in the real world. The filmmaker affects how the film images look by
making decisions about many different aspects of film production, such as what
kind of film to use, what camera angles to shoot from, what kinds of lights to use
to illuminate the scene, what filters and lenses to use, how to edit the shots, what
sounds to use, and so forth. These creative human interventions show that films
do not merely mechanically and accurately record reality, but also distort reality.
Films can also employ special effects that dont always involve filming real
things in the real world. By using an optical printer, the filmmaker can make
double exposures, which involve superimposing two images simultaneously, or
multiple exposures to superimpose multiple images simultaneously. In the film
Psycho (1960), for instance, there are three images that are superimposed to
make the final shotthe face of the fictional character Norman Bates (played
by Anthony Perkins), the skull of Normans mother, and the murder victims car
 Transparency|31

being pulled out of a swamp by a strong chain. In Terminator II: Judgment Day
(1991), we see a person magically transform himself into a liquid-metal killing
machine called the T-1000 (also called a Terminator for effectively terminating
peoples lives). Obviously, these film scenes did not involve filming a real person
undergoing such a transformation, that is, it did not involve filming the real actor
Robert Patrick, who played the T-1000, with a change of costume and makeup.
The images of that robot morphing were created through computer-generated
imagery (CGI). Also, when we see the head of the liquid-metal T-1000 being
blown wide open at close range, the actor Robert Patricks head was not filmed
being blown wide open, but rather models that looked like him were torn open
and filmed. These special effects in film images show the creative and artistic
nature of films.
We can also see that films are creative mediums that go beyond the mere
recording of reality when we consider animated films, which involve artists draw-
ing and painting images by hand on computers or on other mediums, rather than
photographing or filming anything real. It is hard to believe that animated films
are transparent because we dont see the subject matter of such films in real life.
We dont, for instance, see talking animals, like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh,
Roger Rabbit, and Bambi, in the real world because those animals are fictional
characters that are artificially created by artists through their drawings and paint-
ings of them, and moreover, we all know that real animals cant talk. We also dont
see the fantasy creatures in animated films, such as unicorns, talking ogres (like
Shrek), and dragons in the real world. Another indication of the artificial nature
of animated films is their depiction of excessively vibrant colors for many of the
objects shown, which look quite unlike real colors in the real world, such as the
vivid blue and green colors in the computer-animated film Monsters, Inc. (2001).
The transparency advocate might argue that animated films are transparent
because what we are really seeing are the photographed sheets of celluloid ace-
tate (cels) on which countless illustrations of animated characters are drawn and
painted. Even though that is how many animated films were made many years
ago, I dont think our common viewing experience is to see the thousands of
pages of colored drawings and paintings that go into making the final version of
such films, and so I dont think transparency applies to those films. Even if it were
somehow possible to see all of those countless pages of illustrations that make up
an animated film, we dont see real objects in those images, but rather artificial
objects that are artistic creations by the artists and animators who made them.
Today, most animated films are made through the use of computers (hence
the name computer-animated films). The images in computer-animated films
32|What Is Film?

certainly dont record the appearances of things in the real world. Artists and
animators create virtual worlds and virtual things in them that are artificial and
not real. As a result, computer-animated films are not slavish recordings of reality,
but rather creative works of art. For example, consider the imaginary things in
the computer-animated films Toy Story (1995), A Bugs Life (1998), Antz (1998),
Shrek (2001), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Ice Age (2002), The Polar Express (2004),
Madagascar (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Wall-E (2008), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009),
How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rango (2011), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012),
Frozen (2013), and The Peanuts Movie (2015).
Furthermore, even if we were to grant that photographs are transparent
by virtue of their reliance on cameras that photograph reality, that wouldnt
mean that all films are transparent, since not all films rely on cameras that
photograph reality. Some films employ CGI (computer-generated imagery or
computer-generated images), which involve drawing and painting the images
on a computer screen, much like a painter draws and paints images on a canvas.
These images are not transparent in the sense of allowing us to see the real world
that was filmed because they can show us things that were not present at the
time of filming. For example, they can show thousands of people where only
a few hundred people (or less) were present when the film was shot, such as
the Colosseum scenes in Gladiator (2000) and the final battle scene in Planet
of the Apes (2001). They can also show synthetic characters that do not exist
in real life, like Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode IThe Phantom Menace
(1999), Dr. Aki Ross in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), and Gollum
in the The Lord of the Rings film series (20012003). Also, in the blockbuster
film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), there are tentacled creatures called
Rathtars that board Han Solos ship and try to eat whatever they can grab. They
were obviously not real creatures in the real world being filmed. They were all
computer-generated creatures. Lev Manovich describes the principles of digital
filmmaking as involving live action material + painting + image processing +
compositing + 2-D computer animation + 3-D computer animation.39 To clar-
ify this process, he explains how the live action material is digitized (recorded in
a digital format), which involves turning it into pixels on a computer, that can
then be altered easily through the next steps of composition, animation, and
morphing, with the end result being something that maybe looks real but has
no correspondence to reality.40 He gives a good example with how the film Star
Wars: Episode IThe Phantom Menace (1999) was produced in just 65 days for
traditional, on-set filming, but with 2 years of postproduction work, since 95%
of the film was made on a computer.41
 Transparency|33

One of the most interesting new developments in film technologies is the

creation of synthespians, or synthetic actors, which are entirely digital and made
through the use of computers. In the film Terminator: Genisys (2015), for instance,
the filmmakers created a younger version of the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
that was completely digital that is shown fighting the older, real actor Arnold
Schwarzenegger. To create the digital Arnold, they had a young bodybuilder
(Brett Azar), who looked like him in size and musculature, perform fight scenes
to capture how he moved on a computer, and then they used pictures of young
Arnold and old Arnold and put them into a computer, and then by combining all
that information, they created the completely digital Arnold.42 In addition, in the
film Superman Returns (2006), the actor Brandon Routh, who played Superman,
was digitally scanned to create his digital Superman character for both action
sequences and close-up shots. Also, in that film, the actor Marlon Brando, who
played Supermans father Jor-El in Superman (1978), was re-created using CGI so
his computer-generated version of himself could make an appearance in that film
after he died in 2004. Thus, computer-generated images involve creative methods
of production that go beyond the mere photographing or filming of reality. As a
result, computer-generated images in films are not transparent because they dont
always show film viewers real objects from the real world, but rather they can
show artificial objects that are computer-generated.
The transparency advocates could say that transparency still applies to films
that combine computer-generated images with shots of the real world because
there are still elements of the real world to be seen. For example, in Titanic
(1997), there are computer-generated images that are integrated with shots of
real human actors. Computers were used to create the passengers on the ships
deck, the ships splitting into two pieces and sinking, and the shot where the eye
of the young actress Kate Winslet changes into the eye of the older actress Gloria
Stuart. Even with these computer-generated parts, they could say that the parts of
the film that are photographic recordings of reality are still transparent, while the
computer-generated parts are not transparent. As I discussed earlier, photographs
are not strict recordings of reality, so they are not transparent. As a result, films
that utilize photographs in them are also not transparent. Furthermore, when the
computer-generated parts are superimposed onto the photographic parts, that is,
directly on top of one another, the transparency status is highly questionable. In
The Mask (1994), for instance, a computer-generated image of a convulsing green
mask is superimposed directly onto the image of the actor Jim Carreys face. Since
that film image of the face and the mask violently merging that we see on the
film screen is an artistically created image that does not involve photographing or
34|What Is Film?

filming a real nightmarish merging that actually occurred on the studio set, it is
not transparent.
The transparency doctrine is best undermined by films that do not rely on
any photography at all, such as computer-animated films in which the images
are all created on a computer. In films like Toy Story (1995), Antz (1998), and
A Bugs Life (1998), the computer creates the characters and the backgrounds
and animates them without actually photographing either cels or figures.43 These
films that are made up exclusively of computer-generated images are more like
paintings than photographs because they manifest artistically rendered images of
imaginary worlds rather than anything real from the real world. In Final Fantasy:
The Spirits Within (2001), for instance, we do not see real human actors, real-life
movie sets, and real props. We see a fantasy world of synthetic characters, fantas-
tic aliens, surrealistic environments, and dazzling special effects. Since we are not
seeing anything real from the real world that is photographed or filmed, as the
transparency doctrine requires of transparent film images, then these film images
are not transparent.
The transparency advocate might argue that artists who create computer-
generated images can use cameras to help them make their renderings look
more realistic. For instance, they might use cameras to record how real people
or real objects move and then incorporate those movements into the data
banks of their computers to help them re-create realistic movements in their
computer-generated images. But even though the artists making these computer-
generated images can use cameras to assist them, they dont have to use them.
They could rely solely on their imaginations instead. Furthermore, even if they
do rely on cameras that photograph reality to assist them in creating realistic-
looking images, the computer-generated images themselves are not the prod-
uct of photographing or filming reality. They are images that are drawn and
painted on computer screens, just as images are drawn and painted on can-
vases. Thus, while the initial images that get digitized may have started out
as recordings of reality, they next get transformed during the editing and
composition process to yield something that is not a recording of reality. The
computer allows for easier and quicker editing techniques, like cutting and past-
ing, enlarging and reducing, duplicating, superimposing, and changing colors
and textures. With these and other editing techniques in hand, the filmmaker
can create images on the computer that do not correspond to anything in the
real world that is photographed or filmed. As a result, the transparency doctrine
is not capable of explaining how computer-animated films and computer-
generated film images are transparent.
 Transparency|35

In this section, I discussed some of the ways that films are different from
photographs and explained how those differences can show that films are creative
mediums that dont always show film viewers the real world that was filmed, and
so they are not always transparent. I discussed some of the many creative aspects
of film production that can result in images that distort reality and create new
realities. There are also films that do not rely solely on photographic methods of
production, such as animated films, computer-animated films, and films with
computer-generated images which are not transparent because they depict people,
places, objects, and things that are drawn and painted from artists imaginations,
rather than from photographing real people, places, objects, and things in the real
world. Thus, transparency is not a necessary feature of all films and film images.

Criticisms of Transparency

Contemporary criticisms of the transparency doctrine made by Nigel Warburton,

Nol Carroll, and Gregory Currie focus on what is required to be able to say that
we see something, that is, whether we can say that we see something when it is
not directly in front of our eyes, when we cannot orient our bodies to what we
are seeing, and when we have no knowledge of where the object is that we are
seeing. Walton adopts the view that seeing does not require such things. We can
see something even if the circumstances surrounding our seeing are tenuous. I will
discuss the primary arguments made against Walton in this respect, evaluate their
effectiveness, and discuss how Walton can respond to those arguments.
Nigel Warburton argues that Waltons way of arguing for transparency by
using an analogy is flawed. He says that Waltons main argument to support trans-
parency is to say that we see through eyeglasses, mirrors, and telescopes, so why
cant we say that we see through photographs?44 Warburton rejects this argument
because the fact that we can move smoothly from one thing to another (from
ordinary seeing to seeing photographs) is not a sufficient reason for applying the
same term (transparency) throughout the whole range of cases.45 He says that
what such an argument shows is that it is difficult to find a place at which to draw
the line between the application of two different concepts, but that does not mean
that there is no place to draw the line to separate them.46 He believes that there are
arbitrary links in the causal pathways between the viewer and the objects seen in
photographs, which make seeing objects in photographs a deviant way of seeing.47
Warburton describes four ways in which ordinary seeing is different from
seeing objects by means of photographs.48 First, in ordinary seeing what is seen
36|What Is Film?

is virtually simultaneous with what is actually happening, but that is not the case
with photographs, which always involve a delay. Second, when we look at objects
in ordinary seeing, the visible changes in the object are matched by changes in
what we are seeing, but that is not the case when we look at photographs. Third,
in ordinary seeing there is temporal congruity between what we see and when
we see it. For example, if Carl Lewis takes 9.9 seconds to run 100 meters, then
it takes our eyes 9.9 seconds to see Carl Lewis run 100 meters. But the length of
time that it takes to see a photograph has nothing to do with the length of time
that is represented in the image. Fourth, in ordinary seeing we have knowledge of
the causal chains that link our perceptions to the objects perceived, but when we
look at photographs, we have no knowledge of such causal chains. Since photo-
graphs fail to meet these four conditions for seeing, Warburton believes that we
cannot see through photographs, and therefore photographs are not transparent.
Warburton is correct that when we look at a photograph, what we see
depicted in the photograph is not virtually simultaneous with what is actually
happening and does not match visible changes in the appearance of whatever was
photographed. In addition, the time that it takes us to look at the photograph has
nothing to do with the length of time that is represented in the image. Finally,
we dont know anything about the causal chains between the object and the pho-
tograph of that object. But these differences do not entail that we should reject
our use of the verb see to describe the activity of looking at what is depicted
in photographs. Temporal congruity, sensitivity to change, matching of visible
changes, and knowledge of the causal history are not prerequisites for seeing.
If they were prerequisites for seeing, we would be unable to see what is depicted
in photographs, which is not the case. Walton could therefore easily respond to
Warburtons argument by saying that he can see his great-grandfather when look-
ing at the photograph of him without it being simultaneous with what is actually
happening, without it matching changes in his appearance, without the length of
time represented in the photograph being temporally congruous with his looking
at it, and without knowing its causal history.
However, I agree with Warburton that Waltons argument by analogy fails
because we do not see through photographs in the same way that we see through
the lenses of eyeglasses and telescopes. Photographs are not made of transparent
material that light rays can pass through, and so we cannot see through them. We
can, however, see through the lenses of eyeglasses, microscopes, and telescopes
because lenses are transparent; they allow light rays to pass through them. Walton
could improve his argument by proposing a more appropriate analogy. He could
say, for instance, that looking through a lens of a camera is like looking through
 Transparency|37

the lenses of eyeglasses, microscopes, and telescopes. He could further argue that
since a photograph captures the view that we see when we look through the lens
of a camera, then when we look at a photograph, it is as if we are looking through
the lens of a camera, and subsequently, it is as if we are looking through the lenses
of eyeglasses, microscopes, and telescopes. This analogy is better than his cur-
rent analogy because it accommodates some of the important differences between
looking at photographs and looking through the lenses of eyeglasses, microscopes,
and telescopes.
But one could find flaws with this revised analogy as well. One could argue,
for instance, that photographs do not capture the views that we see when we look
through the lenses of cameras because of the many human interventions that
influence, alter, and distort the final photographic images, such as the ones that
I mentioned in the first chapter. Walton could respond by saying that if we were
to remove these human interventions, then photographs would accurately record
the views that we see when those photographs were taken. I believe that Waltons
response would be successful if it were true that we were able to remove human
interventions from the process of making photographs, but I believe that human
interventions are indispensable to that process. We do not always get accurate
photographic images because of these human interventions. Walton should there-
fore explain how his argument for transparency can work even with these human
interventions, that is, how photographic and cinematic images can be transparent
when human interventions can result in images that do not accurately record
whatever was photographed or filmed.
Nol Carroll also challenges Waltons transparency thesis with respect to what
conditions are required for seeing the objects depicted in cinematic images. In
Theorizing the Moving Image (1996), Carroll argues that films are not transparent
because we cannot orient our bodies to the spaces that films represent. For exam-
ple, he says that we cannot orient ourselves spatially to Ricks bar (on the studio
set that contained the scene or the putative fictional locale in North Africa) in the
film Casablanca (1942), so we cannot really see Ricks bar.49 When we see a real
bar, we would know how to orient our bodies to it because our eyes give us infor-
mation about where we stand in relation to where the bar is located. When we
see Ricks bar on the film screen (or in a photograph), we have no idea where that
bar is located relative to the positions of our bodies. Carroll believes that getting
such egocentric information is essential for seeing because from an evolutionary
standpoint our ability to survive depends on our ability to get such information
when we see. He says, Indeed, I submit that we do not speak literally of seeing
objects unless I can perspicuously relate myself spatially to themi.e., unless
38|What Is Film?

I know (roughly) where they are in the space I inhabit.50 Since we cannot relate
ourselves spatially to the objects in photographic and cinematic images, Carroll
believes that we cannot see them.
Gregory Currie, in his book Image and Mind (1995), makes similar points.
He says that when we look at cinematic images, we do not have any egocentric
information that would enable us to relate the images in films to our own spatio-
temporal positions.51 He further agrees with Carroll that the function of seeing
is to give us egocentric information because our ability to survive and flourish
from an evolutionary standpoint depends on this function.52 According to Currie,
when we look at photographic and cinematic images of objects, we lack egocen-
tric information about where those objects are located relative to our own bodies,
so we cannot see through photographic and cinematic images. Thus, both Carroll
and Currie believe that if we do not have any egocentric information that tells us
where our bodies are located relative to what we are seeing, then we cannot be
seeing.
Walton rejects Carroll and Curries argument that our evolution dictates that
egocentric information is required for seeing. He says that being able to have such
egocentric information is certainly useful to have from an evolutionary stand-
point but that fact does not act as a constraint on what we can see.53 Having
egocentric information gives us information about our immediate surroundings,
but we can certainly see remote objects too, like the stars, which evolution cannot
explain, since there is no evolutionary advantage that is served by being able to see
the stars.54 As a result, Walton doesnt believe that seeing occurs only when that
evolutionary function is actually served.
I agree with Walton that the argument from evolution does not work because
even though we may have initially evolved in such a way that our vision gives us
egocentric information, our vision is not limited to this function. We can build
artificial devices that allow us to see objects in remote places, like planets and stars
in other galaxies, without knowing where our bodies are located spatially and
temporally to those objects, and our ability to see in these cases is certainly not an
evolutionarily advantageous feature that facilitates or ensures our immediate or
long-term survival. As a result, I agree with Walton that the argument from evo-
lution does not provide a compelling reason for believing that we can see things
only if we have egocentric information about them.
Walton further argues that being able to orient our bodies spatially to what is
seen is not required for seeing.55 He gives two examples. In the first example, we
see a carnation through an array of mirrors, whose location is such that we cannot
determine the position of our bodies relative to that carnation, but we would still
 Transparency|39

not deny that we see the carnation (especially given our knowledge of the way in
which mirrors work to reflect the light rays of objects off their surfaces). In the
second example, a carnation is directly in front of our eyes but it is surrounded
by mirrors in such a way that we are not sure if we are seeing the carnation or a
mirror image of the carnation. Walton says that in both cases Carroll and Currie
are forced to deny that we see the carnation at all because we dont have any
egocentric information telling us where our bodies are located relative to the car-
nation, but he says their conclusion would be absurd because we do in fact see
the carnation through the array of mirrors and the carnation in front of our eyes
surrounded by mirrors.56 I agree with Walton that having such egocentric infor-
mation is not necessary for seeing in these two cases. We certainly see something
that looks like a carnation, even though we dont really know if that something is
an image of a carnation produced by an array of mirrors or a real carnation.
I offer two more counterexamples to show that egocentric information is
not necessary for seeing. In todays society, a doctor can perform surgery on a
patient without being in the same room with that patient by seeing a live televi-
sion broadcast image of the patients body on a television screen and then phoning
the doctors present to tell them what to do. I doubt that we would deny that the
doctor sees when performing these out-of-the-room surgeries simply because he
does not have egocentric information telling him where his body is located rela-
tive to the patients body. If Carroll and Currie were right that the doctor cannot
see because he lacks such egocentric information, would we allow medical oper-
ations to be performed in this way?
Furthermore, in todays society, there are tiny capsule cameras (M2A Swal-
lowable Imaging Capsules) that people can swallow that allow doctors to see the
insides of their small intestines. The images sent by the camera as it passes through
the small intestines are downloaded onto a computer, saved on a computer disk,
and can be viewed by doctors later in different locations from where the patient
was located. In such cases, the doctors lack egocentric information telling them
where their bodies are located spatially and temporally to what they are seeing in
these images, but they still see. Egocentric information is therefore not necessary
for seeing.
Furthermore, if Carroll and Currie were right that having egocentric infor-
mation was necessary for seeing, then we would have to deny that we see what is
depicted in photographic and cinematic images, which is not a plausible result.
We see what is depicted in photographic and cinematic images even when we do
not know how to orient our bodies spatially and temporally to what is depicted in
them. Egocentric information is too strong a requirement for seeing, since it rules
40|What Is Film?

out cases like these in which we do see. Thus, Carroll and Currie do not succeed
in proving that egocentric information is necessary for seeing.57
One might wonder if the two types of images that I described in my counter-
examples, namely live television images and non-live digital images, are transpar-
ent. Live television images do not involve taking a series of still photographs and
then rapidly projecting the images onto a film screen at a later time. The cam-
eras used to make live television images send electronic signals instantly through
cables and the air to our television sets. Those electronic signals are immediately
converted into visual images so that what viewers see on their television screens
generally reflects what the cameras captured.
According to Warburton, live television images have temporal congruity
(e.g., if Carl Lewis takes 9.9 seconds to run 100 meters in real life, then it takes
us 9.9 seconds to see him run 100 meters via live television images on the tele-
vision screen), virtual simultaneity (what is seen is virtually simultaneous with
what is actually happening), and sensitivity to change (visible changes in the
object are matched by changes in what is seen).58 As a result, Warburton believes
that live television images are more likely candidates for transparency than a still
photograph.
I agree with Warburton that live television images are likely candidates for
transparency because the electronic signals are sent so quickly that we see the
visual images at just about the same time that they are being produced and trans-
mitted to our television screens, and those visual images generally reflect what
was recorded by the cameras. Although these images could be interrupted or dis-
torted by inadequate transmissions of the electrical signals or inadequate receiving
devices, there is much less creative editing that is taking place with such live tele-
vision images than with feature film images. Since we pretty much see whatever
was being shot by cameras in live television images, they are probably transparent.
Non-live television images, by contrast, are less likely candidates for trans-
parency because these images are more likely to be tampered with through edit-
ing them, just as with feature film images. After filming an episode for a televi-
sion show, for instance, editors can eliminate or add things that are taken from
other sources. They can also combine scenes in ways that do not reflect what was
originally filmed. With modern technology, they can even integrate computer-
generated images of objects that do not involve photographing or filming anything
real. So, while non-live television images could be transparent if they showed us
what was being filmed at the time, they dont have to be transparent because they
can be edited and manipulated in creative ways.
 Transparency|41

Non-live digital images that are downloaded and saved on a computer

and then viewed on a computer screen at a later time are similarly ambiguous.
In the example I gave above of downloaded images from a tiny capsule camera,
if those images dont involve significant editing or tampering so we would see the
patients small intestines when we look at those images, they would probably be
transparent. But the images of the patients small intestine could be magically
transformed on the computer screen through digital editing techniques to look
like something other than what it really is, and hence not be transparent. For
example, someone could creatively superimpose the images of a young boy lying
down and water flowing underneath his body to make the patients intestines
look like an enclosed, tubular slip-and-slide water ride through which the young
boy is gleefully traveling. With todays digital photography techniques of cutting,
pasting, combining, re-creating, and editing images, photographic images can be
distorted in increasingly creative ways so that they do not necessarily accurately
record the appearances of things in the real world.
Although I agree with Walton that egocentric information is not required for
seeing, there is still a fundamental problem with Waltons account. That problem
concerns what Walton thinks we are seeing when we look at photographs, or
what he identifies as the direct object of our sight. Walton would say that when
we look at photographs and films, we see the objects themselves that were photo-
graphed and filmed. For instance, he would say that we see Ricks bar in the film
Casablanca (1942). I believe that when we say that we see Ricks bar in the film,
we really mean that we see an image of Ricks bar and not a real bar representing
Ricks bar because the direct object of our sight is a two-dimensional image on a
movie screen, not a three-dimensional object on some movie set.
Carroll and Currie would agree with me on this point. Both philosophers
would say that we are seeing an image of Ricks bar in the movie Casablanca
(1942). A real bar that represents Ricks bar is not right in front of our faces. If
that were the case, we would step forward and try to get a drink, which we do not
do. Carroll and Curries discussion of egocentric information points to an import-
ant difference between seeing images of objects and seeing real objects in front of
our eyes. When we look at images of objects, we dont always know where our
bodies are located in time and space relative to what is depicted in those images.
But when we look at objects in everyday life, we do know where our bodies are
located, temporally and spatially, relative to the real objects we see in front of our
eyes. Through egocentric information, Carroll and Currie have identified a way to
distinguish seeing images of objects from seeing real objects.
42|What Is Film?

This distinction is important because there are clear ontological differences

between an image of an object and a real object. My great-grandfather is a
three-dimensional human being, whose appearance constantly changes over time.
The two-dimensional photographic (or cinematic) image of my great-grandfather
can reveal his appearance or likeness at a particular point of time in his exis-
tence, but not his physical constitution. Walton is clearly aware of these distinct
ontological differences, for he acknowledges that the photograph of Half Dome
is not Half Dome.59 As a result, Walton cannot mean that when I see the pho-
tograph of my great-grandfather, I see my great-grandfather, as if the two were
indistinguishable. And yet that is what someone might think he means when he
says that we see the objects themselves when we look at photographs of them. To
avoid this confusion, Walton should be more precise when he identifies the direct
object of our sight when we look at photographs or films. He should say that we
see an image of our great-grandfather in photographs or films, and not our great-
grandfather himself.
One contemporary philosopher who points out this fundamental problem
with Waltons account of transparency is Thomas Wartenberg in his article, Film
and Representation.60 He argues that Walton fails to distinguish between the
mediate and immediate objects of our perception. The photographic image of
Ricks bar would be the mediate object of our perception, while the real bar repre-
senting Ricks bar would be the immediate object of our perception. Wartenberg
makes this distinction to preserve the difference in the causal chain between seeing
a real object and seeing an image of an object. When we see an object in real life,
the causal chain goes from the object to our eyes in a direct manner, whereas
when we see an image of an object, the causal chain goes from the object to our
eyes in an indirect manner via the image. His distinction is worthwhile because it
accounts for the difference in the causal pathways between seeing a real object and
seeing an image of an object, a distinction that Walton seems to overlook when
he says that we see the objects themselves when we look at photographs of them.
Walton could respond by saying that his account addresses this distinction,
since he does say that he would not mind allowing that we see photographed
objects only indirectly.61 Consequently, he could argue that by indirect seeing he
means seeing mediate objects of perception, as with objects in photographs, and
by direct seeing he means seeing immediate objects of perception, as with objects
in the real world. He could thereby preserve the difference in the causal chain
between seeing objects directly and seeing objects indirectly.
If Walton were to further concede that when we look at a photograph of an
object, the direct object of our sight is really an image of an object, and not the
 Transparency|43

object itself, he would then have to explain how he has not undermined the fun-
damental notion underlying his transparency doctrine that we see objects them-
selves when we look at photographs of them. He could respond by saying that
his fundamental notion is not undermined because when he says that we see the
objects themselves, he really means that we see those objects in an indirect manner
via an image of them.
But this concession about seeing images of objects may not be what Walton
would want because he would probably feel that it would weaken his strong sense
of seeing. He says that when he claims that we see, quite literally, our dead rel-
atives themselves when we look at photographs of them, he does not want to
water down this claim by saying that photographs give us the impression of our
dead ancestors, that they supplement our vision of them, or that they are dupli-
cates, doubles, reproductions, substitutes, or surrogates for them.62 The reason
that Walton is concerned about watering down this claim is that he wants us
to recognize that we see more than just a piece of paper and more than just an
image when we look at photographs. He wants us to recognize that we see the
actual objects that were photographed, even if they can only be seen indirectly.
He says, What I would object to is the suggestion that indirect seeing is not
really seeing, that all we actually see are sense-data or images or photographs.63
As a result, Walton may not want to undermine his notion that we see our dead
relatives themselves when we look at a photograph of them by saying that we see
an image of them. He believes that we see more than just an image of them. We
actually see them!
In conclusion, contemporary criticisms reveal that the problem with Waltons
account of transparency is his notion of what constitutes the direct object of our
sight when we look at photographs and films, but they do not undermine his
account by pointing to problems with his use of the verb see. Warburton cor-
rectly identifies some key differences between ordinary seeing and seeing photo-
graphs, but those differences do not entail that Walton is unjustified in using the
verb see to describe the activity of looking at photographs. Carroll and Currie
are correct to distinguish seeing images of objects in photographs and films from
seeing real objects, but they are incorrect when they say that we must have ego-
centric information in order to see. Finally, Wartenberg is correct to point out that
Walton does not distinguish between the mediate and immediate objects of per-
ception, but Walton can meet this objection by saying that direct seeing applies
to the immediate objects of perception and indirect seeing applies to the mediate
objects of perception, such as objects in photographs and films. Nevertheless,
Walton still needs to acknowledge that we see images of objects rather than the
44|What Is Film?

real objects themselves when we look at photographs of them because there are
differences between seeing real objects and seeing images of objects which need
to be preserved.
In this first chapter, I showed how various artistic and creative human inter-
ventions are involved in the creation of photographic and cinematic images, and
I discussed how those human interventions pose problems for the transparency
doctrine. I showed that not all photographic and cinematic images are transparent
because of the many different ways in which photographers and filmmakers can
creatively manipulate the appearances of their final photographic and cinematic
images so that they do not allow us to see real objects in the real world when
we look at them. I also showed how recent technological innovations involving
computers have allowed for greater creativity in the making of photographic and
film images, which can effectively undermine the transparency notion that we
see through photographs and films to the real world that was photographed and
filmed. With digital photography, photographers can change the colors, textures,
lighting effects, compositions, and even subject matter of their photographic
images so that when we look at such images, we do not see accurate record-
ings of reality. Furthermore, animated films, computer-animated films, and films
employing computer-generated images can show film viewers imaginary objects
that are creatively drawn and painted from artists imaginations, rather than from
photographing or filming real objects from the real world. By revealing some of
the many different ways in which photographic and cinematic images can be
creatively manipulated, I showed that not all photographs, films, and film images
are transparent.
 2

Illusionism

Introduction

Illusionism is another doctrine that has been called realism,1 though it is not
a realist doctrine in Bazins sense that film images present film viewers with real
objects from the real world by re-presenting the luminous impression of real
objects. This doctrine says that film viewers perceive illusions, or misleading
images, in which they seem to see reality, when they are really seeing representa-
tions of reality. It focuses on the subjective experiences of film viewers. The reason
for this different conception of realism was the profound influence of semiotic
theories of the 1960s and psychoanalytic theories of the 1970s. The psychoana-
lytic theories shifted focus from the realities portrayed on the screen to the phan-
tasies and projections of the desiring spectator.2 Those fantasies and projections
could be heightened through techniques of verisimilitude and coherent narrative,
which give film viewers impressions or illusions of reality.3 The semiotic theo-
ries described films as being like conventional languages, which impart meaning
through understanding signifying signs and codes. The film narrative could be
used to signify reality, thereby enhancing film viewers illusions of reality.4
In Image and Mind (1995), Gregory Currie rejects the psychoanalytic ten-
dency to think of films as an essentially illusory medium, capable of causing the
46|What Is Film?

viewer temporarily to think of the film world as real and the semiotic assumption
that film images have much in common with language.5 He argues to the contrary
that pictures and language are fundamentally distinct, that pictures represent by
means of likeness rather than convention and that films are not standardly illu-
sionistic.6 He distinguishes between two versions of illusionism, a strong view
and a weak view, both of which he rejects. According to cognitive illusionism,
which is the strong view, film viewers believe that they are watching real events
that are presently occurring. An example of a cognitive illusion is when film view-
ers believe that they are watching the activities of U.S. counterespionage agents
coming to grips with a postwar Nazi plot in South America when they watch the
film starring Bergman and Grant.7
Another weaker and more plausible version of illusionism, which does not
require film viewers to have false beliefs, is perceptual illusionism. According to
Currie, a perceptual illusion occurs when experience represents the world as
being a certain way, when in fact it is not that way and the subject does not believe
it to be that way.8 When subject to a perceptual illusion, the viewer could even be
aware that he or she is seeing an illusion. For example, in the Mller-Lyre illusion
viewers standardly perceive that two parallel lines of equal length look as though
they are of unequal length (by the differently directed arrowheads at the ends of
each line) even when they know and believe that they are of equal length (as from
measuring the lengths of the two lines with a ruler). An example of a perceptual
illusion in films is the illusion of motion. Film viewers seem to see an object move
from one side of the film screen to the other, even though there is in fact no real
motion on the film screen, and they know and believe that there is no real motion
on the film screen. It is a more plausible version of illusionism than cognitive
illusionism because it does not require film viewers to have any false beliefs about
the reality of what they are perceiving.
What motivates both cognitive and perceptual illusionism is the varied
responses that film viewers have to watching films. They can have immediate
physical responses, like being startled or jumping up in their seats, and emotional
responses, like feeling sad, happy, anxious, or afraid. Presumably film viewers
could not have these varied physical and emotional responses if they did not expe-
rience some sort of illusion of reality. For instance, they would not feel sad if they
did not perceive that a fictional character had died, and they would not startle in
their seats if they did not perceive that a fictional object was moving toward their
faces and about to hit them. Even when film viewers know and believe that what
they are seeing is not real, they still have these diverse physical and emotional
responses. Hence, we are left with the paradox of emotional responses to fiction,
 Illusionism|47

which is how can film viewers emotionally respond to what is fictional as though it
were real when they know and believe that what they are emotionally responding
to is not in fact real.9 Cognitive illusionism tries to resolve this paradox by saying
that film viewers become so absorbed in the fiction that they come to temporarily
believe that they are seeing real events. Perceptual illusionism attempts to resolve
the paradox not by appealing to our beliefs, but by appealing to our perceptions.
Film viewers respond to seeing film images because they see illusions of reality, in
which they see what appears to be reality, even though they know and believe that
they are really seeing fictions.
In his book Image and Mind (1995), Currie rejects both cognitive and per-
ceptual illusionism. He rejects cognitive illusionism because it does not provide
a satisfactory account of the typical experience of watching films and why film
viewers react to films in the ways that they do. He says that film viewers dont
believe that they are present at the events of the story, watching from the posi-
tion actually occupied by the camera, which the viewer thinks of as his or her
position10 because they dont behave in ways that suggest that they have that
belief and because identifications with the camera are psychologically impossible.
Instead, he believes that film viewers react to films because they are engaged with
their imaginations; they simply imagine that there are these characters and that
the events occur, as when reading a novel.11 He also rejects perceptual illusion-
ism because he believes that there is nothing illusory about film images for film
viewers to be deceived about. For instance, when film viewers see an image of
Cary Grant moving from one side of the screen to the other, they really see that
image move, even though that image is not capable of being identified with some
particular physical object and is sustained by the continuous impact of light on
the film screen.12
By rejecting illusionism, Currie hopes to establish that films are not illusionis-
tic pictures that cause film viewers to have false beliefs that what is represented in
them is real, but rather they are realistic pictures that look like the things that they
represent.13 This likeness is a likeness of appearance, not one of shared essences, as
Bazins realist thesis claims. Curries view also differs from the transparency view
because he believes that we see images or representations of real objects, not the
real objects themselves. He believes that film images and their subjects appear
alike in that the experience of looking at film images is in certain respects like that
of looking at its subjects.14
In this chapter I will critically discuss Curries arguments against cognitive
and perceptual illusionism. I will begin by discussing his primary arguments
against cognitive illusionism, explain why these arguments are not convincing,
48|What Is Film?

and then offer my own reasons for believing that cognitive illusionism should be
rejected. Next, I will discuss Curries arguments against what he refers to as the
most common form of perceptual illusionism, namely that the motion in film
images is an illusion. I will show how his arguments for the reality of motion in
film images do not succeed and why the motion in film images is in fact a percep-
tual illusion. Finally, I will explain how perceptual illusionism can explain some
of our immediate physical and emotional reactions to watching film images, and
I will discuss how cognitivist theories can supplement our understanding of film
viewers reactions to watching film images.

Curries Arguments Against Cognitive Illusionism

Cognitive illusionism is the view that when film viewers watch films they come
to believe that the fictional events that they see on the film screen are real and
presently occurring. The classical film theorists who supported cognitive illu-
sionism held that film viewers were made to believe that they were spectators
of the fictional events portrayed in films, watching those events from the per-
spective of the camera as if they were real events.15 The attraction of this view
was that it could explain the profound effects that films had on its viewers.
For instance, at the showing of the Lumire brothers film LArrive dun Train
en Gare de la Ciotat (1895), Parisian spectators ran out of the theater upon
viewing a train speeding toward them on the film screen. Their behavior could
best be explained by their believing that such a train was real and about to run
them over. Even today, people react to films as though they believe that what
they are seeing is real. They weep when watching a sad scene, they get startled
when objects appear suddenly without warning, they close their eyes to avoid
seeing scary scenes, and so on. The fact that film viewers often have such varied
emotional and physical responses to watching film images gives credence to the
doctrine of cognitive illusionism.
However, in his book Image and Mind (1995), Gregory Currie rejects cogni-
tive illusionism for two main reasons. First, film viewers do not behave like people
who really believe they are in the presence of axe murderers, monsters, and other
subjects that films portray. Second, if film viewers really believed that they were
watching real events, they would have to suppose that their perspective is that of
the camera. Currie believes that this identification with the camera is psycholog-
ically impossible because it would require film viewers to think of themselves in
bizarre locations and performing impossible bodily movements, which is not part
 Illusionism|49

of the ordinary experience of film watching.16 As a result, Currie concludes that

film viewers do not experience cognitive illusions when they watch films.
Curries first argument against cognitive illusionism initially seems compel-
ling, since we, as film viewers, do not behave as if we believe that we are in the
presence of real and presently occurring events. For example, we do not run out of
movie theaters or dial 911 on our cellular phones when we watch horrific scenes
in films that would require such actions if we deemed them to be real. We would
certainly leave the theater if we believed that an emergency were taking place or
call for help if we believed that someone was in need of medical attention. Since
we sit calmly in our seats when watching films depicting fictional situations that
would normally require action if they were believed to be real, it is reasonable
to presume that we do not believe in the reality of what we see depicted in film
images.
However, while our behavior can be a good indicator of our beliefs, we do not
always behave in ways that are indicative of our beliefs. For example, we might
believe that giving money to the poor is a good thing to do, but we do not do
so because we dont have any money to give, or we might believe that we should
rescue people who are in imminent danger, but our fear of being harmed may pre-
vent us from rescuing them. Similarly with viewing films, film viewers behaviors
may not indicate what they believe about the reality of the content of film images.
For instance, film viewers may see film images of a person being murdered, and
they may leave the theater not because they believe that they are witnessing a real
murder but because they believe that the images are too gory for them to continue
watching, or they may not leave the theater not because they believe that they
are not seeing a real murder that is presently occurring but because they want to
see what will happen next.17 So, a weakness with Curries first argument against
cognitive illusionism is that he ascribes certain beliefs to film viewers due to their
behavioral responses when he does not establish that those responses were directly
caused by their beliefs about the reality of the content of film images instead of
their beliefs about other matters. Since Currie has not shown that film viewers
behaviors are in direct response to their beliefs about the reality of the content of
film images, he has not shown that cognitive illusionism is undermined by their
behaviors.
A further weakness with Curries argument is that his examples all involve
horrific subjects in films, like monsters, nuclear explosions, and axe murderers,
which limits his rejection of cognitive illusionism to films that portray such hor-
rific subjects. But not all films have horrific subjects that could not be believed
to be real by rational film viewers. For instance, dramas, comedies, and romances
50|What Is Film?

frequently depict events that are non-horrific and which reflect situations drawn
from everyday life. With these kinds of films, one could argue that film viewers are
more prone to believing that they are seeing real events, so cognitive illusionism
could be operating with such films. Discounting cognitive illusionism for films
portraying horrific subjects, as Currie does, will therefore not succeed in refuting
cognitive illusionism for all kinds of films, or the film medium as a whole.
Currie could respond by saying that even if he included non-horrific subjects
in his examples, his point would still be valid, namely that film viewers do not
believe that the fictional events that they are seeing are real and presently occur-
ring, because film viewers do not behave in ways that would indicate that they
have such beliefs. For instance, he could say that film viewers dont attempt to
console emotionally troubled characters in dramas, they dont hide their amuse-
ment when they see people doing farcical things in comedies, and they dont try
to help a heroine find her lost lover when watching romances. Although one can
certainly find such compelling behavioral examples to reject cognitive illusionism,
one can also find compelling behavioral examples in support of it. For instance,
film viewers tend to cry when they see heroic fictional characters die, and they
tend to become upset when seeing tragic fictional events occur. Why would film
viewers react in these ways if they truly believed that they were seeing fictional
events?
One contemporary philosopher who tries to answer this question is Nol
Carroll. He explains film viewers reactions to watching a film as being the result
of their thoughts about the content of the film. For instance, in watching a horror
film depicting a fictional monster, the film viewer has a thought of a fictional
monster, which causes the film viewer to feel afraid. This thought is not the belief
that the fictional monster is real, since no one really believes that the monster on
the film screen is real. Carroll says that both beliefs and thoughts have proposi-
tional content, but with thoughts the content is merely entertained without com-
mitment to its being the case, while with beliefs, one is committed to the truth of
the proposition.18 Carroll believes that one can be moved by ones thoughts just
as one can be moved by ones beliefs. As a result, he believes that our thoughts are
what cause us to have reactions to watching films.
Carrolls view that film viewers thoughts are responsible for their reactions
rather than their beliefs is compelling, since most film viewers do entertain
thoughts about what they are seeing, and those thoughts can result in reactions,
like feeling afraid or sad. For instance, when watching the film Casablanca (1942),
film viewers are saddened by the thought of two lovers being separated. They are
not committed to the belief that they are in fact being separated because they
 Illusionism|51

know that the people they see in the film are an actor and an actress playing fic-
tional roles, not lovers who are really being separated. The virtue of Carrolls view
is that it can explain why film viewers react to what they are seeing as though they
are seeing real events, even when they know and believe otherwise.
Currie, on the other hand, says that films dont cause us to respond to our
beliefs or to our thoughts, but rather to our imagination. He says that when we
watch a film, we engage in imaginings, and what is appropriate for us to imag-
ine depends on what we see (on what we actually see, that is, not on anything
we imagine we see).19 For instance, he says that when he watches Citizen Kane
(1941), he imagines that he sees a snow globe falling from the hands of a dying
man because he really sees a dying man from whose hand a snow globe falls.20
Currie also says that our imaginings exhibit a counterfactual dependence, wherein
If what we saw on the screen were shaped or coloured in a slightly different way,
what we would then have imagined about the characters features would have
been correspondingly different.21 By a counterfactual dependence, Currie means
that if the film image had been different, then our imaginings would also have
been different in a corresponding manner. As a result, Currie believes that the
imaginings that should take place when film viewers watch films are imaginings
whose content depends on the content of the film images. If, for instance, we see
the film Casablanca (1942), then we should imagine what that film portrays, and
if we imagine something different and completely unrelated to what that film
portrays, then we really havent seen the film Casablanca.
Although I agree with Currie that we can imagine various things when watch-
ing films, I dont believe that film viewers have to imagine what they actually see
depicted in film images. When we imagine something we create our own mental
images without being restricted by what we are actually seeing in the real world or
in the fictional world of films. When we watch films, we can imagine just about
anything we want to imagine, irrespective of what we actually see depicted in
them. If I were watching a film image of a characters face, for instance, I could
imagine that characters facial features in ways of my own choosing. I could imag-
ine that the character has brown eyes rather than the green eyes that I actually
see depicted in the film images. Also, if the film images change their content,
I dont have to change the content of my imaginings to match those changes. For
example, if the characters eyes are first blue in one shot and then green in another
shot, as when David Banner transforms into the Incredible Hulk, I dont have to
change my imaginings to accommodate those changes in the film images. I could
continue to imagine seeing blue eyes throughout the mystical transformation that
I see in the film images. I can also create my own visual images in my imagination
52|What Is Film?

which doesnt correspond to what I actually see depicted in the film images. For
instance, I could see a film image of an old man being hit by a car, but I could
subsequently imagine my great-grandmother being hit by a truck (since she did
die in that manner), or I could see a film image of a young doctor finding a cure
for cancer and imagine that I am that young doctor even though the film image of
that young doctor doesnt look anything like me. Thus, what film viewers imagine
when they watch film images does not necessarily correspond to what they are
seeing depicted in film images.
Currie would respond by arguing that I cannot truly be said to be seeing the
film if I am imagining such visually unrelated things. But I believe that I do still
see the film and its images even when I engage in imaginings that dont reflect
what I am actually seeing depicted in film images. My eyes are not closed as I am
imagining visually unrelated things, so I am still physically seeing the film images.
Also, the activity of my imagining does not preclude the activity of my seeing.
I can see the film screen and its images, even while I am imagining other things.
I can even combine my own imaginings with what I am actually seeing depicted
in film images. For example, I can incorporate my mental images of riding a white
horse into the film images of a fictional battle scene, imagining that I am riding
a white horse in the fictional battle scene, even though the image of me riding
a white horse is not there on the film screen to be seen. I can therefore imagine
anything I like when I watch a film and still say that I see the film.
Currie would further respond by saying that we can surely imagine some-
thing completely different from what we are seeing (he does acknowledge that we
can imagine just about anything22), but that imagining would not be appropriate
for film watching. Film watching invites us to imagine what we actually see on
the film screen and not to imagine seeing things in our own minds eye. If we
wanted to simply imagine things that were unrelated to the film images, we could
certainly do that, but what would be the point of sitting in the movie theater and
watching the film images if we are going to imagine things that have nothing to
do with the film images?
I would agree with Currie that if we are truly engaged with the film, we will
not let our minds wander off and engage in imaginings that have little or nothing
to do with the film images. However, I would disagree with his view that the only
kind of imagining that is appropriate to watching films is one that restricts our
imaginings to what we are actually seeing depicted in film images. It may also be
appropriate for us to imagine things that we dont actually see depicted in film
images for many different reasons, such as being able to relate the content of film
images to our own lives and to enhance our viewing enjoyment. For instance,
 Illusionism|53

when we see the actor Will Smith heroically killing space aliens in Independence
Day (1996), we could imagine that we are in that heroic role even though we dont
see our own image on the film screen, or when we see toys delighting in being
played with in Toy Story (1995), we can imagine our own childhood toys, which
have no resemblance to the toys being shown on the film screen.
Filmmakers often provoke certain emotional and physical reactions from
film viewers by stimulating their capacity to imagine various things even when
there is a blank screen and nothing for them to see! For instance, when film
viewers hear scary music or see a dark screen with no image on it, they can
imagine seeing a ghost or a monster about to appear in the film image, which
may look nothing like the object that finally does appear. These kinds of creative
imaginings do not detract from our viewing experience; rather they heighten
and intensify it. Through our capacity to imagine things that dont correspond
visually to the things that we see in film images, we can bring the fictional
world closer to or further away from our own reality. Consequently, the kind of
imagining that is appropriate to watching films could well be imaginings that go
beyond what we actually see in film images. At the very least, it would certainly
not be inappropriate for films to stimulate our own creative imaginings. Thus,
Curries account of imagining seeing as being dependent upon what we actually
see depicted in film images is not convincing because we are not restricted in
our imaginings to what we actually see depicted in film images, nor should we
be so restricted.
Currie does attempt to deal with my objections by saying that the correspon-
dence between what we see visually displayed on the film screen and what we
imagine as a result is patchy.23 For example, he says that when we see objects in
the film image disappear, as in fade-out shots, we dont imagine that the objects
have really disappeared; when we see a person in Chicago one day and in London
the next day, we can imagine that the person took a plane to get to London, even
though no plane or journey was shown; and if we see a man who is supposed to
be carrying an alien inside of him, we can imagine that there is an alien inside of
him, even though there is no alien to be seen in the film image.24 These examples
support my view that we are not constrained in our imaginings by what we actu-
ally see visually depicted in film images. They show that film viewers can imagine
things that do not correspond visually to the things that they see depicted in film
images. As a result, I believe that Curries account of the kinds of imaginings
that film viewers appropriately engage in when they watch films needs to better
account for the presence of these self-induced imaginings that have no visual
counterparts to what is visually depicted in film images.
54|What Is Film?

Curries second major argument against cognitive illusionism is that if film

viewers really believed that they are watching real events, they would have to
imagine that their perspective is that of the camera, that they are positioned
within and move throughout the film space as the camera is positioned and
moved.25 Currie rejects this view, which he calls the Imagined Observer
Hypothesis. He believes that we do not imagine that we are present at the
scene watching the fictional events from the perspective of the camera (what he
calls personal imagining, or imagining seeing); we simply imagine that those fic-
tional events occur without imagining that we are present at the fictional scene
(what he calls impersonal imagining). Currie argues that if we were to imagine
seeing ourselves within the space of the fictional events when we watch a film by
identifying with the perspective of the camera, we would have to imagine that
our visual powers were strangely restricted and imagine that what we see does
not depend on our own decisions.26 Since we do not imagine such things when
we watch a film, Currie says that we cannot possibly imagine seeing ourselves
within the space of the fictional events observing those fictional events from the
perspective of the camera.
But we dont have to imagine that our visual powers are strangely restricted
when we imagine seeing the fictional world from the perspective of the camera
because the cameras perspectives can reflect the ways in which we ordinarily see
the world. For instance, slow panning shots at eye level can simulate one of the
more common ways in which our eyes survey the world around us. Rapid camera
angles and movements can simulate the way we see the world when we are in
motion, like when we run or jump up and down. And even if the cameras per-
spectives did present us with unusual viewing angles, we could still imagine that
we see the fictional world clearly enough. For example, we could see the fictional
world from the ground level looking up, or we could see the fictional world from
the sky looking down, and we could imagine that those unusual viewing angles
are perfectly normal.
In addition, seeing from the perspective of the camera does not require imag-
ining that what we see depends in no way on our own decisions. We could easily
imagine that we dont see the scene by imagining that we are looking away from the
scene, turning our backs to the scene, closing our eyes, and so forth. We could also
easily imagine that we see the scene differently than how the camera sees the scene.
For instance, we could imagine that we are seeing the scene from the ground, even
though the camera shows us a birds-eye view of the scene. Also, the camera might
show us only one side of a characters face, but we could easily imagine seeing the
other side of it. Therefore, imagining seeing from the perspective of the camera
 Illusionism|55

does not require imagining that our visual powers are strangely restricted or that
what we see does not depend on our own decisions.
Currie also argues that if film viewers really believed that they are watching
real events from the perspective of the camera, they would have to imagine seeing
themselves in bizarre locations and performing impossible bodily movements,
reflective of the impossible viewing angles of the camera, but since film viewers
dont imagine such things, they dont really believe that they are watching real
events from the perspective of the camera.27 He gives an example from Hitchcocks
film The Birds (1963) to prove this point. He says that in the scene where
Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) crosses Bodega Bay in a hired boat, film viewers
would have to imagine seeing themselves moving from the shore to the boat in
impossible ways reflecting the impossible angles and positions of the camera.28
Currie believes that if the viewer were to imagine seeing the scene from the per-
spective of the camera in each one of these fourteen shots, she would have to
imagine seeing herself in the following unusual positions:

The transitions between the first three shots would require her to imagine her position
shifted instantly through ninety degrees twice, around the edge of the boat. Shot 4
requires her to imagine herself suddenly in the water by the boat, somehow travelling
alongside it at the same (considerable) speed. The transitions between 5 and 14 would
then have her imagine herself shifted back and forth nine times between Melanies own
position (identifying with Melanie, perhaps?) and different points on the shore, all within
the space of a minute or two.29

Currie says that film viewers do not engage in these mental gymnastics of imag-
ining seeing their bodies moving around in impossible ways following the bizarre
and unusual viewing angles and positions of the camera, which they would have
to do if they imagine seeing from the perspective of the camera. As a result, he
rejects the Imagined Observer Hypothesis that film viewers imagine seeing from
the perspective of the camera.30
But imagining seeing from the perspective of the camera does not require
that film viewers imagine seeing themselves in bizarre locations and performing
impossible bodily movements. Lets look again at Curries Bodega Bay example
to see this point. When we watch the sequence of shots, we can imagine seeing
the boat from the shore and the shore from the boat without imagining that our
bodies are jumping back and forth between the boat and the shore, and we can see
the boat from the side without imagining that our bodies are traveling alongside
the boat at roughly the same speed that the boat is traveling. In viewing these
shots, we do not have to imagine anything about where our own bodies would
56|What Is Film?

have to be located to see the scene from the cameras perspectives. Furthermore,
the fact that some camera angles are unusual doesnt mean that film viewers imag-
ining seeing themselves moving in impossible ways around the scene.
There are other unusual camera angles that could have been employed in this
film which illustrate this point. For instance, film viewers can imagine seeing the
boat in Bodega Bay from a cameras birds-eye viewpoint without imagining seeing
that they are flying above Bodega Bay. In fact, Hitchcock utilizes such birds-eye
shots from high above the scene to show us what the birds are seeing from the
sky, as when the birds look down at a gas explosion after attacking a person at a
gas station. When film viewers watch this scene, they dont have to imagine that
their bodies are up in the sky flying with the birds. Also, film viewers can imagine
seeing the boat in Bodega Bay from a foot away in a close-up shot and then a hun-
dred feet away in the next long shot without imagining seeing themselves moving
across ninety-nine feet of water to see the boat in the long shot. Thus, film viewers
can imagine seeing from the perspective of the camera from a variety of unusual
camera angles without imagining seeing that their bodies are moving in physically
impossible ways around the scene.
Kendall Walton makes similar objections to Curries Bodega Bay example. He
argues that when we imagine seeing the scene from different camera angles, some
from the shore and some from the boat, it is simply not true that we imagine that
we are moving or being transported mysteriously from the shore to the boat; one
just imagines the one visual experience and then the other.31 He writes:

If viewers of The Birds imagine watching the boat in Bodega Bay from the shore, and
then, in the next shot, imagine being on the boat, it does not follow that they must ever
have imagined even having been in both places, let alone moving from one place to the
other. Even if the spectator does imagine being on shore at one moment and on board the
boat a moment later, this does not require imagining moving or being transported from
the shore to the boat, imagining changing locations. One need not, in ones imaginative
experience, follow out the implications of what one imagines.32

Waltons response to Currie is convincing. We dont have to imagine moving

around the scene because we dont have to imagine what would logically follow
from identifying ourselves with the camera. If the camera shows us a shot of the
boat from the shore and then shows us a shot of the boat five miles away from
the shore, we do not have to imagine that we somehow quickly swam five miles
away from the shore to be able to imagine that we see the boat in the latter scene.
We dont have to figure out where our bodies are positioned to be able to imagine
seeing the scene from different perspectives.
 Illusionism|57

Curries reliance on the Bodega Bay example to show that film viewers do
not imagine seeing from the perspective of the camera is therefore not convincing
because that example does not show that film viewers would have to imagine seeing
themselves moving in impossible ways reflecting the impossible movements of the
camera when they watch that film sequence from the perspective of the camera.
They can simply imagine seeing the scene from different perspectives without
working out the consequences of seeing the scene from such perspectives. Thus,
Curries counterexample does not show what Currie thinks it shows, namely that
impossible mental gymnastics would have to be performed by the viewer if he or
she were to identify with the changing positions of the camera. As Walton correctly
says, it is simply not true that such impossible mental gymnastics have to be per-
formedNothing is easier than, first, to imagine watching a boat from the shore,
and then to imagine observing it from on board, without ever imagining moving
or being transported somehow from the shore to the boat.33 When we watch the
Bodega Bay film sequence, the transitions from boat to shore and back again are
not disturbing, since we dont imagine how our bodies might be moving back
and forth in keeping with the changing positions and movements of the camera.
For instance, we dont imagine that we have swum to the shore to get the view of
the boat from the shore or that we have swum back to the boat to get the view of
the shore from the boat. Since we dont imagine such things in the Bodega Bay
film sequence, Curries counterexample does not succeed in disproving the Imag-
ined Observer Hypothesis.
Currie says that on Waltons account, imagining seeing would be a purely
visual imagining, unconnected with any imaginings about where we are seeing
from or how it is that we are able to see. While we are to imagine ourselves seeing,
we are not to imagine ourselves placed anywhere in the scene, or as undergoing
any changes of position.34 Currie rejects Waltons proposal because he believes
that imagining seeing is intimately bound with a point of view. He says imagining
seeing a scene in a film means imagining seeing it from the point of view defined
by the perspectival plane of the picture.35
However, as Walton points out, imagining seeing does not require imagining
seeing from some particular perspective. He says, I can easily imagine that I see
something without there being a particular point of view which I imagine that
I see it from.36 I agree with Walton that imagining seeing need not require imag-
ining seeing from any particular point of view. For instance, I can imagine seeing
a unicorn when I see an image of a unicorn on the film screen, and I dont have
to imagine anything about the point of view from which I am seeing that unicorn
from. The fact that we usually are not bothered by shifting points of view, created
58|What Is Film?

by shifting camera angles and positions, shows that our imagining seeing when
we watch films is not impeded by identifying with one particular point of view
or another. Thus, Walton is correct to say that when we imagine seeing, we dont
have to reflect on the practical logistics of how we are imagining seeing or where
we are imagining seeing from.
Currie assumes that identification with the perspectives of the camera is not
psychologically possible because most camera angles present film viewers with
bizarre and unusual viewing angles that they cant possibly identify with. But
I dont believe that that is in fact the case. Many camera angles are consistent
with the viewing angles that people would normally take to see the real world
because filmmakers want their film images to be intelligible to film viewers.
For instance, in the film My Dinner with Andre (1981), the cameras present
viewing angles and viewing distances that reflect ordinary viewing angles and
viewing distances. When the characters are talking to one another, we see them
from viewing angles that are in keeping with the viewing angles that our own
eyes would take if we were talking to those characters ourselves. Camera angles
are not typically bizarre and unusual because filmmakers want film viewers to
be able to comprehend their film images. Hence, they tend to choose viewing
angles that reflect ordinary viewing angles. Thus, Curries argument that it is
psychologically impossible for film viewers to see from the perspective of the
camera is not convincing.
In conclusion, Curries arguments against cognitive illusionism are not per-
suasive. His first argument from the behaviors of film viewers is not convincing
because film viewers behaviors may not be a reliable indicator of their beliefs,
since they can behave in ways that do not betray what they are believing about
the reality of the content of film images and there may be other beliefs they are
responding to that have little or nothing to do with their beliefs about the reality
of what they see depicted in film images. To strengthen his argument, Currie
needs to conclusively establish what film viewers are directly responding to when
they watch film images. His second argument was that if film viewers really
believed in the reality of what they see depicted in film images, they would have
to imagine seeing from the perspective of the camera, which would be psycholog-
ically impossible because they typically do not imagine seeing themselves moving
in impossible ways around the scene, reflective of the impossible viewing angles of
the camera. But this argument was also not convincing because imagining seeing
from the perspectives of the camera is possible, since not all camera angles present
film viewers with impossible viewing angles, and even if they did, film viewers
can imagine that they are perfectly normal viewing angles. Furthermore, if film
 Illusionism|59

viewers imagine seeing from the perspective of the camera, they dont have to
imagining seeing themselves moving in impossible ways around the scene, reflec-
tive of the impossible viewing angles of the camera. Thus, Currie has not success-
fully refuted cognitive illusionism.

Arguments Against Cognitive Illusionism

I believe that there are better reasons to reject cognitive illusionism than the ones
that Currie provides, and I will subsequently discuss them in this section. I will
explain how aspects of film viewing enable film viewers to believe that they are
not seeing real events that are presently occurring, such as sitting in a dark room
at predetermined times and places, seeing a rectangular movie screen with a pro-
jected image on it from some distance away, and listening to loud stereo surround
sound. I will also discuss certain artistic elements of film production, such as
sequence of shots, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, lighting effects, sound
effects, and special effects that can make film viewers believe that they are not
seeing real events. I will subsequently argue that these aspects of film viewing and
film production can cause film viewers to believe that what they are seeing are
not real events that are presently occurring, but rather representations of fictional
events created by a filmmaker. For these reasons, I believe that cognitive illusion-
ism should be rejected.
There are many different ways that we, as film viewers, are able to believe that
the fictional events we see in films are not real events that are presently occur-
ring. First, we usually watch films by going to a movie theater and sitting in a
predetermined viewing room at predetermined viewing times. We usually dont
watch real events in this manner. For instance, we dont walk into theater B of a
multiplex cinema at 7:45 p.m. on May 25, 2001 to see the real bombing of Pearl
Harbor. When we watch the film Pearl Harbor (2001), we dont have any illusion
that what we are seeing is real and presently occurring because we know that the
bombing of Pearl Harbor already occurred on December 7, 1941. Even when we
watch films that dont depict past historical events, we are not duped into believ-
ing that what we are seeing is really happening at the present moment because of
our common knowledge that films project prerecorded images that can be shown
multiple times. As a result, when we watch a film, we dont believe that the events
we see depicted on the film screen are really happening at the exact moment that
we see them, and if we watch a film more than once, we dont believe that we
are seeing real events occurring over and over again. Consequently, the artificial
60|What Is Film?

setting in which we view films and our common knowledge that films involve a
projection of prerecorded images enable us to believe that we are not seeing pres-
ently occurring real events.
In addition, we typically watch films in a dark room, since film images require
dark viewing conditions to see them clearly. In the real world, by contrast, dark-
ness is not the ideal viewing condition. Although the fictional world we see in
film images may be lit like the real world, when we notice that we are sitting in
the dark throughout our viewing of film images, it is difficult to believe that the
fictional world is a part of our own present reality. For instance, when film images
show us a scene of a bright, sunny day, it is hard to believe that we are witnessing
a present reality when our own world around us in the viewing room is dark, or
when film images show us changes in lighting conditions, as to indicate changes
in the time of day or changes in the seasons, it is hard to believe that we are seeing
a present reality, when the darkness of the viewing room persists, regardless of the
changes in the lighting conditions in the fictional world. Thus, sitting in a dark
room while we watch film images is another way to tell that we are not seeing the
real world.
Also, when viewing films, film viewers can clearly see that the film images are
contained within a rectangular border delineated by the edges of the film screen.
But what we see in real life is not similarly contained within the rectangular bor-
ders of a viewing screen. Although one might argue that we can ignore these
borders, we are easily drawn to them when we see incomplete objects on the film
screen. When we see just the feet and legs of a murder victim in a film image, we
readily look to the edges of the film screen as if to see the rest of the body beyond
the borders of the film screen. Looking at the visual boundaries created by the
film screen can cause film viewers to realize that they are not seeing the real world
when they watch film images.
A further way that film viewers are able to differentiate between the fictional
world and the real world is by noticing that the objects that they see on the
film screen are two-dimensional, while the objects that they see in real life are
three-dimensional. Of course, we could develop 3D films that depict three-
dimensional-looking objects (e.g., the Terminator 2 film at the Universal Studios
theme park), but thus far such films are too costly to become an everyday occur-
rence. Avatar (2009) had a 3D version, and more films after that one have had a
3D version, such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Even if 3D films became
commonplace, we would still have to sit in the dark and wear specially designed
3D glasses to view them, which would cause us to believe that we are seeing an
artificially created reality.
 Illusionism|61

Finally, when we watch films in movie theaters, we usually hear loud stereo
surround sounds or digital surround sounds, which are emitted from speakers
set up around the viewing room to amplify the sounds from different directions.
In real life, such sounds are rarely, if ever, heard. Listening to loud sounds of this
kind would quickly alert us to the fact that we are not really observing the real
world.
One could argue that our awareness of the conditions in which we view films
is suppressed once the film starts. We become involved in the film in such a way
that we lose our sense of where we are located, what real-life conditions surround
us, and so on. But I think that our awareness of these viewing conditions per-
sists to some extent throughout our viewing of the film (either on a conscious
or subconscious level). We are aware that we are sitting in the dark in a specially
designed viewing room of a movie theater, that stereo surround sound is blaring
from all sides, and that there is a film screen on which two-dimensional images
are being projected. We might not consciously think about such artificial viewing
conditions at all times. But if we tried to form the belief that we are in the pres-
ence of real and presently occurring events, we use the evidence of these viewing
conditions to keep us from forming such a belief, and if we somehow managed to
form such a belief, we use the evidence of these viewing conditions to change our
belief. As a result, film viewers are able to formulate and maintain the belief that
they are viewing fictional events, and not real events, through their awareness of
these artificial viewing conditions.
Murray Smith explains how we can become absorbed in a film and yet not
stop believing that we are watching a fiction. He says that when we are immersed
in a conversation at a party, our attention is focused on the conversation, but
we are still peripherally aware of the talking, dancing, and fornicating going on
around us.37 Similarly, when we watch a film, our attention can be focused on
what the film images fictionally represent, but we are still peripherally aware of the
fact that we are seeing a fiction instead of reality. Nol Carroll also explains this
phenomenon as involving simultaneous and nonconflicting modes of awareness,
in which we are aware focally of what is represented in the film image, while we
are constantly aware subsidiarily that what we are seeing is a fictional representa-
tion.38 Hence, these accounts can explain how film viewers awareness that they
are seeing a fictional representation does not diminish or go away by focusing
their attention on what the image represents.
There are also certain artistic and creative elements within a film, such as
sequence of shots, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, lighting effects, and
sound effects, which make film viewers aware that they are seeing representations
62|What Is Film?

of fictional events. I will explain how these elements distort the real world being
filmed and cause film viewers to believe that they are seeing fictional events, not
real and presently occurring events.
One such artistic and creative intervention involves the sequencing of images.
When we watch a film, we can see flashbacks or flash-forwards, where the normal
temporal order of events is disrupted. For example, in the film Memento (2001),
we understand what is happening to the main character through his flashbacks.
Each flashback shows more of his past than the preceding one. The sequence
of events in this film defies the normal temporal ordering of past, present, and
future. Film viewers are able to recognize these creative distortions of the normal
temporal order of past, present, and future because they are not possible in real
life. As a result, they believe that what they are seeing in film images is not real.
Another artistic and creative film-making device that can alert film viewers
that they are not seeing the real world when they watch films is the point-of-view
shot. This kind of shot occurs when the camera shows a scene from an objective
or subjective point of view. The subjective shot shows film viewers what characters
are looking at in the space of the film. These kinds of shot are not reflective of the
way that we see the real world, since they exemplify perspectives that are not our
own. The objective shot discloses scenes from outside any particular characters
perspective, thus making viewers feel a god-like omniscience. Our experience in
real life, by contrast, is very different. We only have our own limited perspectives
by which to see the world, not multiple perspectives or an omniscient perspective.
Although point-of-view shots can be used by filmmakers to help film viewers
see the fictional world from the point of view of a character in a film, film viewers
do not have to imagine that they are that character or that they are placed within
the fictional world of the film when they are presented with point-of-view shots.39
For example, if film viewers watch a man in a film who is fictionally killing and
dismembering people, and they are given a point-of-view shot of his gaze fixed
upon his next victim, they do not have to imagine that they are that killer simply
because the camera shows them what he is seeing, and they dont have to imagine
that they are present at the fictional scene with him.40 Their ability to disconnect
from the perspective of the camera is further evidence that they are aware that the
camera presents a point of view that is not necessarily their own point of view, and
not necessarily a point of view that shows them the real world.
The duration of shots also causes film viewers to believe that they are not
seeing real events. A filmmaker may wish to shorten the length of a shot to
heighten anxiety and tension or prolong the length to suggest deliberation or cau-
tion. In a film that cuts from one shot to another very quickly, as in the action film
 Illusionism|63

Mortal Kombat (1995), film viewers are more likely to believe that the events and
actions portrayed are happening very quickly, which tends to increase their level
of alertness and anxiety. When the duration of shots is protracted, film viewers are
more likely to believe that the events and actions portrayed are happening slowly,
thereby facilitating a more contemplative and relaxed frame of mind. But the
duration of shots on the film screen does not always reflect the duration of actual
time that transpired when the shots were taken. A shot that lasts five minutes on
the film screen might have taken a few seconds to shoot, or a shot that lasts a few
seconds on the film screen might have taken five minutes to shoot. Although film
viewers are not aware of how long the shots originally took to shoot at the time of
filming, they can know that the duration of shots that they see on the film screen
is unusually long or unusually short, reflective of the creative manipulations of
the filmmaker and an artificial reality that he or she wishes to depict. The variable
duration of time involved in shots is yet another way for film viewers to believe
that what they are seeing in film images is not real.
Furthermore, there are various lighting effects that filmmakers use that
heighten film viewers awareness that what they are seeing in film images is a
fictional world. For instance, changes of night and day (and the seasons) occur
much more rapidly than they do in the real world when the filmmaker employs
artificial lights and lighting effects. If one night lasts for a few minutes on the film
screen, film viewers are not duped into believing that the night really lasted just a
few minutes. Also, by employing spotlights, the filmmaker directs the attention of
film viewers to an object or a characters face. But film viewers are not duped into
believing that lights magically shine on an object or a characters face when they
are the center of attention in the film image. Finally, through manipulating light
and light sources, filmmakers affect film viewers feelings and moods. Sadness can
be evoked by dark blue light, fear by dark light and dark shadows, happiness by
bright lights, and so on. Film viewers recognize when they watch films that the
lighting effects are the result of creative manipulations by the filmmaker to affect
their feelings and moods. Hence, film viewers do not believe that they are seeing
real events taking place in the real world.
Finally, the sound effects that are employed in films can also alert film view-
ers to the lack of reality in the film images. Not all sounds in films reflect what
one would actually hear in the real world. For example, the sound of an elephant
trumpeting when a horse is supposed to be neighing or the scary background
music that alerts us to the imminent attack of a great-white shark as in Jaws
(1975). Sounds that dont accord with the fictional world alert film viewers that
they are seeing fictional events in a fictional world. For example, in A Knights Tale
64|What Is Film?

(2001), it is hard to believe that the fictional events are real when the characters,
who are supposed to be from a medieval time period, are singing We will, we
will rock you as contemporary rock music accompanying their voices blares
from the speakers around us. Digital sound (first introduced in the early 1990s)
is a relatively new feature that gives sounds a better and higher quality. Unlike
earlier films where the digital sound was on the film, Steven Spielbergs block-
buster Jurassic Park (1993) was the first film to employ the DTS (Digital Theater
Systems), which placed the digital sound on a separate CD-ROM that was syn-
chronized to the film images through the use of a time code on the film that could
be decoded by computer hardware and software. Unnatural and artificial sounds
in films indicate to film viewers that they are seeing fictional events in a fictional
world.
Thus, there are many different artistic and creative elements in films, such as
sequencing of shots, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, lighting effects, and
sounds, which make film viewers believe that they are seeing fictional events in
a fictional world when they watch films. These artistic elements leave no doubt
that the film images that they see are the result of creative manipulations by the
filmmaker, not simply automatic and mechanical recordings of reality.
One could argue that film viewers cannot believe that what they are seeing
in films is not real if they dont understand how filmmakers utilize these artistic
and creative elements in making their films. I believe that film viewers do not
have to know how filmmakers create and manipulate these artistic and creative
elements to believe that they are seeing a fictional world. Even though most film
viewers do not know how computer-generated images are made, they know that
the dinosaurs they see in Jurassic Park III (2001) are not real because they know
that dinosaurs became extinct millions of years ago. Even with films that depict
more realistic subject matter, like the life of a newspaper tycoon in Citizen Kane
(1941) that reflects the life of William Randolph Hearst, film viewers know that
what they are seeing is not real events without knowing exactly how filmmakers
utilize artistic and creative elements because the images they see depict events that
are too unlike the events they typically experience in the real world.
One could also argue that film viewers cannot believe that what they are
seeing is not real if they do not consciously reflect on the artistic and creative ele-
ments of a film. I disagree. Disruptions in the temporal order, unusual sequencing
of shots, and bizarre camera angles and positions are sufficient to trigger an imme-
diate rejection of the reality of what is seen in films. When film viewers watch the
flashback sequences in Memento (2001), for instance, they cant help but believe
that something is wrong with the order of events without having to consciously
 Illusionism|65

reflect on the flashback sequences created by the filmmaker. Also, in Crouching

Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001), film viewers dont have to consciously reflect on
how camera angles and positions make the Chinese martial artists appear to fly
to believe that what they are seeing is not real, since they know that doing such
things is a physical impossibility. Finally, in Inception (2010), there are various
scenes that are surreal because they are supposed to be taking place inside a per-
sons dreams, such as the Paris caf scene with slow-motion explosions and a city
block collapsing on itself, a zero-gravity fight scene inside a revolving hotel hall-
way, and incredible transformations of cities and other environments. As a result,
film viewers can reject the reality of what is represented in films even if they dont
engage in any conscious reflection about the artistic and creative elements of film
production.
There are other artistic and creative elements of film production that are
influential in causing film viewers to believe that they are seeing a movie fiction,
not reality. In contemporary films, there are a number of special effects innova-
tions that allow for distortions of reality, such as the incorporation of images of
deceased people with living people, as with the appearance of President John F.
Kennedy who appears to be shaking the hand of Tom Hanks (the actor playing
Forrest Gump) in Forrest Gump (1994); the use of black-and-white images with
color images, as in Pleasantville (1998); and the juxtaposition of cartoon charac-
ters with real human actors and actresses, as in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988).
In the film The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), an adult actor is shown to be a few
inches tall and standing in the palms of the hands of a child actor, which would
never be possible in real life. These film images cause viewers to believe that they
are seeing a fictional world, since the juxtapositions depicted in them are not
possible in the real world.
Computer-generated images can also show the unreality of film images. For
example, in the entirely computer-generated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
(2001), the face of Dr. Aki Ross has realistic dimples, pores, and freckles, and the
face of Dr. Sid has realistic wrinkles, liver spots, and rough textures, which con-
tribute to their extraordinary lifelikeness. Despite these realistic features, we can
still tell that these characters are computer-generated, since the way their bodies
move is far too graceful and fluid for film viewers to be deceived about their real-
ity. In addition, their faces look a bit wooden with limited facial expressions, and
even though Dr. Aki Ross has thousands of individual strands of hair, her hair
looks like a moving wig rather than real hair.
However, recent technological advancements in filmmaking, such as per-
formance capture (or Perfcap), which digitally records the movements of face,
66|What Is Film?

fingers, and facial expressions, and motion capture (Mo-cap), which digitally
records the movements of objects or people, have allowed filmmakers to create
computer-generated characters that are more realistic and lifelike. For examples,
see the human-like character called Gollum in the film series The Lord of the
Rings (20012003), the octopus-faced pirate named Davy Jones in Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest (2006), the blue-skinned alien creatures (Navi) and
avatars (Navi-human hybrids) in Avatar (2009), and the orange-skinned pirate
queen Maz Kanata and the gray-skinned Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The
Force Awakens (2015).
In Avatar (2009), the actors and actresses wore rigs (skull caps with tiny cam-
eras positioned in front of their faces) that digitally captured their facial expres-
sions and movements by performance capture (or Perfcap) and body movements
by motion capture (or Mo-cap). These digital images were later used to create
synthetic characters with the same facial expressions and movements as the real
actors and actresses, which made the computer-generated characters look more
realistic and lifelike. James Cameron, the director of Avatar (2009), also used a
new camera (called Simulcam) that was able to superimpose computer-generated
images over live images that were filmed in real time.41 Through this method,
filmmakers can see what the computer-generated parts will look like in real time,
instead of seeing them later in the production process.
In Spider-Man 2 (2004), the actor Alfred Molina wore small reflective beads
glued to his face so that cameras could digitally record his different facial expres-
sions from a variety of angles. Thousands of digital images of his facial expressions
were later used to make the facial expressions of his virtual character Doctor Otto
Octavius. To capture his body movements by motion capture (Mo-cap), the actor
wore a body suit with tiny markers, or spheres of reflective material, so digital
cameras could record the precise positions of his body as he moved. Filmmakers
later analyzed the markers positions with computer programs and used them to
create his virtual characters movements.
Finally, in the film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), the actor Andy Serkis
had to wear reflective beads for his movements to be recorded by motion cap-
ture to create his CGI character called Snoke, the shadowy Supreme Leader of
The First Order. In the same film, the actress Lupita Nyongo also had to wear
reflective beads on her face for cameras to record her facial movements through
performance capture to create her CGI character named Maz Kanata, the
1,000-year-old female pirate who owns a castle and a cantina where space aliens
hang out on the fictional planet Takodana. With such CGI characters in films, we are
not seeing the real actors and actresses themselves, but entirely computer-generated
 Illusionism|67

virtual characters that do not exist in the real world. Thus, we can see with
computer-generated images how films are creative works of art and not slavish
recordings of reality.
Computer-generated images have become increasingly realistic over time to
the point where film viewers are sometimes unable to tell what is real and what
is artificial. For instance, some film critics believed the actor Bill Nighy in Pirates
of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest (2006) was wearing prosthetic makeup when
portraying the fictional character Davy Jones in the film, but in reality motion
capture images of his face were used to make a 100% computer-generated face
with none of his real face showing.42 Also, in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
(2008), the head of the elderly Benjamin Button character that is shown in the
first 52 minutes of the film in 325 shots is 100% computer-generated, so we are
not seeing any of the actor Brad Pitts head.43 Despite the greater realism of these
computer-generated images, many film viewers know that the actor Bill Nighy
does not have tentacles coming out of his face and that the actor Brad Pitt is not
over the age of 80, so they can realize that what they are seeing is not real but an
artistic creation.
Since special effects and computer-generated images are not a feature of all
films, the cognitive illusionist could argue that we still experience an illusion that
we are seeing reality when we view films without them. Yet even these other films
possess numerous features sufficient to assure us that we are not experiencing a
nonfictional reality. The artistic and creative elements within films make viewers
aware that they are seeing an artificially created reality, such as sequencing of
shots, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, lighting effects, and sound effects.
Even if we could somehow ignore these and other artistic and creative elements
in film images, we would still know that the film world is an artificial reality
because of the artificial conditions under which we view films. These conditions
include the visual boundaries of the film screen, the two-dimensionality of the
film images, the projection process in which static images are rapidly flashed onto
a film screen, the typically dark viewing environment, and the loud sounds emerg-
ing from stereo surround sound speakers. As a result, film viewers cannot believe
that they are observing real events that are presently occurring in the real world
when they watch films. Thus, there are a multitude of ways in which film viewers
are alerted to the absence of reality when watching films so that they are not able
to have any false beliefs that they are seeing real events from the real world.
In conclusion, I have shown how aspects of film viewing and film production
can cause film viewers to believe that what they are seeing on the film screen is
not real. I discussed how certain artistic elements of film production, such as
68|What Is Film?

sequencing of shots, point-of-view shots, duration of shots, lighting effects, and

sound effects, can make film viewers believe that they are seeing fictional events.
I also discussed how certain aspects of film viewing enable film viewers to believe
that they are not seeing real events that are presently occurring, such as sitting in
a dark room at predetermined times and places, seeing a rectangular movie screen
with projected images on it from some distance away, and listening to loud stereo
surround sound. As a result, film viewers do not typically have false beliefs that
they are seeing real events presently unfolding before their eyes when they watch
films. For these reasons, we should reject cognitive illusionism.

Curries Arguments Against Perceptual Illusionism

Currie also rejects perceptual illusionism, even though he concedes that it is a

more plausible version of illusionism, by dismissing the most common version of
the claim that films induce perceptual illusions, namely the notion that we seem
to see movement on the screen, but really do not.44 He claims that the cinematic
motion in film images is real.45 In this section I will show that Curries arguments
against the illusion of motion in film images do not succeed. I will also show how
the motion on the film screen is not real motion, but an illusion of motion gener-
ated by the rapid succession of static images. By so doing, I hope to give credence
to the perceptual illusionism doctrine.
Currie rejects perceptual illusionism because he believes in the reality of
cinematic images and the reality of movement within a cinematic image.46 I have
no dispute with Curries claims about the reality of cinematic images. We surely
do see something real on the film screen, whether that something is patterns of
light or what Currie calls a pattern of colour on a surface.47 Some philosophers
would dispute that colors are really there on the film screen because they believe
that colors are not real.48 Currie disagrees, taking colors to be real properties of
objects in virtue of their being response-dependent properties, or properties that
are dependent on the responses of sentient human observers.49 Even if Currie were
wrong about colors being real properties of objects and about colors really existing
on the film screen, there is no denying that we are seeing something real on the
film screen, and that what we are seeing is real images on the film screen (made by
light rays passing through each frame of the film strip in the projector).
The doctrine of perceptual illusionism does not say that the film image itself
is not real; it says that the motion within the film image is not real. Film viewers
perceive what appears to them to be real motion on the film screen, when there
 Illusionism|69

is no real motion there. This view is substantiated by looking at how the motion
on the film screen gets produced. When we watch a film, we are actually seeing
thousands of individual and distinct still pictures called frames (each frame being
slightly different than the preceding ones), which are projected onto a film screen
by having two short flashes of light shine through the film for each projected
frame (in a single second of film projected at 24 frames per second, there are
48 flashed images).50 Even though there are breaks between these images, the
images are projected so fast onto the film screen that those breaks are indiscern-
ible. The human eye continues to see an image for one-tenth of a second after the
image has disappeared, and the screen has gone black.51 Through this persistence
of vision phenomenon, we see a continuous flow of action when viewing a series
of images flashed in rapid succession.52 When we see motion on the film screen,
that motion is thereby created through the projection of a rapid succession of still
images, typically 24 frames per second to depict realistic motion. When we slow
down the rate of projection, and then speed it up again, we can more clearly see
how this illusion of motion gets generated.
Perceptual illusionists rely on this scientifically substantiated explanation of
how the motion in films is created to buttress their claim that film viewers are not
seeing real motion on the film screen, but an illusion of motion. It is an illusion
of motion because if we take away the means by which the illusion gets generated,
that is, by slowing down the rate of projection of the images, we can clearly see
that what we thought was motion is really not motion after all. Similarly, if we
take away the means by which the illusion gets generated in the Mller-Lyre illu-
sion, that is, by removing the arrowheads at the end of each of the two lines, we
can clearly see that what we thought was two lines of unequal length are really not
two lines of unequal length after all. The perceptual illusionist therefore has good
reasons for believing that the motion in films is an illusion by appealing to facts
about the way in which that motion is artificially created through the projection
of a rapid succession of still images on the film screen and by showing how the
illusion of motion can be exposed through slowing down the rate of projection of
the film images on the film screen.
Currie attempts to make us doubt the credibility of perceptual illusionism
by rejecting what he takes to be its most common example, namely that there is
an illusion of motion in the film image on the film screen. He says, There is no
illusion of movement in cinema; there is real movement, really perceived.53
Currie believes that if you accept the reality of the cinematic image, then you
must also accept the reality of the movement in the cinematic image, and if you
reject the reality of movement in the cinematic image, then you must reject the
70|What Is Film?

reality of the cinematic image as well.54 To argue this point, he asks us to consider
an image which lasts for a few seconds and in which there is a good deal of move-
ment, such as an image of a crowd of people running around. Currie argues that
if we take away the movement in such an image, we would have trouble saying
what constitutes the real image. He argues as follows:

If there isnt any motion, the real image must be static. But what then is it an image of ?
Nothing, we will assume, was stationary in the photographed scene. The image can hardly
be of people not moving. Is the image an undifferentiated blank, with no representational
features? Then it is not an image. You might claim that, when there isnt even any appar-
ent movement in the image (a fixed closeup of a static object, for example), then the
image is real. But it is hardly credible that when I look at a static cinematic image I am
not subject to an illusion, but become subject to one as soon as movement appears. Also,
since as a matter of fact few cinematic images are static, there would be little comfort for
the realist in the claim that static cinematic images are real. To be a realist about cinematic
images, you have to be a realist about cinematic movement.55

Curries first argument is that if we were to take away the movement, we

could say that what is left is an image of people not moving, but that cant be
right because nothing was stationary in the photographed scene. I disagree.
When we take away the movement, we do so by projecting the image of a
single frame, and what is depicted in that single frame is consistent with what
was photographed in reality, namely people in one stage of their movement,
with subsequent frames capturing successive stages. And the fact that the people
depicted are no longer moving in the film image does not mean that the film
image is no longer real. The image of the people not moving is just as real as the
image of the people moving.
Curries second argument is that the image cannot be an undifferentiated
blank image with no representational features. But surely that is not what results
from taking the movement out of the image! What we see in the case of the pro-
jection of a single frame on the film screen is an image of people not moving, as if
frozen in place. We still see the representation of the people as they appeared when
the frame was shot. We dont see a blank image with no representational features
when we take the movement out of the film image.
Curries third argument is that if we were to say that the image is real when
the movement is removed, and not real when the movement is present, that
response is not credible, since it hardly seems that we constantly shift from seeing
an illusion when movement is present to not seeing an illusion when movement
is not present. But this argument is not one that would have to be made or would
 Illusionism|71

actually be made. The reality of the image has nothing to do with the presence or
absence of movement in the image. An image that does not have movement is still
a real image, as with still photographic images and painted images which are real
images even though they lack movement.
Currie thinks it is implausible to assume that when movement is present, we
are subject to an illusion, and when movement is not present, we are not subject
to an illusion. But this view certainly is plausible, since if there is no movement
in the image, we are not deluded into thinking there is movement because there
is nothing in the image itself that looks like movement (e.g., when we look at
an image of a flower pot sitting on a table, we dont seem to see the flower pot
moving). And if there is apparent movement, we do then become subject to an
illusion that we are seeing real movement, since we seem to see real movement
when no real movement is present (e.g., when we look at the flower pot moving
because someone has pushed it off the table, we seem to see the flower pot moving
when there is in fact no real movement). The illusion of movement therefore does
depend on what is represented in the image.
Fourth and finally, Currie argues that since films rarely are without move-
ment, the argument that cinematic images of static objects are real while cine-
matic images of moving objects are not real is not worth making. Currie is right
that most films do not show us images of static objects. Imagine how boring a film
would be if all we saw was a flower pot on a table for two hours! But once again
the argument he rejects is not one that would be made, since the reality of the
image is not wedded to whether the image portrays movement or not. The image
is just as real if it portrays a flower pot on a table as it is if it portrays a person
knocking over a flower pot on a table. For instance, Chris Markers film La Jetee
(1962) is composed only of static images, but those images are still real images
even though they lack movement in them. Similarly, the image is just as real if
it portrays people standing still in one place as it is if it portrays people running
around.
The fundamental problem with Curries argument that to be a realist about
cinematic images one must also be a realist about cinematic movement is that
Currie fails to realize that the reality of the images on the film screen has noth-
ing to do with the reality of what is represented in the images on the film screen.
Movement (or motion) is simply what is represented or depicted in film images;
it is not what makes the film images images or what makes them real. If we were
to freeze the frame so that there was no longer any movement represented in
the film image, we would not then say that that image is no longer real because
72|What Is Film?

it lacks movement. It is still a real image even without movement (as with pho-
tographs and painted images). What makes it real are not its representational
features, but its inherent features, like its patterns of light. Thus, if you are a
realist about cinematic images, you do not have to be a realist about cinematic
movement.
To clarify what he means by the movement in film images, Currie says that
he is not talking about movement of the cinematic image, which is the whole area
of illumination on the film screen that only moves if the projection equipment
moves, and he is not concerned with the movement that occurs as the result of
a continuous change in the position of the camera during a single shot and the
movement that occurs across shots, for example, when we see the images of the
man in one place on the screen in one shot, and in another place in the subse-
quent shot.56 He is concerned with movement within a single shot taken from a
fixed perspectiveWhat moves when there is movement of an image is a part
or parts of this image; if we are watching a shot of a man walking along a street,
the part of the image which represents the man will move from one side of the
screen to the other.57 So, for example, if we see the image of Cary Grant on the
film screen, what moves across the film screen is the part of the cinematic image
that represents Cary Grant.
To argue for this point, Currie says that he will not make any positive argu-
ments for the reality of cinematic motion.58 Instead, he claims that the burden
of proof lies with the person or party who asserts that our visual experience is
illusory, just as it does with the person or party who asserts that a certain belief
is false, because states of belief and perception are states that we have because
they tend to be veridical.59 As a result, he concludes that we should continue to
hold that cinematic experience of movement is veridical unless there is significant
weight of evidence against this idea.60
This argument is hardly persuasive. One could just as easily argue that our
beliefs and our perceptions show us that there is no real movement on the screen,
since we can clearly believe and see that there is no real physical object that moves
across the screen like our own bodies or other objects can move. If we had any
doubts, we could simply walk up to the screen and try to touch the man seem-
ingly moving from one side of the screen to the other. We would quickly discover
that there is no real man to touch and there is no real man who is moving from
one side of the screen to the other. We therefore have good grounds for believing
that there is no real movement on the film screen. Why not then privilege the
view that there is no real movement on the film screen and leave it intact until
proven otherwise?
 Illusionism|73

Currie takes another stab at discrediting perceptual illusionism by considering

and then rejecting the arguments for perceptual illusionism. The first argument he
considers, which I mentioned earlier, is that there is no real movement on the film
screen because that movement results from projecting a sequence of static images.
Currie agrees that there is a sequence of static images that make up the film image,
but he says that that does nothing to establish the unreality of cinematic move-
ment.61 His argument, which I have slightly embellished, goes as follows:

When we listen to a tape recording, there is no sound on the tape itself, but we dont deny
that we hear real sound when we play the tape. Similarly, when we watch a film, there is
no motion on the celluloid strip itself, but we dont deny that we see real motion when we
run the celluloid strip through a film projector.62

This analogy on first glance looks compelling. When we play a tape, we hear
real sounds coming from the tape player, and when we watch a film image, we
see movement on the film screen. However, the analogy breaks down when we
consider what is actually being produced by the tape player and the film projec-
tor. We do hear real sounds when playing the tape because real sounds do get
produced by playing the tape. The tape recorder reads the patterns of selective
magnetization and creates real sounds from those patterns. But real movement
does not get produced on the film screen by running the projector. As light
from the projector passes through each frame on the celluloid strip, we see
different patterns of light, reflecting the degree of transparency of the parts of
the individual frames. While the light can be said to move, as it travels from the
projector to the film screen, the resulting image on the film screen that is cre-
ated by the light passing through each individual frame is not moving. It only
appears to move when the individual frames are shown in rapid succession.63
The celluloid strip of film itself has no real movement, and the effect of running
the film through the projector is to produce what appears to be movement on
the movie screen, but it is really an illusion of movement produced by a succes-
sion of static images.
Currie agrees that there is only a succession of static images on the film strip,
but he still denies that the movement that we see on the film screen is illusory.64
He explains how we could still reject perceptual illusionism in light of the reality
of colors, which he likens to the reality of the movement in film images. He says
the perceptual illusionist could maintain that the supposed movement on the
screen is not real because it is a product of our perceptual system rather than
the result of an object moving from one place on the screen to another.65 He
disagrees with this view because he believes that we can establish that colors are
74|What Is Film?

real without having to identify any object from a physical point of view.66 He
says that color enters our vocabulary as real, response-dependent properties, or
properties that elicit certain psychological responses among sentient observers,
and similarly the motion in films is both real and response-dependent.67 Currie
therefore tries to get around the problem that the motion in films is not the
result of objects moving by postulating that the motion in films is like colors.
He would say that since we dont have to identify an object to be able to see the
color green, we dont have to identify an object to be able to see motion on the
film screen either.
However, I believe that this way of viewing motion in films contradicts our
common understanding of real motion as being produced by real objects that
occupy spatially contiguous positions when they move, not as being a response-
dependent property that is dependent on sentient observers subjective points of
view. Physics tells us that physical objects move in certain clearly defined ways
pursuant to various physical laws, such as gravity and inertia, and that movement
of an object from one place to another would require that an object occupy differ-
ent and contiguous spatial positions at different successive times. Biological and
psychological studies of vision tell us that our perceptions can be mistaken. We
use the standards of how physical objects move to determine if the movement is
genuine, not the standard of whether or not we perceive movement because our
perceptions are not always veridical. For instance, we can perceive that an object is
red when looking at it even if it is not really red by viewing that object in a room
that is bathed in red light. We wouldnt then conclude that the object is really red
because we perceive it to be red. Similarly, with viewing films, we wouldnt say
that the motion in films is real simply because we perceive it to be real, since our
perceptions are fallible and do not always reveal what is in fact the case.
Furthermore, if Currie were right that the motion in films is real because of
the common perception that it is real, then we would be willing to call things that
are illusory motion real motion on the grounds that we simply perceive motion
to be present even when factually real motion is not present. For instance, when
we rapidly turn the pages of a flip-book with static images of a horse at different
positions on each page, we seem to see the image of the horse move, when in fact
that image doesnt move, and when we spin a stenciled inner shade of a lamp
around a glowing lightbulb, the static image of water and fire painted on the
surface of the outer shade appears to move, even though it does not really move.
Currie would have to say that there is real motion in both of these cases because
we perceive motion in these cases, but that conclusion is absurd. There is no real
motion in these cases. There is an illusion of motion generated by turning pages
 Illusionism|75

rapidly and spinning a stenciled lampshade around a light source. Similarly with
viewing films, there is an illusion of movement generated by rapidly projecting
different images on a film screen by means of intermittent flashes of light. Our
perceptions of movement therefore dont entail that real movement exists. On
Curries account then we run the risk of not being able to properly distinguish real
motion from illusory motion.
But Currie believes that we dont have this problem of not being able to
properly distinguish real motion from illusory motion because if an illusion were
involved, we can make independent checks and tests to expose the illusion. He
says that in the case of the Mller-Lyre illusion, we can measure the two lines
to see which one is really longer than the other, and that is why it is an illusion,
rather than a veridical experience of a response-dependent property. But with
screen watching, we know that an illusion is not present because we cannot do
such an independent check analogous to the measuring check in the Muller-Lyre
illusion. The reason that we cannot do such a check is that what we are deluded
about is not something we can check the falsity of, namely that there are images
of reidentifiable physical objects moving in front of our eyes.58
But Curries response is not satisfactory because we can check the falsity of
the claim that there are images that are moving by observing that the images
themselves are static images that dont really move by looking at the separate and
distinct images on the filmstrip, by freezing each frame so the images are static
on the screen, and by observing how the static images only appear to move when
they are projected rapidly onto the film screen by varying the speed of projection.
Currie would agree with me that this process of rapidly projected images is how
the motion gets produced, but he would still argue that the motion is real because
he is not concerned about what produces the motion that we perceive; he is only
concerned about our perception of motion itself.
But even in studying the perception of motion, we can check whether or not
our perceptions involve seeing real or illusory motion. We can perform scientific
experiments to understand the various phenomena that allow us to perceive
motion on the film screen. The phi-phenomenon explains how we can see what
appears to be movement in cases when there is no actual movement. If you set
up a row of lightbulbs that light up one after the other very rapidly, you will see
a continuous streak of light, rather than a succession of individual flashes. Films
work in a similar fashion to create the illusion of continuous motion from a suc-
cession of static images. Also, due to the phenomenon of the persistence of vision,
in which the human eye is able to see an image for one-tenth of a second after
it disappears, we experience an illusion of movement when we watch the rapid
76|What Is Film?

succession of static images on the film screen. There are a variety of scientific
explanations for the phenomena that are responsible for our perceptions of
motion when we watch film images. Thus, Currie is incorrect when he says that
the experience of cinematic motion seems not to be undercut by information
from other sources,69 and hence that it is not illusory.
Currie continues by noting that the greatest source of resistance to his notion
that cinematic motion is real is that the motion of the image is not tracked by any
comparable motion of a physical object; there is no physical object that moves
across the screen as the image of Cary Grant seems to move across it, which is
what we would need if there were real motion.70 He rejects this view because the
movement that he claims for cinematic images is not like ordinary movement,
since objects and film images are made of different thingsobjects are made of
relatively stable physical constitutions, while the image is made up of patterns of
light particles striking the screen.71
But this argument is not convincing. There is no good reason to believe that
we should apply different standards of movement to both objects and images of
objects simply because they are made of different materials. People are made of
different materials than cars, stars, clouds, and waves, but we dont apply differ-
ent standards of movement to these differently constituted things. As a result,
we should apply the same standards of movement to both objects and images of
objects, even though they are made of different materials. If Currie does want to
change the criteria for movement, like the physical object criteria, he should give
more convincing reasons for doing so.
Perhaps we can understand Curries argument if we consider that there are
different senses of movement. For instance, we talk about the movement in a
painting or in a drawing, which refers to the way in which the eye is caused to
move around the image by the compositional structure of the art work. But we
dont believe that this kind of movement is real movement, akin to the way in
which ordinary objects move. Similarly for films, when we say that what we see
on the film screen moves, we dont mean that it moves like ordinary objects move,
like how I move when I walk from one place to another. It doesnt make sense to
describe the movement in films as being like the movement of ordinary physical
objects. The film image cannot move like an object can, and what is represented
in the film image cannot move like an object can. The image cant move around
the viewing room, as we can if we walked around, and Cary Grant in the film
image cant move, since Cary Grant is not in the film image. What is moving is
the light that travels from the projector to the film screen, not the resulting image
on the film screen. We can see this point by putting objects between the projector
 Illusionism|77

and the film screen. If the film image on the film screen were what was moving,
blocking the light from reaching the film screen should have no effect on that
image. It should continue to move even though the light cannot reach it. But that
is not the case.
Currie would agree with me that if we interrupt the light from the projector
to the film screen, we interrupt the movement of the image, since he says that
the movement of the image supervenes on the pattern of light particles striking
the screen, and the image is sustained by the continuous impact of light on the
surface of the screen.72 But he goes on to make the astonishing claim that the
image is a particular thing, and a thing which moves!73 Currie argues that when
we say that something moves, we require that there be reidentification over time
of that which moves, and that is made possible through identifying their causal
antecedents, but that will not work with film images of Mickey Mouse, since
Mickey Mouse has no causal antecedents because he does not exist.74 As a result,
the better way to identify cinematic images across time is to relate them to the
mental states of the viewersthe image now is the same as the one before because
both are identified by normal viewers in normal conditions as being images of
the same individual.75 What Currie is trying to argue is that we see Cary Grant
(or Mickey Mouse) move from one side of the screen to the other because we can
identify that image of Cary Grant (or Mickey Mouse) on the left side of the screen
as being the same image that we are seeing of him on the right side of the screen.
For Currie, it doesnt matter that we cannot identify a physical object that moves,
and so the image of Cary Grant (or Mickey Mouse) is a thing that moves from one
side of the screen to the other.
But our ability to make this kind of identification does not establish the real-
ity of the movement involved. It simply shows that we can recognize the image
as being the image of Cary Grant when it shows up at various places on the film
screen. It allows us to say, That is Cary Grant, when we first see his image on
the left side of the screen and then later on the right side of the screen, not to be
warranted in claiming that The image of Cary Grant is really moving across the
film screen. Heres why: When the image of Cary Grant appears on the left side
of the film screen, a certain configuration of light is reflected off of the surface
of the film screen, and similarly for each section of the film screen that his image
occupies, as he apparently traverses across the film screen to the right side. But
each configuration of light is different from the previous configuration, and they
are not linked to each other in a continuous stream, as Currie believes. Each con-
figuration of light is briefly interrupted by periods of darkness that are so short
that they are not noticed. Those periods of darkness reflect the breaks in the film
78|What Is Film?

image between each frame. Thus, the light that makes up the image of Cary Grant
on the left side of the screen is not the same light that makes up the image of
Cary Grant on the ride side of the screen, and so the image of Cary Grant on the
left side of the screen is not the same image of Cary Grant on the right side of the
screen. The image of Cary Grant is not one particular thing that moves from one
side of the screen to the other. As a result, Currie is wrong to say that the image is
a particular thing, and a thing that moves.
Why does Currie insist on the reality of cinematic images? Currie is wor-
ried that if we deny that there is movement on the screen, then we cannot say
that we see the man move in the image from one side of the screen to the other.
I disagree. We can say a lot of things that are imprecise, such as saying that we
see our great-grandfather when we see a photograph of him. In that case, we
really mean that we see an image of our great-grandfather, not our flesh-and-
blood great-grandfather. We could still say that we see the man move from one
side of the screen to the other without contradicting the view that there is no real
movement on the screen. The reason there is no contradiction is that what we say
is not always what we really mean to say or what is the case. I think Curries fear
that we would dismiss all talk of movement if perceptual illusionism were correct
is unfounded. We can say that we see movement when we watch a film, even if
we are really seeing an illusion of movement through the rapid succession of static
images, just for ease of discourse. Currie should therefore not deny that the move-
ment in films is an illusion for fear that we cannot describe the movement that we
see on the film screen as movement.
The previous discussion above was from my doctoral dissertation The Ontol-
ogy of Film (published in 2002). Since then a number of different authors have
discussed the same topic of whether there is real movement or illusory move-
ment in film images. I am in agreement with those authors, such as the philos-
ophers Berys Gaut and Andrew Kania, who believe that there is a perceptual
illusion of movement in film images, which is the prevailing view among histo-
rians of film and filmmakers. I would use the same arguments that I gave above
to defend that position, as they are all still applicable. Also, the fact that there
is an illusion of movement in film images and in motion pictures has been well
documented in reputable dictionaries and encyclopedias, such as the renowned
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The latter defines
motion picture as a series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid suc-
cession onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical phenomenon
known as persistence of vision, this gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and con-
tinuous movement.76 As I mentioned previously, the persistence of vision and
 Illusionism|79

the phi-phenomenon are scientifically proven facts that explain why and how
there is an illusion of movement in film images. I therefore do not agree with
those philosophers, such as Gregory Currie and Nol Carroll, who support the
view that the movement in film images is real and not a perceptual illusion.
As Andrew Kania correctly points out, normal motion involves an object occu-
pying contiguous spatial locations at contiguous moments in time, but film
images dont work this way, since with film images, there is no continuous light
on the screen, but rather twenty-four (or more) discrete impacts of light every
second that are separated from one another by short periods of darkness.77 Berys
Gaut also believes there is an illusion of movement in cinema. He makes the
same point that Kania makes about the importance of continuity saying that
Genuine movement is continuous: i.e., things do not jump from one spatial point
to another without successively occupying all of the intervening points between
the start and end points. Yet sequences of cinematic images, i.e., light-patterns
on the screen, are not continuous in this sense. So they do not move: they are a
succession of still images.78
Nol Carroll, by contrast, doesnt think we need such continuity to have real
motion in film images. He gives an example of his shadow, which he says will
move when he moves, but which disappears for a moment when he passes behind
a tree. In that case, he says, there is an interruption of continuity, but we still say
that his shadow moves, even if there is a gap in the space the shadow traverses.79
So too, he believes, with film images, which work like flickering shadows in having
gaps between the images, we can dispense with the requirement of continuity and
still have cinematic motion that is real.
Carrolls shadow example is not persuasive and does not show what he thinks
it shows. A shadow forms in the spaces where light rays are being blocked, usu-
ally by an opaque object. The shadow itself is not really moving because it is not
capable of real motion. The shadow is really just the spaces where light is not
present. Whats really moving is the opaque object casting the shadow (Carroll
in his example), or in some cases, the source of light relative to an opaque object
(such as light on the tree with the tree casting its own shadow in the unlit spaces).
Thus, Carrolls shadow example is not a good one because it undermines his own
position, since there is no real motion in shadows, just as there is no real motion
in cinematic images.
Also, lack of continuity is not what we think of when we describe real motion,
and for Carrolls position to be convincing, we would have to change the standard
definition of real motion as not requiring continuity and contiquity, which most
philosophers are not willing to do and for good reason. As Andrew Kania aptly
80|What Is Film?

points out, If you think you see a tomato in the dining room that you just left
in the kitchen, you check to make sure it is the same tomato. If it is a different
one, there is no motion to be explained.80 If it were the same tomato, how would
we be able to explain how it moved? We wouldnt be able to by the standard laws
of physics and science. Thus, we rightly dont think of movement as lacking this
much-needed continuity and contiguity of spatial and temporal positions. Going
with the standard definition of motion that physicists employ as involving spatial
and temporal contiguity and continuity, film images consequently have apparent
and not real motion.
These facts are probably well-known to Carroll, but he worries that we cant
say that we see real movement when we watch a film if we call such movement
illusory. As I said previously in this section, we can say a lot of things that are
imprecise, like I see my great-grandfather when I look at a photograph of him,
when really I should be saying that I see an image of him, not the real, flesh-and-
blood person, who I really dont see. Thus, we can say imprecisely that we see
real movement when we watch film images just for ease of discourse and for ease
of comprehension by others when we watch a film (since it may be difficult to
explain the illusion or show how the illusion works), but factually there is no real
movement on the film screen; there is only apparent or illusory movement that is
generated by a rapid succession of still images.
Carroll also argues that because we cant find out the illusion in a readily
available way (as by slowing down the film projector speed),81 then the move-
ment in films is not an illusion, but is real. However, this argument is not per-
suasive. The level of ease or difficulty of discovering an illusion has nothing to do
with whether there is an illusion present. The fact that there is an illusion present
obtains regardless of how easy or how difficult the illusion is to discover. For
example, I can easily pull a stick out of the water to see the fact that the stick is
not really bent as it appears to be when it is located in the water (Carroll admits
that this case is a genuine perceptual illusion).82 However, I cant slow down the
projector speed when I watch a film to see how the movement gets generated
(Carroll agrees that trying to do that would be too difficult83), but my inability to
discover the illusion in that difficult way does not mean that no illusion is pres-
ent. I just might have to use other means to discover the illusion, as by reading
books about how motion in films is generated.84 A perceptual illusion of motion
exists even when film viewers are not able to discover the perceptual illusion for
themselves, and even when it is really difficult for them to see and understand the
perceptual illusion. That difficulty is perhaps why people shrug their shoulders in
disbelief of the illusion and protest that the motion has to be real, but the fact of
 Illusionism|81

the matter is that the motion is not real based on scientifically proven explana-
tions of how motion gets produced in film images.
In conclusion, I believe that Currie and Carroll have not successfully under-
mined the notion that the movement in films is a perceptual illusion. The argu-
ments that they made against the primary arguments for perceptual illusionism
were not convincing. Also, the fact that Currie did not make any positive argu-
ments for the reality of cinematic motion was not helpful to his case, since it sug-
gested that he had no credible positive arguments to offer. Finally, Curries notion
that the reality of cinematic motion is response-dependent in the sense that if film
viewers perceive that the motion on the film screen is real, then it is real, did not
make his position more convincing because it leaves him unable to distinguish
real motion from illusory motion on the basis of hard facts, rather than on the
potentially fallible perceptions of ordinary people.
In rejecting the arguments for the reality of cinematic motion, I have shown
why the motion in films is an illusion of motion, and I have explained how per-
ceptual illusions can exist in films. While Currie only discusses the illusion of
motion in films, there are, of course, other sources of illusion in films, such as the
illusion of depth or the illusion of a three-dimensional space. When film viewers
watch film images, they can perceive real depth or real space when there is no
real depth or real space present. In being subject to these perceptual illusions,
the film viewer simply sees what appears to be real depth and real space without
having any false beliefs. Once we eliminate the notion of having false beliefs, we
can better appreciate the fact that film viewers can and do experience illusions,
particularly perceptual illusions, when they watch films.

Evaluating Perceptual Illusionism

In this section I will explain how and why film viewers can experience perceptual
illusions when they watch films. I believe that we can understand how such illu-
sions are possible by examining how our perceptual mechanisms function and
the evolutionary advantages that are gained by having hardwired physical and
emotional responses to visual stimuli. I believe that the experiencing of perceptual
illusions can best explain film viewers immediate physical and emotional reac-
tions to seeing film images. However, I dont think that all of their physical and
emotional reactions to watching film images are the result of experiencing per-
ceptual illusions. As a result, I believe that the doctrine of perceptual illusionism
82|What Is Film?

needs to be supported by other accounts that explain why film viewers respond to
watching film images.
In this section, I will discuss how perceptual illusionism can explain film
viewers immediate physical and emotional reactions to watching films through
their innate perceptual mechanisms that cause them to perceive and respond to
certain visual stimuli in pre-determinated ways that are cognitively impenetrable.
I will then discuss some contemporary cognitivist theories concerning film view-
ers reactions to seeing films. The doctrine of perceptual illusionism, together with
these cognitivist theories, yields a comprehensive and compelling account of how
film viewers can emotionally respond to seeing film images even when they know
and believe that they are seeing fictional representations.
The most compelling evidence for film viewers experiences of perceptual illu-
sions is their instantaneous and automatic physical responses to their viewing of
film images. For example, when film viewers watch film images of dangerous
objects speeding toward them, they automatically become startled by what appears
to be real objects about to hit them, and when they watch film images in which
an object appears suddenly on the film screen (like the hand bursting through
the dirt of the grave at the end of Stephen Kings horror film Carrie, 1976), they
instantly become startled by the objects sudden appearance. Upon being startled,
they may react in various physical ways, such as jumping up in their seats, scream-
ing in terror, trembling, covering their eyes, and so on.
These kinds of physical reactions are even more prevalent when film viewers
watch three-dimensional film images, like the 3D film images shown during the
Terminator 2 ride at the Universal Studios theme park that I enjoyed experienc-
ing several times when I went to Florida and which also had moving seats to
enhance the viewing experience, or in more recent 3D films where you can wear
specially designed glasses that allow you to see various objects coming straight
toward you at high speeds, such as in the film Avatar (2009), which I saw for
the first time in 3D that elicited the startle response in me at times. Some of the
objects in these 3D film images appear to be located right in front of the viewers
eyes and moving perilously close to their faces. As a result of watching such film
images, film viewers may squirm in their seats, move their heads to one side,
cover their eyes with their hands, and even try to touch the fictional objects that
appear to be within their reach. I remember seeing kids try to touch these 3D
objects even though they probably were aware that these objects were not capable
of being grasped.
The most plausible explanation for why film viewers have these immediate
physical responses to their perceptions is that human beings have innate and
 Illusionism|83

hardwired perceptual mechanisms that cause them to perceive and respond to

visual stimuli in certain fixed ways that are cognitively impenetrable, meaning
that their thoughts, judgments, and beliefs cannot change them.85 Support for
this view comes from the documented persistence of perceptual illusions, like
the Mller-Lyre and Ames illusions, which dont go away no matter how hard
percipients try to make them go away by thinking about them. In addition, psy-
chologists have documented that human beings have a startle response, which
is an innate tendency to recoil from seeing sudden movements; it is also believed
to be hardwired, involuntary, and impenetrable to belief, meaning that our beliefs
wont change the response.86 Furthermore, from an evolutionary standpoint, such
hardwired and automatic responses to our perceptions would be important to our
survival. Running away from seeing what appears to be a real tiger makes better
sense than pausing to consider whether the tiger is real, since any hesitation can
result in being eaten. As Fodor says, The ecological good sense of this arrange-
ment is surely self-evident. Prejudiced and wishful seeing makes for dead ani-
mals.87 Hence, there are good reasons to believe that human beings are hardwired
to immediately respond to their perceptions.
These hardwired responses not only explain our immediate physical responses
to watching film images but also our immediate and visceral emotional responses.
Current general theory is based on the idea that emotion developed in an evo-
lutionary manner, from rigid sensorimotor reflexes into a complex of flexible
responses to adaption requirements from the environment (Lazarus, 1991).88
Lazarus explains that emotions have two prominent survival-related functions,
namely social communication and sustaining psychological and physiological
activity when essential biological needs are not being met or when confronted
with challenges from the environment.89 Emotional responses to visual stimuli
are therefore important survival mechanisms because they function to motivate
responses. The fear that you feel when you see a tiger running toward you moti-
vates your action of running away to avoid being eaten.90 Having our emotions
triggered by our perceptions, however inaccurate those perceptions may be, is
therefore important for our survival.
However, since film viewers do not typically flee when they see a film image of a
tiger in a theater, the fact that they feel fear when they see a film image of a tiger does
not explain all of their behavioral responses. The reason they dont flee from tigers in
film images is that they are able to employ their cognitive faculties to rationally reflect
on whether what they are seeing is real. They are aware that they are sitting in a movie
theater watching a film (e.g., by noticing the film screen on which the image of the
tiger is being projected, noticing its black-and-white stripes in a black-and-white
84|What Is Film?

film, or seeing some of its body cut off by the borders of the film screen).91 They can
subsequently form the thought or belief that they are not seeing a real tiger. They
can then suppress any strong urges to flee the room or take other harm-avoidance
measures.92 Thus, even though film viewers may initially feel afraid, anxious, or ner-
vous as a result of their perceptions of seemingly dangerous objects in film images,
they assuage those feelings and prevent inappropriate responses by thinking and rea-
soning about their situation. Perceptual illusionism is therefore limited to explain-
ing our immediate physical and emotional responses to film images. To explain the
entirety of our behavioral responses to film images, we have to consider how our
behavior is affected by our thoughts, beliefs, inferences, and reasoned judgments
about our situation and about what we are really seeing when we watch film images.
The cognitivist theories that I will subsequently discuss attempt to shed light on this
process.
Nol Carroll claims that we respond to our thoughts about what we are seeing
in film images: we dont react to any belief that the fictional monster is real; we
react to our thought that it is real. (Carroll contrasts thought with belief here: he
regards both beliefs and thoughts as having propositional content, but thoughts
do not involve a commitment to the truth of the proposition, while beliefs do).93
Carroll argues for his view from the evidence of interpersonally confirmable facts.
We can stand on a precipice and feel a sudden chill or a tremor which is brought
about not by our belief that we are about to fall over (since we are not standing
close to the edge, our footing is secure, there is no one around to push us, and
we have no intention of jumping) but by our thought of falling, which may be
accompanied by the mental image of our falling.94 Further support for his view
comes from the fact that film spectators can turn their attention away from the
content of their unsettling thoughts by looking away from the film screen or
thinking about other matters, like paying their bills.95
Murray Smith believes that the imagination is involved in our emotional reac-
tions to film images. He argues that we respond emotionally to what we read in
novels or see in films not because we believe that such things are real but because
we imaginatively entertain the thought that they are real. He gives an example
from reading the novel Moby Dick, saying that he responds emotionally to some
of the fictional situations, such as shuddering at the thought of being hurled
across the deck of a ship in a storm, by imagining being in those situations.96 He
gives other examples of how we can frighten ourselves by imagining that we are
looking down from a skyscraper and make ourselves wince by imagining cutting
our bodies with a sharp knife.97 When we watch film images, we can similarly
 Illusionism|85

imagine things that cause us to have emotional responses, especially since film
images give us a perceptual prompt akin to seeing the actual experience itself.98
Despite our sensation of being in the fictional situation, Smith believes that
we are still aware that we are engaging in an imaginative scenario, a fiction.99 The
reason we are still aware that we are seeing a fiction is that we can attend to the
representational features of the image without losing our awareness of the image
as an image. Smith gives the example of how this process works in everyday life.
When we are immersed in a conversation at a party, our attention is focused on
the conversation, but we can still be peripherally aware of the talking, dancing,
and fornicating going on around us.100 Similarly, when we view films, we can
focus our attention on what is represented in the image (e.g., a man), even though
we are also peripherally aware that we are seeing a fictional representation (e.g.,
a picture of a man). Smith explains the notion of invisible editing in these terms.
With such editing, we do not forget or repress our awareness of the existence of
cuts; rather we do not focally attend to them: we focally attend to the action
which continues over the cut.101 As a result, we do not experience an illusion
when we watch films, since we are always in some sense aware that we are seeing
a fictional representation.102
These philosophers are correct in saying that we can respond to our thoughts
and our imaginings when we watch film images. One has only to introspect on ones
own experience to confirm that thoughts and imaginings play a role in our ability
to have emotional responses to watching film images. We may think about Captain
Ahabs obsession with a white whale, and we might imagine what will happen if he
were to find the white whale. We might respond to our thoughts about his obsession
by feeling pity for him and to our imagining about what will happen next by feeling
anxious or afraid. Having such thoughts and imaginings best explains the phenom-
enon of emotionally responding to film images. How else could we feel sad when
we see a virtuous fictional character die if we did not entertain the thought that a
virtuous person has died, and how else could we empathize with a fictional charac-
ter, if we could not imaginatively project ourselves into that characters situation and
imagine what he or she is feeling? Thus, while film viewers do not typically believe
that they are seeing real events that are presently occurring, they can nevertheless
think or imagine that they are seeing real events, and hence respond emotionally to
them as a result of such thoughts and imaginings.
Not everyone would agree with the view that film viewers are responding pri-
marily to their cognitive, rather than their perceptual, faculties. Malcolm Turvey
argues that the problem with Smith and Carrolls views is that they undermine the
importance of the image in generating our emotional responses, relegating the
86|What Is Film?

spectators sensory perception of the film image to a subsidiary or secondary role,

which does not accord with our intuitions about the importance of the image
itself in generating emotional responses to films.173 This objection is worth noting
because if film viewers are responding to their thoughts about the image, they
are not directly responding to the images themselves, which seems to undermine
the immediacy of the film images. Further, since thoughts about film images will
inevitably vary from person to person, it is less clear why film viewers respond the
same way to certain film images. Having the same thoughts about the film images
is a less convincing way of explaining the similarity of film viewers responses than
that they simply see the same film images, since it is clear that film viewers do see
the same film images, whereas it is not so clear that they have the same thoughts
about the film images.
But I dont think that Turveys concerns undermine the credibility of
these cognitivist theories because film viewers are not just responding to their
immediate sensory perceptions; they are also responding to their thoughts,
beliefs, and imaginings about their perceptions. Furthermore, the immediacy
of film images is not undermined by saying that film viewers have thoughts,
beliefs, and imaginings about what they are seeing because their perceptions
remain cognitively impenetrable. If film viewers see a realistic image of a tiger
on the film screen, they will immediately see what appears to be a tiger regard-
less of their beliefs that the tiger is not real. They can still feel afraid, anxious,
or nervous from seeing the image of the tiger, even though they know and
believe that the tiger is not real. Exercising ones cognitive faculties does not
always assuage or eliminate such feelings. Thus, Turveys fears that cognitiv-
ist approaches will undermine the immediacy of film images and film viewers
responses to them are not warranted.
In conclusion, I believe that a variety of different mental states are responsible
for film viewers physical and emotional responses to watching films. If a film
viewer becomes emotionally upset when watching a scene of a heroic charac-
ter dying, the viewers response could be explained on a purely perceptual level,
since perceiving people dying is disturbing, but it could also be explained on a
cognitive level, for example, the film viewer thinks that the character is a morally
virtuous person who doesnt deserve to die. A film viewer can also imaginatively
project herself into a characters situations, thereby feeling what that character is
presumably feeling and heightening her emotional response to what she is seeing.
We cannot therefore explain why film viewers respond emotionally to film images
simply on the grounds that they experience perceptual illusions. There are also
 Illusionism|87

thoughts and imaginings at work, which can influence and stimulate their emo-
tional reactions to film images.
In this chapter, I discussed how perceptual illusionism could explain film
viewers immediate physical and emotional reactions to watching films if we
thought of the perceptual mechanisms involved as being innate, hardwired, auto-
matic, and cognitively impenetrable. But perceptual illusionism cannot explain
all of their diverse responses to watching films, so I also discussed some contem-
porary cognitivist theories that explained film viewers responses through their
thoughts and imaginings about their perceptions. I did not explain or defend
these theories at great length because my project is not aimed at explaining why
film viewers emotionally respond to seeing fictions. I introduced these theories as
a way to supplement the doctrine of perceptual illusionism. I hope to have shown
that a more comprehensive and compelling account of realism in film images
would have to explain what film viewers perceive and how their thoughts and
imaginings interact with their perceptions.
 3

Perceptual Realism

Introduction

Gregory Currie offers a third form of realism, which he calls perceptual realism.
This form of realism is like illusionism because it is concerned with the experience
of film viewers, but it differs from illusionism because it rejects the idea that film
images cause film viewers to have false beliefs in which they mistake fictional
objects and events for real objects and events. Currie says, our standard mode of
engagement with the film is via imagination rather than belief and that while
the pictures of film are not productive of illusions, they are typically realistic pic-
tures: pictures which are like, in significant ways, the things they represent.1 His
conception of realism therefore differs from Waltons transparency view that we
see real objects when we look at film images because he believes we see represen-
tations of real objects, not the real objects themselves. However, he believes the
representations look so realistic because they are created by forming traces of
real-world objects and events.2 He says that a fiction film is a record of what
happened in front of the camera at the time the film was exposed, and that
record is intended for the further purpose of presenting a fictional story.3 Hence,
90|What Is Film?

a fiction film is doubly representational in that while a fiction film represents

fictional characters and events, it does so by representing real people and events.4
Currie believes that films are inherently realistic because we perceive the fic-
tional world of films in the same way that we perceive the real world, and we rec-
ognize the fictional objects in film images by finding resemblances between their
spatial features and the spatial features of real objects that we have seen before
in the real world. Because the same recognitional capacities are being triggered
when we identify such resemblances, we can respond to seeing fictional objects
in film images in the same way that we would respond to seeing real objects. His
account does not require that there be a sharing of actual properties between
fictional representations and the things that they represent, but rather that there
be an appearance of the sharing of such properties.5 He says, The claim of Per-
ceptual Realism is not that cinema presents objects and events isomorphic to
those that exist in an observer-independent world, but rather that, in crucial
respects, film watching is similar to [our] ordinary perceptual experience of the
world.6 Currie endorses a relativist conception of realism in film in which the
resemblances that we find are resemblances that are apparent to us.7 Hence, he
says that a representation is perceptually realistic in its representation of a feature
if and only if we recognize that the representation represents something as having
that feature by deploying our perceptual capacities for recognizing instances of
that feature.8
In this chapter I will critically discuss Curries account of perceptual realism,
showing how it is ambiguous and inadequate in explaining how we recognize per-
ceptual objects in film images by matching the spatial features of fictional objects
to the spatial features of real objects that we have seen before. For instance, it does
not explain how we are able to pick out the relevant spatial features to match from
a vast array of diverse spatial features, how we can associate new spatial features
that we have never been exposed to before, and how we are able to differentiate
between the spatial features of real objects in the real world and the spatial features
of artistically created images of objects in an imaginary world. These explanatory
inadequacies are a problem for Curries theory of perceptual realism because if he
cannot say how we recognize, select, associate, and differentiate spatial features, it
is dubious that we are in fact matching the spatial features in film images to spatial
features we have seen before in the real world.
In addition, Curries account of perceptual realism says that films are inher-
ently realistic because the appearances of real objects represented in film images
resemble the appearances of real objects in the real world. These resemblances
are due to the fact that film images involve photographic tracings of real-world
 Perceptual Realism|91

objects. But, as I will show in this chapter, animated and computer-animated film
images do not involve photographic tracings of real-world objects, and what they
represent need not resemble the spatial features of real objects in the real world.
Thus, Curries account of perceptual realism as a thesis about finding resemblances
to reality does not adequately explain realism in film.
I will conclude this chapter by pointing out some problems with resemblance
theories in general. First, resemblance theorists need to explain how resemblance
relates to representation when resemblance is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
condition for representation. Second, they need to discuss how our perception
of things in the real world is different from our perception of things in pictorial
images, and what those differences entail for their theory. Third, they need to
explain how film viewers recognize things in film images that have little or no
resemblances to things seen in the real world. Until these problems are addressed,
I believe that resemblance theories cannot succeed in explaining the essence of
pictorial representations through resemblances to reality.

Curries Account of Perceptual Realism

In his book Image and Mind (1995), Currie argues that film viewing is realistic
because the appearances of objects in films resemble the appearances of objects
in the real world through the sharing of similar spatial features that trigger our
recognitional capacities.9 He believes that we all have the ability to recognize cer-
tain spatial features of objects, such as their sizes, shapes, colors, and positions;
and this ability enables us to recognize that what we are seeing is something we
have seen before. For example, nature has endowed us with a horse-recognition
capacity that enables us to identify a horse quickly and easily with minimal infor-
mation from our senses.10 We simply match visible features of the horse that we
see with similar visible features of a horse that we have seen before, which we have
stored in our memories. Currie believes that we employ this same recognitional
capacity when we watch films. We can recognize a horse in a film because we can
match the visible features of the horse on the movie screen with the visible features
of the horse that we have seen before. We are then able to associate those visible
features that we see on the movie screen with a pre-existing concept that we have
of a horse which, when combined with other information that we have from our
perceptions, knowledge, and memory, ultimately results in our judgment that we
are seeing a horse. Through this process, we are able to recognize objects in films
as looking like objects in the real world.
92|What Is Film?

However, Curries explanation of how our recognitional capacities work

is ambiguous and uninformative. He says that we are able to recognize resem-
blances between a film image of a horse and a real horse because we all have
the capacity to recognize its spatial features, and that capacity is triggered by
seeing those spatial features that trigger our horse-recognition capacity.11 But
Currie does not say what spatial features trigger our horse-recognition capacity,
how those spatial features trigger our horse-recognition capacity, and how we
are able to distinguish between pictures of horses and real horses through our
horse-recognition capacity. He does say that the similarity we recognize between
a real horse and a picture of a horse doesnt have to be an overall likeness, a shar-
ing of a preponderance of features.12 But one would think that a large number
of features would be more informative for recognitional purposes than just a
few of them. One could better assess the likeness between a film image of a
horse and a real horse by comparing many spatial features, such as the shape of
their heads, the size and proportion of their bodies, and the color and textures
of their coats, rather than looking at one or two spatial features, such as the
size of their bodies or the colors of their coats, which would not be enough to
indicate that what one is looking at is a horse. What motivates Curries claim
is probably the idea that to recognize a film image of a horse, we can rely on
just a few distinctive features that real horses possess. Currie does not say what
those distinctive features would be. However, he doesnt think that his omission
is significant, perhaps because the distinctive spatial features will vary from case
to case.
Although it is true that the distinctive spatial features are going to vary from
case to case, we should be able to take one case and identify the features that
trigger our recognitional capacities. If the image on film was of an Arabian horse,
we might say that the features of a real Arabian horse that are like the features of
the film image of an Arabian horse are its dished face, small muzzle, broad fore-
head, large eyes, short back, and high-arched tail combined with common horse
features, such as four legs, hooves, a furry coat, mane, and tail. These specific and
general features are some of the ones we would use to recognize an Arabian horse
in the real world and an image of an Arabian horse. But these features do not
enable us to distinguish a film image of a real horse from a film image of a fictional
horse. So, even if Currie were to identify the relevant spatial features for being able
to recognize a film image of a horse as depicting a horse, he still needs to explain
how film viewers distinguish a real horse in a film image from a fictional horse in a
film image on a purely perceptual level. To strengthen his account, Currie should
give similar examples to clarify what spatial features are relevant for triggering
 Perceptual Realism|93

our recognitional capacities. By identifying the relevant spatial features in specific

cases, we can better understand what kinds of spatial features are picked out for
recognitional purposes, how general or specific they need to be to trigger our rec-
ognitional capacities, and whether they are selected by comparing and contrast-
ing them to other spatial features, including non-similar spatial features. Curries
account would be much more informative, and more credible, if he included a
discussion of these matters.
Currie also fails to address important issues concerning how we are able to
pick out the relevant spatial features to recognize and to match from a vast array
of diverse spatial features. He says that our selection of spatial features happens
at a subpersonal level where our memory has stored a bunch of spatial features
that it has come across before. He does not explain how we are able to select the
relevant spatial features for recognition and matching from those stored spatial
features in our memories. Does our memory retrieve all of the spatial features that
we have seen in the past (e.g., in picture books, in films, or our encounters with
real objects), or just a few relevant spatial features, and if the latter, how does the
mind know which spatial features are the relevant ones to compare and to match?
I have seen colors of horses that do not look like the colors of real horses (e.g., the
colors of carousel horses, model horses, stuffed animal horses, and painted images
of horses), so when I watch a film image of a horse, how does my mind know
which colors that I have seen in the past are to be matched to the colors of the
film image of a horse so that I can recognize it as depicting a horse? If my mind
cant select the relevant spatial features to match, I might fail to recognize that the
film image depicts a horse simply because some of its spatial features dont match
the spatial features that I have seen before. Currie needs to explain how our minds
are able to retrieve the relevant spatial features stored in our memories to compare
and to match to the spatial features that we see in film images.
Although Currie does not satisfactorily explain how the process of recognition
and matching works, I believe that I can give a useful analogy that can illuminate
how it might work. In the game Pictionary, players place a bunch of cards with
different images on them face down on a table. One player picks up a card, turns
it over, and tries to find its match amidst the downturned cards by overturning
another card. If the images on both cards match, the player keeps both cards, and
proceeds again in a similar fashion. If the images do not match, the player must
return both unmatched cards to the table, placing them face down to conceal
their images, and the next player takes a turn at trying to find matching images.
Players try to remember the location of cards with mismatched images that they
have returned face-down to the table, so they can find them again later to match
94|What Is Film?

the images on other cards that they subsequently turn over. The player with the
most cards wins. Pictionary is a game involving visual recognition and memory.
The players who are able to recognize the images on the cards and to remember
the location of cards bearing matching images do well, while players who are not
able to do so fare poorly.
Currie would probably say that our brains are working in similar ways when
we compare film images to the things that we see in the real world. We see an
image of a horse on the movie screen, which is like seeing an image of a horse on
a Pictionary card. We recognize that there is a horse on the movie screen from
recalling the spatial features of horses that we have been exposed to before, which
is like recognizing the image of a horse on a Pictionary card as being like another
image of a horse on a Pictionary card that we have seen earlier in the game. Then
we match those spatial features of horses from our memories with the spatial
features of the horse on the movie screen, which is akin to matching the image
of a horse on one Pictionary card to the image of a horse on another Pictionary
card. Finally, we recognize that the image of the horse on the movie screen is like
a real horse, just as we recognize that the image of the horse on one Pictionary
card is like the image of a horse on another Pictionary card. But unlike playing
Pictionary, which involves a very small number of images to recognize and to
match, when we watch films, there are hundreds of images and countless many
spatial features of those images to recognize and to match. How are we able to
pick out the relevant spatial features to recognize and match from amidst such an
enormous array of images and spatial features?
Currie would probably respond by saying that the mind is so complex that
it is capable of storing all the spatial features that we have seen in the past and
automatically picking out the relevant spatial features that we need for recogni-
tion. He gives an example of people who have lost the ability to recognize faces by
having brain damage in one localized area of their brains, suggesting that we store
information about facial features in certain localized areas of our brain. Although
Curries example suggests that our brains can perform different specialized tasks,
like facial recognition, he still cannot explain how we are able to select the spatial
features that are relevant for recognitional purposes from a vast array of diverse
spatial features that we have seen in the past. Curries example of facial recog-
nition therefore does not shed light on how film viewers are able to match the
spatial features of two-dimensional objects in film images to the spatial features of
two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects that they have seen in the past by
retrieving the relevant spatial features from the vast array of stored spatial features
in their memories.
 Perceptual Realism|95

Currie believes that his account of perceptual recognition is correct because

it can explain natural generativity, or the phenomenon of being able to recognize
pictures of horses as of horses (or as depicting horses) by being able to recognize
horses in the real world.13 He believes that our recognitional capacities for rec-
ognizing pictures of horses would have to be the same recognitional capacities
that we employ for recognizing horses in the real world. Otherwise, we could not
explain how people who see pictures of horses can identify their content as being
of horses.14 But we could also explain our ability to recognize pictures of horses
as being of horses in other ways which dont just involve our past perceptions of
seeing horses in the real world. We might have read detailed descriptions of horses
or seen pictures of horses or horse-like animals (such as donkeys and mules),
which could also help us to recognize pictures of horses as being of horses. Fur-
thermore, it is not apparent that the same recognitional capacities that we use to
recognize real horses is used to recognize pictures of horses, since when we look
at a picture of a horse we see aspects that look like a real horse and aspects that
do not look like a real horse. As a result, we are not just identifying and matching
the spatial features that a horse in an image has in common with a real horse.
We are also identifying dissimilarities between the two, as evidenced by the fact
that we rarely mistake a picture of a horse for a real horse (e.g., we notice the flat
surface of the image of a horse, as opposed to the three-dimensional features of
a real horse). Currie acknowledges that when we say that the horse and picture
look alike, we also recognize that they look quite different, and that we tend
not to mistake one for the other.15 But he does not explain how triggering the
same recognitional capacity results in our recognition of these differences, since
employment of the same horse-recognition capacity only allows us to recognize
that we see a horse, not that we are seeing a picture of a horse (for that we might
need a picture-of-horse-recognition capacity, which is triggered by seeing a pic-
ture of a horse).
In addition, Currie says that we might have to become familiar with the
system of depiction to be able to recognize the horse in the picture, as with
impressionistic or cubist depictions of horses, but once we are familiar with the
system, we can recognize that the image of the horse depicts a horse (as long as
we have seen horses before).16 This additional consideration of being familiar
with the system of pictorial representation suggests that our capacity for recogni-
tion also depends on learning artistic styles and artistic conventions for depicting
horses within those styles (like how horses look in impressionist works of art,
cubist works of art, abstract works of art, and so on). But if that is the case, why
does Currie argue that the horse-recognition capacity is innate (endowed in us
96|What Is Film?

by nature)?17 If the horse-recognition capacity is innate, given to us by nature,

and hardwired into our brains at birth, as Currie says it is, we shouldnt have to
become familiar with different pictorial systems and their conventions for depict-
ing horses to be able to recognize that the picture of a horse depicts a horse. But
Currie admits that we might need to be familiar with the artistic conventions for
representing horses in images. This admission is disastrous to his view because
if we have to become familiar with pictorial conventions to be able to recognize
that a picture of a horse depicts a horse, the natural generativity notion that you
can recognize a picture of a horse if you can recognize a real horse is undermined,
since natural generativity is supposed to explain our recognitional abilities apart
from any learning or familiarity with a vocabulary of depiction.
Another problem in Curries account of perceptual realism concerns his inability
to explain how we can associate new spatial features that we have never seen before
with old spatial features that we have stored in our memories. Do we identify the
new spatial features that we have never seen before by comparing and contrasting
them to the old spatial features that we have seen before, and if so, how are we able
to identify the new spatial features if we cannot find matching counterparts among
the old spatial features? Consider the Pictionary game again to see the problem
with being unable to match new images. If the image on a card has no resemblance
to the images on other cards previously overturned, we would struggle in vain to
match something that is not matchable. Similarly with film images, some of the film
images (like animated and computer-animated film images) are like new Pictionary
cards with images on them that are unmatchable to Pictionary cards that have been
overturned before. How do we find likenesses between film images and what they
represent in the real world if some film images cannot be matched to things seen
before in the real world because their spatial features are unmatchable to the spatial
features of things seen before in the real world?
Currie could argue that even if the totality of the film image is not match-
able, we could still match the component parts of the film image. For instance,
if I see an alien creature in a film, I might not have seen such a creature before,
but I could match its component parts, like its forked tongue, which I might
liken to the forked tongues of snakes that I have seen before. But it is not clear
whether the matching is possible if the component parts have spatial features that
are themselves unmatchable. The size, shape, position, and color of the forked
tongue in the film image might not match the size, shape, position, and color of
forked tongues I have seen before in the real world. As a result, I may not be able
to match the spatial features of the component parts of the creature, and so not be
able to identify the creature as being like a creature I have seen before.
 Perceptual Realism|97

This problem is particularly apparent with animated and computer-animated

film images, which can show film viewers things that bear little or no likeness to
things that they have seen in the real world. When I watched Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within (2001), I did not match the computer-generated images of the
ghostly aliens that I saw in the film to what I had seen in the real world. I have
never seen such aliens, or anything like them, in the real world (not even in pic-
ture books).
Furthermore, with the computer-generated illusionistic technique called
morphing, in which an image of one object smoothly transforms into an image of
another object, it is even more evident that film viewers are not comparing these
transformations to any transformations that they have seen in the real world.
This technology has been featured in such films as Willow (1988), where animals
change from one species to another; The Abyss (1989), where an alien creature
shapes itself into human faces; and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in which
a liquid metal killing machine (the T-1000) changes into a woman, a police offi-
cer, a young boy, a tire, and a checkerboard floor. In the film Transformers: Age of
Extinction (2014), the Autobots and Decepticons are humanoid, sentient robots
called Transformers that can transform themselves into vehicles (typically cars,
trucks, and aircraft), machines, and other mechanical objects. These Transformers
were all computer-generated. Scott Farrar, the special effects supervisor for the
film, explained how just one Transformer, such as Optimus Prime (comprised of
over 10,000 pieces), was made by using lots of designs that were Photoshopped
in 2D, then turning them into a 3D character, then painting the model and
giving it an internal skeleton to allow the animators to make all the mechanisms
move in different ways, then putting the character into a shot, and lastly fine-
tuning his look.18
Other notable transformations made through CGI are the fictional character
David Banner changing into the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008), the char-
acter Vlad Tepes changing into Dracula in Dracula Untold (2014), the character
Lawrence Talbot changing into a werewolf in The Wolfman (2010), and various
characters changing into werewolves in the Twilight film series (20092012).
There are also comic book characters who transform their physical appearances
in various film series, such as the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Avengers. In the film
Fantastic Four (2015), the character Mr. Fantastic can stretch his body into incred-
ible lengths and shapes as if he were made of stretchable rubber and the character
The Human Torch can generate flames from his body so that he can fly. These
magical transformations of human bodies are not typically seen in the real world,
so film viewers are probably not comparing them to things that they have seen in
98|What Is Film?

the real world. If film viewers cant recognize objects in film images by matching
their spatial features to the spatial features of things that they have seen in the
real world, it is not clear how perceptual realism can explain all aspects of film
viewing. Currie therefore needs to explain how perceptual recognition works, or
doesnt work, when what film viewers are seeing in film images does not resemble
things that they have seen in the real world.
A final problem is that Currie fails to explain how film viewers are able to
differentiate between the spatial features of real objects in the real world and the
spatial features of imaginary objects in a fictional world. Currie argues that we
use the same recognitional capacity to recognize a horse in the real world that
we use to recognize a horse in the fictional world of films, since we recognize
that we see a horse in both cases. But the fact that we can see a horse in both
cases does not explain how we can distinguish between a fictional horse on the
film screen and a real horse in the real world. When I see Disneys animated film
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002), I can tell that the animated horse is not
a real horse, and when I see my own horse outside my bedroom window, I can
tell that the horse I am seeing is a real horse and not an image of a horse. But
how do I make such perceptual distinctions between real horses and animated
horses when my horse-recognition capacity merely tells me that these four-legged
creatures that I see are horses? Do I select from a category of horse colors that are
appropriate for fictional horses as opposed to a category of horse colors that are
appropriate for real horses, and if so, what makes me know that the colors I have
selected as appropriate for a certain category are correct and placed in the right
category? Curries account does not explain how our recognitional capacities work
to identify differences between artistically created objects in an imaginary world
and real objects in the real world. Knowing how we recognize differences between
pictures of objects and real objects is important because it is our recognition of
those differences that keeps us from reacting to the objects that we see in pictures
as though they were real objects.
Currie would say that because of our experiences of having seen horses, both in
picture books and at the stables, we can discriminate between pictures of horses and
real horses. We can use our memory and our knowledge about the contexts where
horses are seen, such as fictional horses appearing in paintings that are hung on the
walls of art museums, as opposed to real horses standing in corrals at horse farms.
We can also employ general principles, such as drawings and paintings of horses are
not real horses. In all these ways, we can correctly judge that we are seeing a picture
of horse and not a real horse when we look at a film image of a horse.19 Since we can
 Perceptual Realism|99

make correct judgments about what we are seeing, Currie would probably say that
my objection is not important.
But Curries objection only works at the cognitive level and not the percep-
tual level. At the cognitive level, we can certainly judge that what we are seeing
is a horse, since our prior experiences, memories, and our background knowl-
edge can come into play at that level, but Currie does not explain how we make
such distinctions on a purely perceptual level. He says our perceptual mechanisms
are innately quick-and-dirty and prone to false positives because of the speed at
which it conducts its identifications.20 Since he acknowledges that we experience
perceptual illusions in everyday life,21 he should also acknowledge that we experi-
ence perceptual illusions when we watch films, especially since he argues that our
experience of viewing films is like our experience of viewing the real world.
One could object to Curries thesis of perceptual realism by saying that it
makes for illusionism, since the closer the experience of film watching approxi-
mates to the experience of seeing the real world, the more effectively film engen-
ders in the viewer the illusion that he or she is actually watching the real world.22
Of course, Currie dismisses the notion that similarities in our viewing experiences
will make us more prone to experiencing perceptual illusions when we watch
films. He says that even though our perceptual illusions may operate on a subper-
sonal and automatic level, our judgments can intervene to ensure that we do not
make such mistakes in perception.23 But this response is not convincing because it
seems to ignore what makes the doctrine of perceptual illusionism so compelling,
namely that perceptual illusions are cognitively impenetrable, meaning that our
judgments cannot change our perceptions. We will continue to experience a per-
ceptual illusion even when we judge that we are seeing an illusion, so the fact that
we can employ judgments about our perceptions is not a convincing reason to
believe that film viewers do not experience perceptual illusions when they watch
films.
Currie also tries to address the criticism that he has not properly dispensed
with perceptual illusionism in cinema by saying that when we see cinematic
images, we do not sit there struggling to maintain our beliefs in the face of a
contradictory experience, as we do when we experience perceptual illusions.24
But this response is also not convincing because the experiencing of perceptual
illusions only requires percipients to have perceptions that are non-veridical, not
that they have any false beliefs or any sort of struggle to maintain beliefs that are
not supported by their perceptions. Percipients of perceptual illusions can know
that they are seeing a perceptual illusion, and hence that their perceptions are not
veridical. Knowing that, they are not liable to have any false beliefs about what
100|What Is Film?

they are really seeing, nor any sort of struggle to maintain their beliefs. Conse-
quently, Currie is wrong to assume that percipients of perceptual illusions struggle
with their beliefs, and so appealing to the fact that film viewers do not engage in
such struggles with their beliefs when they watch films does not prove that they
are not experiencing perceptual illusions. Currie therefore needs to better explain
why film viewers are not subject to perceptual illusions when they watch films.
Although Curries account of perceptual realism is predicated on the assump-
tion of perceived resemblances between the film world and the real world, it is
clear that there are also perceived non-resemblances between the film world and
the real world, as when computer-generated images show film viewers imagi-
nary things that dont look like things they have seen before in the real world.
Curries account could be strengthened if he explained how our perceptions of non-
resemblances interact with our recognitional capacities. Do we utilize those
non-resemblances to facilitate our recognitional capacities, or do we ignore alto-
gether the ways in which the imaginary world does not resemble the real world,
and focus instead on the similarities between the imaginary world and the real
world? To make his account more convincing, Currie should address the non-
resemblances that film viewers see between the real world and the fictional world
of films, and explain how they utilize those non-resemblances when they watch
films.
To see some of these non-resemblances, consider how filmmakers can manip-
ulate the representations of space and time in film images. In Back to the Future
(1985), the filmmaker distorts the normal temporal sequence of past, present,
and future to show the time travels of the two main characters, who are trying
to ensure that present events are not altered in devastating ways by their trav-
els through time. The disruptions of time depicted in this film are not possible
in the real world, and certainly not things that we can relate to from our own
real-world experiences. There are also films which distort the way people typi-
cally move through space. In The Matrix (1999), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2001), and The One (2001), characters appear to fly through the air and to move
in super slow motion as they fight their enemies. Traveling backward and for-
ward through space and time, using our bodies to fly in gravity-defying ways,
and moving our bodies in super slow motion are not realistic depictions of the
ways that people experience space and time in the real world. Thus, the space and
time depicted in film images do not always resemble the space and time that we
typically experience in the real world.
Currie would respond by saying that the spatial relations between objects
in film images are significantly like the spatial relations between real objects.25
 Perceptual Realism|101

But that is not always the case. In the film Fantastic Voyage (1966), scientists are
shrunk down to microscopic sizes and inserted into the bloodstream of a sick man
to destroy the life-threatening tumors in his body. As they travel through various
parts of his body, they are attacked by his legions of antibodies that mistake the
scientists for deadly germs. The spatial relations between the people and objects
depicted in this film are certainly not realistic, nor would anyone believe them to
be realistic. Also, in the made-for-television film Gullivers Travels (1996) and the
film Gullivers Travels (2010), the spatial relations between people and objects are
not like the ones that we experience in the real world. The mountain-sized giant
people and the ant-sized people that Gulliver encounters are not like the sizes of
people that we encounter in the real world, nor is the spatial relationship of his
size relative to their sizes something we encounter in the real world. In Honey,
I Shrunk the Kids (1989), children are accidentally shrunk down to microscopic
sizes, and the sizes of ordinary objects around them, like the insects in the back-
yard, take on monstrous proportions that are highly unrealistic to normal-sized
film viewers. The spatial relations between the children and the objects in this film
are certainly not reflective of the spatial relations between people and objects in
the real world. Since not all film images depict spatial relations that resemble the
spatial relations that film viewers typically see in the real world, Curries argument
for this resemblance is not wholly convincing.
Currie agrees that the kinds of distortions in spatial relations that I described
are indeed possible. He says that the relative sizes of objects that we see on the
screen dont always match the relative sizes of those objects in the real world (as
in The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957, and Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman, 1958,
1993).26 He believes that we can recognize spatial relations in films even when
they are not exactly like spatial relations that we encounter in the real world
because the same recognitional capacities that are triggered when we look at spa-
tial relations in the fictional world are triggered when we look at spatial relations
in the real world. He says:

When objects and events are represented onscreen within a single shot, we are able to
judge what spatial and temporal relations the film represents as holding between those
objects and events, by using our ordinary capacities to judge the spatial and temporal
relations between objects and events themselves.27

He would reject my counterexamples by saying that they deal with spatial rela-
tions across film images, rather than with spatial relations within a single shot.
As a result, they do not allow for resemblances on the appropriate levels of speci-
ficity (i.e., local rather than global levels of specificity).
102|What Is Film?

However, I believe that this rebuttal is not convincing because films can
and do employ single shots with highly distorted spatial relations on local levels
of specificity. For example, in The Cell (2000), there are numerous single shots
where the spatial relations are intentionally distorted to reflect the unusual spa-
tial relations within the mind of a deranged serial killer. We cannot understand
how objects are spatially related to other objects in these artificial environments.
Furthermore, there is no way we could tell how to navigate through such imag-
inary landscapes by comparing the spatial relations in these film images to the
spatial relations we have encountered before in the real world. Even within more
localized spaces within single shots, there are significant lack of resemblances to
real-world spaces. For example, in the single shot of a person traveling through
the folds of a serial killers brain, film viewers do not understand the artificial
spaces represented in that shot through their understanding of spatial relations
in the real world, since they are not ones that film viewers ordinarily encounter
in the real world. As a result, when film viewers look at spatial relations in the
fictional world of films, their experience is not always significantly like the expe-
rience of looking at spatial relations in the real world.
In animated films, computer-animated films, and films with computer-
generated images, the spatial relations that are visually represented can look quite
unlike the spatial relations that we have seen before in the real world because they
are not created by photographing real spatial relations from the real world; they
are created through artistic renderings of imaginary spatial relations. For example,
in the computer-animated films Antz (1998) and A Bugs Life (1998), film viewers
see an imaginary world as it would look through the eyes of tiny insects. Also,
in the film Ant-Man (2015), a fictional character named Scott Lang (played
by the actor Paul Rudd) is shrunk down to the size of an ant. In some parts
of this film, we see his perspective of the world as an ant-sized man with ordi-
nary objects appearing much larger than normal. In other films with computer-
generated images in them, such as Tron (1982), Tron: Legacy (2012), What Dreams
May Come (1988), and The Cell (2000), there are impressionistic, surrealistic,
abstract, and artificial spatial relations that do not resemble real-world spatial rela-
tions that we ordinarily experience in the real world. Thus, the spatial features in
films need not bear any significant resemblances to spatial features in the real world.
Currie also argues that the temporal relations in film images resemble the
temporal relations we experience in the real world.28 But that is not always the
case either, since the temporal relations depicted in film images can be distorted
in ways that dont reflect our experience of temporal relations in the real world
through the use of flashback and flash-forward sequences and creative editing of
 Perceptual Realism|103

shots. In Memento (2001), the main character suffers from short-term memory
loss, so the filmmaker tries to show the film viewer what his mental condition
is like by depicting the order of events in the film through flashback sequences.
These unusual temporal sequences represent what the main character is able to
remember about his past. They are triggered when he looks at Polaroid photo-
graphs that he took in the past (on which he wrote helpful notes) and when he
looks at tattooed messages on his body, which are supposed to help him find
the person who he believes raped and murdered his wife. In Somewhere in Time
(1980), the filmmaker utilizes flash-forward sequences to show how the main
character is able to return to the present time after traveling backward in time
to be with the woman he loves through his self-induced, hypnotic trances. In
12 Monkeys (1995), the filmmaker employs both flashback and flash-forward
sequences to represent time travels into future and past times. Film viewers can
thereby see representations of distorted temporal relations in films that are unlike
temporal relations that they ordinarily experience in the real world.
Curries response to my argument would be to say that his account allows for
flashbacks and flash-forwards in temporal sequences, as well as fades and dissolves
which alter the duration of time represented on the film screen.29 But even with
such creative deviations in how temporal relations are presented on screen, he says
that the temporal relations represented must imply something about the duration
of events depicted, or else we would be totally confused by what we are seeing.30
For instance, we note how long an event took within a single shot to observe, and
that it comes between two other shots, and thereby are able to understand that
the event took a certain time to occur, and that it came after one event and before
another one.31
But this argument for realistic temporal relations is not convincing because it
ignores films in which the depiction of temporal relations within single shots are
intentionally ambiguous and confusing. For example, in Vanilla Sky (2002), the
filmmaker wants the viewer to be confused about whether the fictional charac-
ters are in real time or in an imagined, dream-like time, where normal temporal
relations are distorted. When we see a single shot of a fictional female character,
who was supposed to have died earlier in the film, show up later, and we see that
character interact physically with the main character, we are not sure if she rep-
resents someone who never died in the first place or someone who is imagined
to be alive by the main character (as in a dream). The duration of time that it
takes for us to see the single shot and our observation that the shot occurs before
and after other shots does not give us much help in discerning the nature of the
temporal relations that are represented. We cannot tell by looking at the shot
104|What Is Film?

whether it represents what is occurring at the present moment, what has already
occurred in the past, what will occur in the future, or what might have occurred
had the fictional events transpired in a different manner. The temporal relations
depicted in this film are therefore quite unlike the ones that we experience in the
real world. They are also not realistic in Curries sense because film viewers cannot
understand them by some sort of resemblance to the temporal relations ordinarily
experienced in the real world.
Fiction films in general are not inherently realistic in Curries sense because
film viewers cannot always understand spatial and temporal relations represented
in them by understanding spatial and temporal relations in the real world through
the deployment of the same recognitional capacities. For example, just by looking
at the film images, film viewers cannot infer that the order of images seen reflects
the order of events filmed, because through editing, the order of shots can be
creatively rearranged, unlike the real world where the order of what is seen reflects
the temporal order of events. Furthermore, film viewers cannot infer from the
duration of time that it takes to see the image on the screen that the event repre-
sented in the image took a certain amount of time to occur, because through the
speed at which images are recorded and projected, the durations of time can be
lengthened or shortened, unlike the real world where the duration of time that it
takes to look at an event reflects the duration of time that the event took to occur.
Curries defense of perceptual realism is weakened by his failure to discuss these
ways in which our experience of spatial and temporal relations in films is not sig-
nificantly like our experience of spatial and temporal relations in the real world.
Thus, Curries account of perceptual realism does not sufficiently address the
perceived non-resemblances between the film world and the real world. These
non-resemblances are as significant as resemblances for film viewers experiences
of watching films. Without recognizing them, film viewers might mistake fic-
tional objects for real objects, fictional spaces for real spaces, fictional amounts of
time for real amounts of time, fictional events for real events, and so on. Although
these non-resemblances play an important role in film viewers abilities to rec-
ognize and conceptualize fictional objects in films, Currie does not adequately
explain what role they play.32
Finally, when Currie claims that a fiction film is a record of what happened
in front of the camera at the time the film was exposed,33 in which traces of real-
world objects and events34 are formed, one cannot help but notice that Currie is
not thinking about animated and computer-animated films. These films do not
record what actually happened in the real world at the time of filming because they
dont involve photographing real events. Also, they dont record the appearances
 Perceptual Realism|105

of real-world objects because they involve drawing and painting imaginary objects
from artists imaginations. Currie would respond by saying that he is only consid-
ering films whose cinematic images are photographically made.35 But since Currie
aims to say what films are in their essence, he needs to discuss what all films are,
not just what certain ones are. Furthermore, even photographically made films
can fail to show film viewers the actual appearances of real-world objects at the
time of filming because of the filmmakers use of creative editing techniques,
superimposed images, special effects images, etc., which can alter and distort the
reality that was filmed. Curries characterization of fiction films as firstly a repre-
sentation of the real is therefore misguided, since fiction films can also be firstly a
representation of the unreal through such creative manipulations.
In conclusion, Curries theory of perceptual realism is inadequate in explain-
ing a number of important features about how our recognitional capacities work
in recognizing perceptual objects in film images to be like objects we have seen
before in the real world. It does not explain how we are able to pick out the rele-
vant spatial features to match from a vast array of diverse spatial features, how we
can associate new spatial features that we have never been exposed to before, and
how we are able to differentiate between the spatial features of real objects in the
real world and the spatial features of artistically created images of objects in an
imaginary world. As a result, Curries account of how our recognitional capacities
work is inadequate.
Curries account of perceptual realism says that films are realistic because
the appearances of objects represented in them look like the appearances of real
objects that they are photographic images of. While the objects depicted in films
may resemble objects in the real world in some respects, which is how we are able
to recognize and identify them when we see them, there are still many aspects
and features that do not resemble objects in the real world, such as how they are
colored, lit, rearranged, changed, and moved. These non-resemblances are even
more pronounced with the use of digital and computer technologies, which are
constantly being upgraded and improved over time. Such technologies enable
filmmakers to create, manipulate, edit, and change film images more quickly and
easily and in ways that do not always reflect what is seen in the real world. As a
result, Curries perceptual realism is not entirely correct because the appearances
of objects represented in film images do not always resemble the appearances of
real-world objects. Filmmakers often distort the appearances of real-world objects
through editing and manipulating the film images during the production process.
Plus, films are not always made by photographing real objects in the real world, as
with animated and computer-animated films that depict imaginary objects that
106|What Is Film?

do not exist in the real world. Thus, Curries account of perceptual realism as a
thesis about finding resemblances to reality does not adequately explain realism
in films.

Problems with Resemblance Theories

Resemblance theorists believe that they can successfully explain how people are
able to recognize the content of pictorial images by their innate perceptual ability
to see similarities or resemblances between the objects represented in pictorial
images and real objects. As resemblance theorists argue, there is something going
on in the viewer when he or she looks at a picture of a horse that is the same
as what goes on in the viewer when he or she looks at a real horse. Hence, the
viewer is able to recognize that a picture of a horse represents (or depicts) a horse.
Our common intuitions indicate that pictorial images can resemble the things
that they represent and that we rely on these resemblances to identify the subject
matter of pictorial images. Without such resemblances how else could we say
that we see St. Marks Square in Venice when we look at a painting of St. Marks
Square in Venice, that we see President Bush when we look at a photograph of
him, or that we see John Wayne riding a horse when we look at a film image of
John Wayne riding a horse? But despite our common intuitions that resemblance
is the key to explaining how we recognize and react to pictorial images, there are
still problems with resemblance theories generally.
The first problem, as discussed by Nelson Goodman and Nol Carroll, is that
resemblance cannot be a necessary or a sufficient condition for representation
because (a) not everything that represents something resembles it, and (b) resem-
blance is a symmetric relation, meaning that if x resembles y, then y resembles x,
but representation is not symmetric.36 If Attila resembles his picture, Attila doesnt
represent his picture, and a painting of Attila can represent Attila even though it
doesnt resemble him in any way.37 As Goodman says, almost anything can rep-
resent, or stand for, anything else, without having to resemble it38 (e.g., a skull
drawn on a map could represent the site where people are buried, an engraved
image of an eagle on a coin could represent freedom, and a picture of a man on a
cross could represent Christ). Since resemblance is neither a necessary nor a suf-
ficient condition for representation, we cannot understand the nature of pictorial
representation through resemblance alone.
Another way to think about resemblance is through identity. Andr Bazin
writes, The photograph proceeds by means of the lens to the taking of a veritable
 Perceptual Realism|107

luminous impression in lightto a mold. As such it carries with it more than

mere resemblance, namely a kind of identity39 He believes that the photo-
graphic image of an object is identical to the object photographed because the
photograph yields an impression in light of the object, and this impression in
light is identical to the one that we would have if we were to view that object with
our own eyes.40 Thus, the photographic image of an object resembles the object
photographed to the highest degree, since it gives the viewer a luminous impres-
sion of the appearance of the object that is identical with the luminous impression
of the appearance of that object seen in person.
But identity relations are not the appropriate relations that obtain between
photographs and their objects because photographs do not give off the same pat-
terns of light that one gets from seeing objects in person: the reflective surface
qualities of photographic images are different than those of real objects. There
are clear physical differences between a photograph of an object and the object
that is photographed. My great-grandfather is a three-dimensional human being,
while a photograph is a two-dimensional piece of paper on which is printed a two-
dimensional image of my great-grandfather, an image showing how he looked at a
particular moment of time in the past. The patterns of light that both objects give
off are therefore very different patterns of light, reflective of their different physi-
cal constitutions. It is therefore very bizarre to say that an object and a photograph
of that object are the same thing in any literal sense.
The use of colored filters, lenses, printing papers, film types, camera types,
etc. all affect the resulting luminous impression that we see when we look at a
photograph of an object, so the luminous impression that we get from seeing the
objects depicted in photographs is not the same luminous impression that we get
from seeing real objects. Furthermore, a photograph can involve superimpositions
in which images of different objects are combined into one final photographic
image during the developing process. The luminous impression that we get from
seeing this final photographic image of a conglomeration of different objects is
certainly not identical to the light impressions that we get from seeing the objects
in person as they were photographed independently of one another. In digital
photographs, one can even introduce creative special effects and artificial ele-
ments, such as laser beam effects, ghost-like auras, and artificial textures, shapes,
and colors, which were not part of the initial scene that was photographed. The
luminous impressions that one sees when looking at these digital photographs
certainly dont match the luminous impressions that one sees when looking at
the objects that were initially photographed. The same is true of animated and
computer-animated film images of imaginary things that are not found in the
108|What Is Film?

real world, such as Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Bullwinkle, and Jar Jar Binks. Bazin
cannot explain what the light impressions from these images are identical to in the
real world, since they have no real-world counterparts. Bazins attempt to explain
resemblance as involving identity relations in patterns of light between objects
and their images is therefore not successful.
Another problem is that resemblance theorists assume that our perception of
things in the real world is like our perception of things in pictorial images, but that
is not always the case. For example, when there is something of interest to the film
viewer in the film image, the film viewer cannot look at that object of interest for
as long as he or she wants; rather, the duration of looking-time depends in large
part on what the filmmaker selects as the duration of the shots. When we look
at objects in the real world, what we see is not being determined by some other
person who is selecting the content, order, and duration of what we see, but that
is precisely what is happening with film images. Of course, with VCR and DVD
players, one could argue that we can control the order and duration of what we
see, for example, we can pause at any point in the film to focus on things that we
are interested in, and we can fast-forward and rewind a film to see the images in
a different order than the filmmaker intended, but even these ways to view films
are not like the ways we view things in the real world. We cant fast-forward to see
what will happen in the future or rewind to see what happened in the past, and
we cant pause events that are presently occurring, freezing them in the moment.
With newer films made for DVD, there are even ways to see different points
in the film sequence. There are section breaks that allow you to find different
sections or parts of the film, so you could watch the film sequences out of order.
You could for instance see the film from the end to the beginning instead of from
the typical beginning to the end. There are also scenes from the film that were not
included in the finished and final version of the film (the final cut of the film),
which are called outtakes, that you can watch to supplement your film-viewing
experience, which are usually seen at the end of the film, but viewers could choose
to watch them at the beginning of the film or at any other point too. Finally, there
are interviews with the filmmakers, actors and actresses, and others on the DVD
that you can watch to learn more about the film. The ways that we watch films
and the nature of films have therefore changed significantly through the invention
of new technologies. We can watch films on our cellphones, our computers, our
Kindles, and other devices, so we no longer have to sit in a movie theater to see a
film that is projected on a screen. These different ways of viewing films also affects
the ontology of films, just as being able to read books on our computer screens
instead of as hard copies in our physical hands also changes the ontology of books.
 Perceptual Realism|109

There are other differences between our perception of things in the real world
and our perception of things in film images. One author who points out some
of these differences is Rudolph Arnheim in his book Film as Art (1933, 1957).
He explains that in real life, our experience of space and time is uninterrupted
and continuous, but not so with film images.41 In real life, I may see two people
talking together in a room from some distance away, and I can alter the distance
between them and myself by moving through the intervening space, but in look-
ing at film images of the same scene, I may see two people talking together in
a room from a considerable distance away, and then in another shot right after
that one, I see the two people right in front of me without having to traverse the
intervening space.42 Similarly with our experience of time, in real life, I cannot
suddenly see what those two people will be doing ten minutes from now, since
the ten minutes must pass before I can see what they will be doing ten minutes
from now, but when seeing film images of them, I can see what the two people
will be doing in the future almost instantly without waiting for the ten minutes to
elapse.43 Through editing of shots, or montage, filmmakers can join together shots
of situations that occur at different times and places.44
When we see a film, we tend not to see the events depicted in them take place
for the exact duration that those events took to occur when they were initially
filmed, nor do we tend to see people and objects moving through space in the
same way that people and objects move through continuous spaces in the real
world. The temporal durations of the represented events is normally lengthened
or shortened (e.g., to accommodate the desired length of the film, to direct the
viewers attention to one scene rather than another, to make transitions from one
scene to another, and so on), and the amount of space that people and objects
move through is creatively manipulated by various camera angles and movements
in different types of shots (e.g., a long-shot to a close-up shot, a shot reverse shot,
or a birds-eye shot to a fade-out shot), as well as through a succession of different
shots taken in different locations (e.g., a character is seen in Washington, D.C.
in one shot and in Tokyo in a subsequent shot). Thus, while space and time are
perceived to be continuous in the real world, they are not perceived to be that way
in the fictional world of films.
Finally, resemblance theorists presume that there are real resemblances
between the appearance of things in the real world and the appearance of things
in the pictorial world. But this assumption can be effectively challenged by
noting how the appearances of things in the pictorial world do not resemble the
appearances of things in the real world. The way that space appears in computer-
generated film images often do not bear any resemblances to the way that space
110|What Is Film?

appears in the real world. In the film Lawnmower Man II: Jobes War (1995), we
see virtual spaces that are artistically drawn and painted to represent the interior
spaces of a computers memory banks rather than to look like spaces that we have
seen before in the real world. Film viewers are not comparing the spaces in this
film to the spaces that they have seen before in the real world, since most film
viewers have never seen the spaces within a computers memory banks to be able
to make such comparisons.
With computer-generated imagery (CGI), the possibilities for creating new
shapes, sizes, colors, and spatial relations that film viewers have never been seen
before are endless. It doesnt make sense to say that when we see such images, we
are matching resemblances to things we have seen before in the real world, when
there need not be any such resemblances. Hence, resemblance accounts of percep-
tual recognition that involve a matching of visual features in pictorial images to
visual features in the real world are inadequate for film images that depict new and
previously unseen visual features that have little or no recognizable resemblances
to reality.
In conclusion, resemblance theorists need to explain how resemblance relates
to representation when resemblance is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition
for representation. They also need to discuss how our perception of things in
the real world is different from our perception of things in pictorial images, and
what those differences entail for their theory. Finally, they need to explain how
film viewers recognize things in film images that have little or no resemblances to
things seen before in the real world. Until these problems are addressed, I believe
that resemblance theories cannot succeed in explaining the essence of pictorial
representations through resemblances to reality.
 4

Summarizing the Doctrines

of Film Realism

To prepare the way for the improved version of film realism that I shall subse-
quently present, I will now summarize the strengths and weaknesses I find in
the three doctrines of film realism that I have previously discussed. An improved
theory should be able to retain what is acceptable about each doctrine, abandon
what is unacceptable, and formulate a position that is otherwise consistent with
our film-viewing experience. The theory I shall present in the next chapter has
these virtues.
The doctrine of transparency has the strength of being able to explain the
fact that we do regard photographs as accurate representations of the things they
depict. We trust that photographs are reliable in showing us whatever was before
the camera when the photograph was taken because the camera records the light
rays emanating from the surfaces of objects. As a result, we rely on photographs
as compelling evidence in legal cases, as ways to record past events, and as reliable
means to acquire visual information, such as the topography of various lands.
Transparency can explain how photographic and film images show us the real
world in a reliable fashion in which we are able to see whatever was photographed
or filmed as if we were present at the scene looking at the real objects being pho-
tographed or filmed.
112|What Is Film?

However, as I showed in Chapter 1, photographs are not always reliable in

showing us how real objects looked in the real world when they were photo-
graphed. Through various acts of human intervention which often occur before
and after the snapping of the shutter, such as selection of camera angles and
positions, shutter speeds, film types, camera types, lenses, light sources, filters,
exposure times, and printing and developing techniques, photographers distort
the final appearances of their photographic images so that they do not look like
the real objects that were photographed. In addition, with digital photography,
photographers manipulate photographs in creative ways so that the images we see
have little or no resemblance to what was originally photographed. As a result, not
all photographic images are reliable means of seeing the real world through them.
Similarly with film images, I showed how a wide variety of creative aspects
of filmmaking result in film images that do not show film viewers the real
world as it was seen by the camera crews at the time of filming. I specifically
showed how filmmakers distort reality by their manipulations of camera angles
and movements, amounts and intensities of light, sounds, and editing of shots.
I also explained how animated films, computer-animated films, and computer-
generated film images do not provide a window through which we see the real
world because they do not always involve filming real objects from the real world.
They can show us imaginary objects that do not exist in the real world. As a result,
the transparency doctrine is unable to explain how these kinds of films and film
images allow us to see through them to the real world when there can be nothing
from the real world that was photographed or filmed to create them. Transparency
is therefore neither a necessary nor a sufficient feature of all films and film images.
Thus, the strength of the transparency doctrine is that it accords with the pop-
ular belief that photographic and cinematic images allow us to see the objects they
depict as if we were present at the scene viewing those objects ourselves. Yet when
we look at the creative ways in which photographers and filmmakers manipulate
and distort photographic and cinematic images, we realize that the transparency
doctrine falters. Rather than record the world as it actually is, photographic and
cinematic images involve creative manipulations that alter, distort, and recreate
reality, as illustrated by digital photography, animated films, computer-animated
films, and computer-generated film images. Thus, transparencys weakness lies in
failing to explain photographic and cinematic images that show us not the real
world but photographers and filmmakers contrived visions of how real or imag-
inary worlds should be represented.
The second doctrine that I discussed was cognitive illusionism. According
to this doctrine, photographic and cinematic images are illusionistic in the sense
 Summarizing the Doctrines of Film Realism |113

of making us have false beliefs in the reality of what those images represent. The
strength of cognitive illusionism is that it can explain some of our overt behav-
ioral responses to watching films, such as jumping out of our seats, leaving the
viewing room, and weeping uncontrollably. Since our behavioral responses are a
good indication of what we believe, cognitive illusionisms strength lies in explain-
ing our behavioral responses to watching films through linking our behavioral
responses to our beliefs.
The weakness with cognitive illusionism is that film viewers do not always
behave in ways that would indicate that they believe that what they are seeing
when they watch films is something real and presently occurring. When they
watch a film in which a woman is represented as being raped, they dont jump
out of their seats to help her, and when they watch a film in which people are
represented as being murdered, they do not call the police. But the problem with
this criticism is that not all films depict subject matter that if believed would pro-
voke such behaviors, and we cannot tell what film viewers are believing about the
reality of what they see depicted in film images simply by virtue of the behaviors
that they exhibit while watching film images (e.g., film viewers could be reacting
to their own private thoughts, beliefs, and imaginings, which have nothing to do
with their beliefs about the reality of what they see depicted in film images).
A better criticism of cognitive illusionism is that it ignores the fact that film
viewers typically do not believe that they are seeing real events because they are
aware of the artificial conditions for viewing films and the artistic nature of the
images. They are aware that they are sitting quietly in a dark room at a predeter-
mined time and place, seeing a rectangular screen with a projected image on it
from some distance away, and listening to stereo surround sound. They are also
aware of the artistic and creative elements in film images. They see the camera
angles, lighting effects, framing of shots, duration of shots, sequencing of shots,
editing of shots, and so on. Because they are aware of these aspects of film viewing
and film production, film viewers typically do not believe that they are seeing
real events that are occurring before them. Cognitive illusionism cannot therefore
satisfactorily explain the standard film-viewing experience.
However, rejecting cognitive illusionism does not mean that we have to reject
the entire illusionism doctrine, since there is also perceptual illusionism, or the
view that photographic and cinematic images do not cause film viewers to believe
falsely that what they are seeing is real: their perceptions are simply non-veridical.
They may seem to see someone being murdered in a film, even though no one is
really being murdered, or they may seem to see motion on the film screen, even
though there is no real motion there.
114|What Is Film?

The strength of perceptual illusionism is that it can explain our immediate

and visceral reactions to watching film images. When we see an object appear sud-
denly on the film screen, we become startled, even though we know and believe
that the object is not real, and when we watch a monster attacking people in film
images, we feel scared, even though we tell ourselves that the monster is not real
and that there is no reason to be afraid. These automatic and immediate responses
suggest that film viewers are experiencing some sort of perceptual illusion about
the reality of what they are seeing in film images. So even though film viewers can
keep from running out of the theater when viewing horrific scenes in films as a
result of their knowledge and belief that what they are seeing is not real, they can
still have immediate physical and emotional responses to their perceptions. Thus,
the strength of perceptual illusionism lies in its ability to explain why film viewers
respond as they do to what they are seeing, even when they know and believe that
what they are seeing is not real.
However, perceptual illusionism cannot explain all of our responses to watch-
ing films, since we can also be reacting to our thoughts and imaginings about
what we are seeing. When we see Captain Ahab, we can think about his obsession
with a white whale, and feel pity for him. We can also imagine what will happen
when he finds the whale, and feel anxious or afraid for him. Perceptual illusion-
ism therefore needs to be supplemented by cognitivist theories that explain film
viewers responses not just through their perceptions of film images, but through
their thoughts and imaginings about what the images represent.
Lastly, Gregory Curries doctrine of perceptual realism says that film viewing
is realistic because it approximates our normal experience of perceiving the real
world. Currie thinks that we have recognitional capacities that are triggered when
we see images of things that we have seen before. For example, if we see a film
image of a horse, we are able to match its spatial features to the spatial features of
horses that we have seen before, which we have stored away in our memories. This
recognition and matching of spatial features occurs at a subpersonal level which
we are not fully conscious of, and it presumably occurs in a localized area of our
brain. We then associate those spatial features to a pre-existing concept of a horse
to be able to make the judgment that we are seeing a horse. The strength of this
account is that it gives us a simple conceptual framework for understanding how
we recognize the objects depicted in film images.
But the weakness with this account is that it is inadequate in its explanation
of how perceptual recognition works to allow us to recognize pictorial objects by
matching their spatial features to the spatial features of things that we have seen
before in the real world. For instance, it does not explain how we are able to pick
 Summarizing the Doctrines of Film Realism |115

out the relevant spatial features to match from a vast array of diverse spatial fea-
tures, how we can associate new spatial features that we have never been exposed
to before, and how we are able to differentiate between the spatial features of real
objects in the real world and the spatial features of artistically created images of
objects in an imaginary world.
In addition, Currie says that films represent by forming traces of real-
world objects and events.1 But that does not explain animated and computer-
animated film images of imaginary objects that are drawn and painted by hand
rather than by photographing real-world objects. When watching such film
images, film viewers may not be matching the spatial features of these imaginary
objects to the spatial features of real-world objects, since there may not be any
spatial features in the real world that correspond to or resemble the spatial fea-
tures in these film images. As a result, perceptual realism is inadequate in its
explanations of how our perceptual recognition processes work and how pictorial
representations can be explained through resemblances to reality.
The common thread in all three of these doctrines is their assumption that
film images look like the objects they depict. But, as I showed, film images do
not always look like the objects they depict. Filmmakers manipulate film images
in creative ways that alter, distort, and transform reality, as well as create new
realities. For instance, they can use special effects images to show things that were
not present at the time of filming, and they can produce computer-animated
film images that do not always show us the real world as it looked at the time of
filming.
As a result, we need a new theory that can deal with the shortcomings of the
three doctrines. It needs to explain the artistic and creative elements in film images
that transform the real world being filmed, as well as create imaginary new worlds.
It needs to explain how film viewers can see illusions of reality in film images, even
when they know and believe that they are seeing a fictional representation. Finally,
it needs to explain animated and computer-animated films, whose subject matter
may not resemble reality and whose subject matter may not exist in the real world.
I believe that if we see films as creative works of art, rather than mechanical
recordings of reality, we can meet these needs. We can explain the existence of
artistic and creative films by appeal to the creative artistry involved in the produc-
tion of film images. We can explain how film images present film viewers with
illusions of reality through the use of illusionist effects. Finally, we can explain
both animated and computer-animated films by understanding the nature of
other two-dimensional works of art, such as drawings and paintings. In the next
chapter, I will introduce my new theory of the ontology of film.
 5

A New Theory of the

Ontology of Film

Introduction

In this chapter I will propose my new theory of the ontology of film, which says
that films and film images are creative works of art. I will call this new theory
neo-creationism because it introduces new elements to the traditional creation-
ist account. Just as the painter creatively manipulates the formal art elements of
line, shape, color, value, texture, volume, space, and movement in a painting, so
too the filmmaker creatively manipulates these formal art elements in his or her
film images. I will show how the film medium is not a mechanical and automatic
reproduction of reality but a creative medium that alters and distorts reality, as
well as creates new realities.
I will also discuss how the use of computer technology has changed the onto-
logical status of film images, making the manipulation of film images easier, faster,
and more commonplace. By explaining how filmmakers creatively manipulate
their images through the use of computers, I will show that the transparency and
perceptual realism doctrines are false. Animated films, computer-animated films,
and computer-generated films do not show us the real world by automatically
recording the appearances of real objects in the real world; rather they show us the
appearances of artistically created objects in imaginary, new virtual worlds.
118|What Is Film?

Films as Creative Works of Art

The question of what films are has been the subject of debate among film theorists
since the incipient stages of the film medium. The realists, such as Siegfried
Kracauer and Andr Bazin, viewed films as accurate recordings of reality, while
the creationists, such as Rudolph Arnheim, viewed films as creative works of art
that could alter and transform reality. What made the debate so difficult to resolve
was that the film medium was able to accommodate both views. There were films
which depicted reality, like those made in the 1890s in France by Louis and
Auguste Lumire, and there were abstract and creative films that altered reality,
as evidenced by the films of Georges Mlis. The Lumire brothers made films
that documented real objects and events, such as The Arrival of a Train at the
Station (1895), while Mlis employed animation, miniature sets, models, and
optical tricks to make imaginary worlds come alive, as in his film An Impossible
Voyage (1904), which shows a toy train moving through man-made scenery.
Rudolph Arnheim argued that the film medium is essentially artistic and cre-
ative, rather than a mere mechanical reproduction of reality.1 Siegfried Kracauer,
by contrast, argued that historically the realist tendency to record reality prevailed
over the creative tendency to transform reality.2 He wrote, The basic properties
[of film] are identical with the properties of photography. Film, in other words,
is uniquely equipped to record and reveal physical reality and, hence, gravitates
towards it.3 The French film critic Andr Bazin concurred with the view that
the film medium is designed to record reality. He wrote that the development of
cinema was inspired by an integral realism, a recreation of the world in its own
image, an image unburdened by the freedom of interpretation of the artist.4
Kendall Walton resurrects Kracauer and Bazins views through his transparency
doctrine, which says that when we look at photographic and cinematic images of
objects, we are actually seeing the objects themselves because the camera automat-
ically and mechanically records reality.5
Other contemporary philosophers believe that films are creative mediums
that go beyond a slavish recording of reality. H. Gene Blocker argues that photo-
graphs and films do not escape subjectivity through the mechanical and automatic
means of their production. He writes, Through the selection of subject, angle,
amount, and direction of light, background, sharpness of focus, and light-dark
contrastin all these ways the photographer represents the object from a subjec-
tive point of view, expressive of feeling and mood.6 He agrees with Arnheim that
films do not show us reality as it is, but reality as seen through a subjective point
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |119

of view. Thus, the debate about whether films mechanically and automatically
record reality continues to this day.
I believe that a number of different technological innovations have given
greater credibility to the notion that films are creative mediums and not slavish
recordings of reality. Computer-animated and computer-generated film images
involve creatively drawing and painting images on computer screens rather than
recording the appearances of real objects in the real world by photographing
or filming them. Now that film images are being created by hand-drawing and
hand-painting them on computer screens, it is easier to see how the creators of film
images are like other visual artists who hand-draw and hand-paint their images.
Filmmakers are like other visual artists in being able to creatively manipulate
the formal art elements of their mediums. Painters work with the eight formal
art elements of line, shape, color, value, texture, volume, space, and movement
to create their paintings. Filmmakers also manipulate these formal art elements
to create their film images. We can see how filmmakers manipulate these formal
art elements by freezing the frame, so that we only see a single image, and then
subject that image to a visual analysis akin to the visual analyses made by artists
and art historians who study the formal art elements of visual images. We can
then analyze the composition, the lighting effects, the textures, the colors, the
movement, etc., which all contribute to the appearance of the image. By so doing,
we can see how the creation of film images mirrors the creation of other two-
dimensional images, like drawings, photographs, and paintings. When we study
how film images are made in this way, we realize that the filmmaker makes many
creative decisions about how his or her images should look, just like other visual
artists do when they create their images.
There are many different ways in which filmmakers can creatively manipulate
film images. They can manipulate the subject matter, composition, types of shots,
editing of shots, motions, textures, and colors of film images. This list of features
is not meant to be exhaustive, nor are they a list of necessary and sufficient fea-
tures for the film medium. We can think of films that do not have any editing,
motions, or colors, but most contemporary films employ these features, and by
discussing how filmmakers creatively manipulate them, I intend to show how
films are artistic creations that do not always show us the real world as it looked
at the time of filming.
One might object that the manipulation of these features is not concerned
with the ontology of film, but with its style. Each one of these features in film
images can be said to yield a distinctive look, or style, by manipulating them in
certain ways. For instance, Bazin argues that long-take, deep focus shots yield a
120|What Is Film?

realistic film style, while montage shots, which involve editing, do not. Arnheim
argues that high and low angle shots yield an expressive style and that edited shots
do not result in a realistic style because they distort the space-time continuum.
However, my account is not concerned with issues of style because it is not saying
how one type of shot is more realistic or less realistic than another type of shot, or
how each film feature should be manipulated to create a distinctive stylistic look
or appearance. I argue that the fact that these film features are manipulated show
that films are creative works of art and not mechanical recordings of reality.
This book differs from other works by showing how the ontology of film, or
what a film is in its essence, is not about the style or the look of the images in a
film, or how the film images appear to film viewers. The ontology of film is about
what a film is in its being, as it exists, which really comes from what the creator of
the film does to make a film exist. Hence, if the filmmaker uses a creative process
to make his or her film, then that film is a creative work of art. If the filmmaker
uses a mechanical process without any creativity, then it is not a creative work of
art. As I have already shown in this book through many different examples, the
creator of the film, or filmmaker, makes a large number of choices and decisions
about how the images should look before the film viewers see them, and by so
doing, the film is in its essence a creative work of art.
The filmmaker has to select the subject matter, composition, sizes of objects,
relations of objects, movements of objects, colors of objects, lighting effects, and
sound effects. One might wonder how showing that these features are manipu-
lated proves that films are creative works of art, rather than mechanical recordings
of reality. In Chapter 1, I discussed different ways in which the photographer
manipulates the appearances of his or her images so that they do not show viewers
exactly what was in front of the camera at the time the shutter was snapped. Simi-
larly with film images, there are various creative manipulations that can take place
after filming so that when film viewers look at the final film images projected on
the film screen, they do not always see whatever was in front of the cameras at the
time filming occurred.
Hence, my argument against the ontology of photographs and films as slav-
ish and non-artistic recordings of reality is that to be a slavish and non-artistic
recording of reality, cameras have to record the exact appearances of things in the
real world on film, so that when we develop that film, we see the exact appear-
ances of things that existed in the real world at the time of their recording. But
since the appearances that the cameras record on film are manipulated through
an intentional, subjective, and human process, the ultimate images that we see
do not always show us the exact appearances of things in the real world that was
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |121

recorded by the cameras. Thus, photographic and film images are not slavish and
non-artistic recordings of reality that objectively and accurately show reality. They
are creative works of art that are intentionally made by human beings, which
express subjective and personal points of view.
An even more compelling argument for why many photographs and films
are not mechanical and automatic recordings of reality is that they no longer have
to be produced by cameras that photographically record the appearances of real
things in the real world. Digital photographs and computer-generated images
show the human artifice involved in making photographic and film images.
Painters create paintings by an intentional process of selecting and arranging the
composition, lighting effects, shapes and sizes of objects, relations and positions
of objects, colors of objects, and so forth on their canvases. Similarly, photogra-
phers and filmmakers create their images by an intentional process of selecting
and arranging similar things on computer screens. Once we see that these features
are manipulated in the same ways that other visual artists manipulate them, we
can reject the ontological claim that films are slavish and non-artistic recordings
of reality.
I support the creationist view that films are creative works of art, not mechan-
ical and automatic recordings of reality that accurately and slavishly show us
the exact appearances of things in the real world. My neo-creationism, unlike
Arnheims creationism, is supported by the revolutionary computer technology
of digitally producing photographic and film images from scratch without having
to use cameras to photographically record anything real. The use of computers
to creatively manipulate how photographic and film images look clearly demon-
strates that we no longer see what was filmed in reality when we look at photo-
graphic and film images. I will presently discuss both of these aspects of the cre-
ative manipulation of film images, which effectively justifies the rejection of the
realists ontological claim that films mechanically and automatically record reality
in an objective and accurate fashion.
There are some salient features of filmmaking that show its essential similar-
ity to the creation of a painting. First, filmmakers choose a subject matter that
they want to depict. That subject matter sometimes involve things that cannot
themselves be photographed because they do not exist in the real world, such
as monsters, alien creatures, cartoon characters, and supernatural beings. Film-
makers can make animated or computer-animated illustrations that are digitally
incorporated into the images of things actually photographed. For example, some
of the dinosaurs depicted in the film Jurassic Park III (2001) and the sequels to
that film were created by drawing and painting images of dinosaurs on computer
122|What Is Film?

screens, rather than by photographing models of dinosaurs, and then seamlessly

integrated them into the images of real actors and actresses. The realist view that
we see three-dimensional models of dinosaurs that were photographed is incorrect
with respect to these computer-generated images of dinosaurs. Another example
can be found in the film Deep Rising (1997), in which a tentacled sea monster is
drawn and painted on a computer screen and then seamlessly combined with a
film image of a real actor.
The process of digital compositing begins by scanning a film image into a
computer and digitizing it, or converting it into electronic signals of the binary
numbers 1 and 0. It can then be manipulated by artists in limitless ways, such as
manipulating shapes, sizes, colors, volumes, textures, and movements, and it can
be combined with images of objects that have been created solely on computers.
As a result, digital film images do not always show us real objects in the real world.
As Rafe McGregor explains in his 2013 article on the ontology of film,

Once live action material is digitised, the existing relation to reality is lost as the digital
images become raw material (grids of pixels) for manipulation. Digital technology has
eroded the distinctions between creation and modification, production and post-pro-
duction, as every imagewhatever its sourceis processed through various computer
programs before the final cut.7

Thus, reality is no longer the basis of the images in digital films, as it is with
the traditional 35mm films that were widely used before the advent of digital
technologies. Berys Gaut says, the greater range of ways of recording reality
made possible through digital manipulation and control of details strengthens the
claims of digital cinema to be an art form.8
I wholeheartedly agree with Gaut, since I believe that films are creative works
of art that dont always involve photographing or filming real objects. For example,
in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), all of the human characters were syn-
thetic figures created by hand-drawing and hand-painting them on computer
screens, not by photographing real human beings in the real world. As a result,
when filmmakers create films, they are not constrained by finding a subject matter
in the real world that they can photograph and film. They can create their subject
matter from scratch by drawing and painting them on sheets of celluloid acetate
or on computer screens. The selection of the subject matter is the first step in the
creation of a new, artificial reality.
Second, the filmmaker must arrange the compositional elements of film
images. He or she has to decide what objects are to be shown in the foreground,
middleground, and background of each image. The positioning of objects in these
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |123

perspectival planes reflects their relative importance. Objects in the foreground are
usually the important objects that the filmmaker wants to call the viewers attention
to, while objects in the background are usually of lesser importance. This object
positioning can take place either prior to filming or after filming with editing tech-
niques. With digital editing techniques, the filmmaker can move objects around
within the image by cutting and pasting them into new positions. Through the use
of three-dimensional computer models, filmmakers can rotate objects in a virtual
reality space and replicate them, so that more than one object is depicted in the
image. Thus, the compositional arrangement of objects that one sees on the film
screen may not reflect the arrangement of objects found in the real world.
The filmmaker also decides what distances to shoot objects from by choosing
a close-up shot, a medium shot, or a long shot and what camera angles to use,
either a straight-on angle (where the camera films from the eye level of a normal
person), a low angle (where the camera films from below the object), a high angle
(where the camera films from above the object), or an oblique angle (where the
camera films from a tilted angle, so the object being filmed is oriented diagonally
in the picture frame). These distances can also be manipulated in the editing room
by enlarging and reducing techniques. For instance, a shot of a small object in the
background can be made to appear large and in the foreground by zooming in on
that object and cropping the surrounding areas.
The filmmaker can also influence how film viewers perceive the relative sizes
of objects by manipulating the positions of objects in each perspectival plane. An
object in the foreground may appear large by putting smaller objects around it,
and an object in the background may appear small by putting larger objects in the
foreground. Also, through computer-generated images, objects that were not in
the initial scene that was filmed can be introduced later to facilitate such perspec-
tival effects. In the film Gladiator (2000), the tiny people sitting in the Colosseum
seats were computer-generated and then incorporated into the final film images to
give the impression that the Colosseum was huge.
Since each image is bounded by a rectangular border, the filmmaker has to
determine how to fit the objects into this frame, and how that arrangement will
affect film viewers. The outlines of shapes and objects within these borders can
be used to move the viewers eyes around the frame, just as they do in paintings.
Triangular-shaped or circular-shaped compositions enhance the visual movement
around the rectangular frame more readily than do rectangular-shaped composi-
tions. Also, diagonal lines facilitate movement of the eyes around the composition,
as well as avoiding the placement of objects in the dead center of the frame. The
filmmaker creatively arranges the subject matter of film images with these rect-
124|What Is Film?

angular borders in mind, just as painters creatively arrange the subject matter of
their paintings with the rectangular borders of their canvases in mind. Filmmakers
can experiment with different compositional arrangements through a variety of
editing techniques.
With computer-generated images, filmmakers can completely alter the com-
positional arrangement by moving objects into different positions, inserting new
objects, or deleting objects. As a result, what film viewers see when they look at
film images may not accurately reflect what was filmed in reality. For example,
in Forrest Gump (1994), the character Lt. Dan is shown without legs from below
his knees, while in reality the actor Gary Sinise playing that character had both
his legs intact, and the filmmaker made it appear as though he had no lower legs
by editing out his legs. Film viewers may be seeing artificial arrangements and
distortions of real objects or imaginary objects that are created by using comput-
ers, as with the imaginary objects in animated films, such as the fairytale charac-
ters in Shrek (2001).
In arranging the composition, the filmmaker also creatively manipulates the
depth-of-field and perspective of the film images by selecting the camera angles
and the types of camera lenses. The focal length of the lens (the distance from the
lens to the film in the camera) affects the depth-of-field and perspective of the
film image. The depth-of-field influences perspective relations by determining
which planes will be in focus. The filmmaker can choose a wide-angle lens with a
short focal length to create the impression of great depth-of-field, a normal lens
of medium focal length to avoid perspective distortions, a telephoto lens with a
long focal-length to flatten out the space and to show very little depth, or a zoom
lens to vary the focal lengths.9 Shots taken with telephoto lenses, which focus on
one plane only, result in distortions like the blurring of objects that are not in
that one focused plane. In The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), when the characters
played by Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson are being shot at in the narrow
hallway of a train station, the telephoto shots show their faces in focus in the mid-
dleground, but the background and foreground objects are blurred. Since such
shots do not show much depth, they can create the illusion that everything is on
the same plane. In Koyaanisqatsi (1999), an airplane appears to be in the midst
of a crowded highway, but it was really at an airport far away from the highway.10
Different types of camera angles and lenses can thus involve different perceptions
of depth and perspective.
As part of the compositional arrangement, the filmmaker also selects the
amount, intensity, direction, and source of light to create different lighting effects
(or values of light and dark). The artificial lights that are typically used while
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |125

filming dont always resemble natural lighting conditions in the real world. Film-
makers commonly use floodlights, spotlights, strobe lights, fluorescent lights,
and other types of artificial light sources to illuminate scenes, and they use fil-
ters in front of light sources to affect the color of light and to indicate different
times of day, for example, orange filters to indicate sunset light or blue filters to
indicate nighttime light. In addition, filmmakers can employ different kinds of
lighting effects to achieve different visual results, such as frontal lighting to create
a flat-looking image, backlighting to create silhouettes, underlighting to create
dramatic horror effects, top lighting to bring out details from above, key lighting
to cast strong shadows, fill lighting to soften or eliminate key lighting shadows,
high-key lighting to create low contrast between bright and dark areas, lighter
shadows, and a soft light, and low-key lighting to create stronger contrasts, darker
shadows, and a hard light for depicting somber and mysterious scenes.11
Filmmakers also control the lightness and darkness of the final film images by
overexposing or underexposing the images during their development and print-
ing. Lighting effects can also be digitally created and manipulated. If areas of the
image are too light, they can be digitally darkened, or if areas of the image are
too dark they can be digitally lightened. Thus, the values of light and dark in the
film image dont always reflect the values of light and dark in the real world at
the time of filming. By selecting and arranging the positions of objects, depth-
of-field, perspective, light sources, and lighting effects, the filmmaker creates the
compositional arrangement of each film image. Compositional arrangement is
therefore another important way in which filmmakers can creatively manipulate
film images.
Third, the filmmaker has to decide what types of shots to use, the order and
duration of shots, and how to edit shots. There are a variety of shots that the
filmmaker can use to alter and distort reality. With a fade-out shot, the filmmaker
can gradually darken the image, and with a fade-in shot, he can gradually lighten
the image; with a dissolve shot, he can make one image appear as another image
disappears; and with an Iris shot, he can block out one part of the image, while
another part, usually in the shape of a circle or oval, retains the main image.12 The
filmmaker can also use a freeze shot in which a single frame is reprinted many
times so that it looks like a still photograph when it is projected, a process shot in
which the background scenery is projected onto a translucent screen while the real
action is filmed in the foreground, and a matte shot in which two separate shots
are printed onto a single piece of film.13
Traveling mattes, where the actors and actresses are photographed against a
blank (usually blue) background, allow action to be filmed against the backdrop
126|What Is Film?

of painted settings, as in the scenes depicting the flights of Superman and the
trio of superhuman villains in Superman II (1980).14 When looking at these
film images, film viewers are not seeing a real setting, like a studio set, but
an artificial setting that has been hand-painted. In animated and computer-
animated films, the settings can be hand-painted by using computers. For instance,
in the animated film Shrek (2001), the fairytale settings were created by anima-
tors drawing and painting images on computers. In the film What Dreams May
Come (1998), the surrealistic settings were computer-generated and combined
with the images of real actors. As a result, it appears that the character Chris
Nielson (played by Robin Williams) is walking through his imagined view of
Heaven as an expressionistic landscape painting with moving paint. Also, in the
film Life of Pi (2012), the computer-generated Bengal tiger (named Richard
Parker) is seen interacting with a real human actor (Suraj Sharma) on a tiny
lifeboat as they travel through computer-generated settings of expansive oceans
and panoramic skies. The real human actor was never actually in a lifeboat with
a real Bengal tiger during filming because that would have been too dangerous
for the actor. The other animalshyena, orangutan, zebra, and meerkatswere
all computer-generated as well. In the film Gladiator (2000), the upper tiers
and retractable roof of the Colosseum were computer-generated images, and in
the film Avatar (2009), the exotic, alien world Pandora and its alien creatures
(such as the banshees, thanators, direhorses, and viperwolves) were also created
by using computers. Finally, many of the aerial combat scenes in which space
ships fly around against backdrops of breathtaking skies in the film Star Wars:
The Force Awakens (2015) were entirely computer-generated. Thus, when film
viewers watch films, they are not always seeing real objects in real settings.
The filmmaker also chooses the order of shots to convey the temporal order
of fictional events in the story. This order does not necessarily reflect the order of
events that was seen at the time of filming. For example, scenes that were shot
early in production may be shown at the end of the film, while scenes shot late in
production may be shown early in the film. The filmmaker must also decide how
long shots will last on the film screen. The duration of time that elapses during
the filming of a single shot does not always reflect the duration of time that the
shot takes to be seen on the film screen. A shot that took a few minutes to film
could last five minutes on the film screen, or a shot that took five minutes to film
could last a few minutes on the film screen. In Eisensteins film Potemkin (1925),
the action sequence of the people of St. Petersburg running up the steps into
the guns of Czarist soldiers actually takes place in a few minutes, but because of
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |127

the numerous detail shots of feet, faces, guns, and falling that are cut into the
sequence, it seems to go on for a much longer period of time.15 The filmmaker can
also distort the reality that was filmed through a jump cut shot, in which the ends
of the shot are spliced together around a cut-out middle section. He or she can
also use cutaway shots and dissolve shots to cover discontinuities or to condense
the action. By varying film speeds, the filmmaker can also affect the duration of
shots. For example, shots can be seen in slow motion or fast motion by varying
the speed at which the film images are projected. In these ways, the filmmaker can
creatively manipulate film images for predetermined visual effects.
The filmmaker also creatively manipulates the shots by editing them, or cut-
ting and pasting them into different arrangements. Superimposition, where one
image is laid above another image, creates an illusion that the two separately pho-
tographed images are on the same plane. In the film The Mask (1994), images
of the animated mask are superimposed on images of Jim Carreys face to create
the illusion that wearing the mask is mysteriously transfiguring his face. There
are also process shots, composite shots, matte shots, and traveling matte shots,
which involve combining strips of film to create a single shot. Through optical
printers, the shots can be cut and rearranged in many different ways. The optical
printer is a device that rephotographs a film, copying all or part of each original
frame onto another reel of film. The filmmaker can use the optical printer to
skip frames (accelerating the action when projected), reprint a frame at desired
intervals (slowing the action by stretch printing), stop the action (repeating a frame
over and over, to freeze the projected action for seconds or minutes), or reverse the
action.16 Through this editing process, the filmmaker can creatively manipulate
the order and appearance of film images, so film viewers see something different
from anything filmed in reality.
Fourth, by manipulating camera movements, the filmmaker can creatively
manipulate the appearance of motion in each shot, rendering it different from any
motion occurring at the time of filming. In Vertigo (1958), the dolly-out, zoom-in
shots make objects appear quickly in focus and out of focus, thereby giving film
viewers an illusion of vertigo that supposedly reflects the vertigo experienced by
the character played by Jimmy Stewart. Also, hand-held shots are usually more
shaky and jerky, since it is hard to keep the camera still in ones hand while one
is walking or running. As a result, they can create shots that heighten tension
or anxiety, as in The Blair Witch Project (1999), in which teenagers make a scary
movie by shooting scenes with a hand-held camera as they run through the woods
at night.
128|What Is Film?

The speed of motion that we see on the film screen depends on the speed
at which the film was shot, as well as its rate of projection on the film screen
(the standard rate to perceive normal motion is usually 24 frames per second for
both).17 The more frames per second shot, the slower the motion on the screen
will appear; the fewer frames per second shot, the faster the motion on the screen
will appear.18 In The One (2001), the filmmaker shows images of people fighting
in super slow motion, which is quite unlike the motion of people who are fighting
in the real world. Filmmakers can also employ reverse motion, which involves
photographing some action with the film running backward. Through the freeze
frame, where a single image is reprinted for many frames, the filmmaker can freeze
the apparent motion on the screen. Also, in time-lapse photography, each frame is
exposed at a predetermined interval, which can vary from a few seconds to several
months. In this way, the passage of real time can be manipulated to show changes
in objects over time. The film Koyaanisqatsi (1983) is a good example of time-
lapse photography being used to show how the hectic life of the city compares to
the serene life of nature. Filmmakers can also make stationary objects appear to
move by shooting one frame of those objects, altering their positions, and then
shooting another frame, so that when the film is projected, these incremental
changes pile on top of each, and we experience the illusion of movement on the
movie screen.19 In these different ways, filmmakers can creatively manipulate the
appearance of motion in films.
Fifth, filmmakers creatively manipulate the sounds that film viewers hear
when they watch films. Films frequently employ synchronous sound, which is
sound that occurs at the same time that the image is being recorded, as well
as non-synchronous sound, which is sound that occurs at a different time than
the recording of the image. The non-synchronous film sounds added to the film
sequences at a later time generally do not record the sounds that were heard when
the scene was being filmed. The ominous staccato music that we hear when a
man-eating great white shark attacks unsuspecting victims in Jaws (1975) is cer-
tainly not true to life, and the creepy background music we hear in horror films,
like Psycho (1960), is certainly not indicative of the sounds we hear in real life.
Filmmakers use such non-diegetic music to provoke emotional responses among
film viewers. Sounds and sound effects that do not correspond to any sounds
that were heard at the time of filming can be artificially created and added to the
film images later. Sounds can be electronically distorted, enhanced, synthesized,
created, and recreated. As a result, film viewers may not be hearing any real sounds
from the real world.
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |129

Sixth, the filmmaker can creatively manipulate the textures and colors of film
images. With digital technology, the colors and textures of film images can be arti-
ficially created. In Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), each strand of hair on
the head of Dr. Aki Ross and the beard of Dr. Sid was drawn and painted by artists
on computers to simulate the look of real hair. Also, in Monsters, Inc. (2001), each
individual strand of hair on the textured coat of the furry blue-and-green monster
(named Sully) was drawn and painted to simulate how real hair would look and
move on a real hairy creature. The colors and textures of hair on these characters
were artificially created on computers, rather than by photographing real hair.
Similarly, in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), a new computer software
program was used to create the dynamics of every strand of fur on every ape but
also the way the light bounces through every strand of fur.20 As a result, when
film viewers see colors and textures in film images, they are not always seeing real
colors and real textures from the real world. They may instead be seeing artificial
colors and textures that are created through the use of computers.
In addition, different kinds of film stocks can be used to yield different kinds
of textures and colors. Some film stocks yield black-and-white images, while
others yield color images (e.g., Technicolor). The film stock can also affect the
degree of contrast and the graininess of the image. A fast film stock that is sensi-
tive to light produces high contrasts and grainy images, in which lines are fuzzy
and colors are washed out, while a slow film stock that is insensitive to light pro-
duces low contrasts and can better capture lines and colors.21 The tonality of the
image can be affected by the amount of light passing through the lens, which can
be influenced by filters put in front of the lens. For instance, a filter can block out
enough light to make day seem like night. Different film stocks, amounts of light,
and filters can also be used to create different colors and textures in film images.
Furthermore, through special effects technology, filmmakers can create images
of imaginary things that one could never see in the real world. Through the use
of optical printers, which allows images from two reels of film to be incorporated
together, we can see real actors placed in the same scene with animated fictional
objects. In Jason and the Argonauts (1963), we see a real actor battling with bellig-
erent skeletons. With computers now performing the functions of optical printers
more quickly and easily, the possibilities for such imaginative recombinations of
film images are endless. In the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), we see an
animated cartoon rabbit physically interacting with a real human actor; in Forrest
Gump (1994), we see a real actor, Tom Hanks, shaking hands with President John
F. Kennedy (a physical impossibility since Kennedy was dead at the time the film
was made); in Indian in the Cupboard (1995), we see one child actor holding
130|What Is Film?

another adult actor in the palm of his hand; and in The Time Machine (2002),
we see real actors fighting computer-generated monsters from the future. Also, in
the film Gladiator (2000), the actor Oliver Reeds face was digitally scanned onto
a different actors face because he passed away from a heart attack before scenes
featuring him were shot. These creative special effects result in film images that
alter and distort reality, as well as create new realities.
Finally, animated and computer-animated films do not show film viewers real
objects from the real world because they dont involve photographing or filming
real objects from the real world. Animation is a visual technique that creates the
illusion of motion through filming a series of drawings, whose images appear
to move when the film is rapidly shown through a projector.22 Cel animation, in
which the hand-drawn images are traced and then painted on clear sheets of cel-
luloid acetate, is the most common technique used to make animated cartoons.23
Today, however, computer techniques have replaced cells. The animators can
scan images into the computer, add colors to them, and combine elements, like
painted backgrounds, to them. In computer-generated imagery (CGI), the com-
puter creates the characters and backgrounds and animates them without actually
photographing either cels or figures.24 Animated films made entirely with CGI,
or computer-animated films, include Toy Story (1995), Antz (1998), A Bugs Life
(1998), Shrek (2001), Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005),
WALL-E (2008), and A Chistmas Carol (2009). These films do not show film
viewers the real world, but an artificially created world of imaginary things. Also,
in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), we do not see real human actors,
real sets, and real props. Instead, we see artistically rendered images of imaginary
characters, imaginary settings, and imaginary objects. The transparency doctrine
therefore does not apply to these computer-animated films, in which we see imag-
inary worlds that are artistically created.
Even films that combine computer-generated images with images of real
objects show us things that were not present in the real world at the time of
filming. They can show thousands of people where only a few hundred people (or
less) were present when the film was shot, as with the Colosseum scene in Glad-
iator (2000) and the final battle scene in Planet of the Apes (2001). Weta Digital,
a digital visual effects company in New Zealand, created computer-animation
software called MASSIVE (Multiple Agent Simulation System In Virtual Envi-
ronment) that is used for creating large numbers of individual entities that can act
independently, such as the massive armies of people in battle scenes, large groups
of animals, and masses of CGI creatures in such films as The Lord of the Rings
film series (2001, 2002, 2003), King Kong (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: The
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |131

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Avatar (2009), Rise of the Planet of the
Apes (2011), Life of Pi (2012), and The Hobbit film series (2012, 2013, 2014).25
Filming real people and real objects in such large numbers (hundreds, thousands,
and even millions) would be way too difficult for cameras to record in real time, so
this new technology was incredibly useful for creating computer-generated images
of large numbers of virtual people and virtual objects.
Filmmakers can also create computer-generated characters that do not exist in
real life but that appear to interact with real human actors and actresses, such as
the liquid metal killing machine (T-1000) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991),
the friendly ghost in Caspar (1995), the rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
(1998), Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode IThe Phantom Menace (1999), the
invisible man in Hollow Man (2000), the teddy bear, blue fairy, and futuristic
robots in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), the lion Aslan, gryphon, and centaurs
in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), the
robot Ultron in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and the pirate queen Maz
Kanata and the Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
These CGI characters are typically artists creations that are drawn and painted
by hand on computers, as with Caspar and Jar Jar Binks. Ultron (performed by
James Spader), Maz Kanata (performed by Lupita Nyongo), and Snoke (per-
formed by Andy Serkis) are computer-generated characters that are not real per-
sons or objects. While it is true that the movements of real actors and actresses
were captured by cameras, the recordings of their movements were next put into
a database of information on computers, and then that information was used
to create a completely digital character. The filmmakers could have left out the
camera recordings of the real movements by the real actors and actresses and their
CGI characters would still exist, though their movements might not look as real-
istic. As a result, camera recordings of real things in the real world are not needed
for creating computer-generated characters or other computer-generated things,
like animals, objects, settings, and scenes, in film images. Artists can create such
film images solely from their imagination by using computers.
In addition, through computer-generated images, filmmakers can create an
illusion of morphing objects, which involves a seamless transformation of one
object into another. When film viewers see film representations of morphing
objects, they experience a perceptual illusion in which they seem to see one object
really change into another object. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), they
seem to see the T-1000 (a liquid metal killing machine) change its shape to match
the shapes of animate and inanimate objects that it comes into contact with,
and in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2002), they experience a perceptual
132|What Is Film?

illusion in which they seem to see a black cat transforming into a female school-
teacher. These illusions are properly called perceptual illusions because the film
viewer seems to see a real transformation take place that is not in fact a real trans-
formation, even when the film viewer knows and believes that the transformation
is not real and that it is a visual illusion. Filmmakers can therefore show film
viewers things that they could not possibly see in the real world.
Through computer-generated images, film viewers can see imaginary crea-
tures that can do astounding things. In the film Joes Apartment (1996), for
instance, the cockroaches talk, sing, and dance. These roaches were not created by
photographing roaches from real life. Rather, they were created by drawing and
painting images of roaches on a computer screen and adding random movements
to these virtual roaches to create the illusion that they were swarming on top of
the bodies of real human actors, like Jerry OConnell, who plays Joe. The virtual
roaches were also superimposed onto the image of a real hardwood floor through
composite shots to create the illusion that the virtual roaches were real roaches on
a real hardwood floor.26
Also, in the film series Men in Black (1997, 2002, and 2012), many of the
space aliens were computer-generated creatures, such as Edgar the Bug (Men in
Black, 1997), an 11-foot-tall alien that looks like a giant cockroach, and Mikey
(Men in Black, 1997), an amphibious alien that is made entirely through CGI
when hes shown running away to avoid capture in the beginning of the film.
Finally, in the blockbuster film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), the ten-
tacled creatures called Rathtars were entirely computer-generated. They have
funnel-shaped mouths with razor-sharp teeth, and they eat whatever they
can grab with their long tentacles. Thus, we can see through these computer-
generated creatures that films can show us things that do not exist in the real
world and things do not look like anything that exists in the real world.
Since publishing my doctoral dissertation The Ontology of Film in 2002, there
has been an increase in the numbers of films with computer-generated images
because of faster computer speeds, higher computing power, new technologies
(like performance capture and motion capture), better software programs to
create CGI in films (like MASSIVE and Tissue), and the greater popularity and
appeal of these kinds of images among filmmakers and film viewers. For example,
many of the characters in The Hobbit film series (2012, 2013, and 2014) were
created by computers, such as the orcs and goblins. Perhaps the most fasci-
nating computer-generated creature in that film series was the fire-breathing,
winged dragon called Smaug. This incredible dragon was created by key frame
animation (meaning it was animated by hand) and by using an innovative
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |133

computer software program called Tissue that was created by Weta Digital
to make the dragons muscles look realistic.27 That computer technology also
allowed animators to make Smaug move in realistic ways, as when he is moving
his long neck and flying.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) was the first film to utilize real-
time motion capture to put the recordings of the real actor Andy Serkis into
a computer-generated character Gollum, so that his actions instantly reflected
the actions of his computer-generated character. Andy Serkis also gave another
brilliant performance of a CGI character (Caesar, the intelligent chimpanzee who
leads a group of apes) in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). In that film, he
wore a motion capture suit with strategically placed reflective dots on it, and then
cameras would beam out infrared light that reflected off those dots so that his
various movements could be recorded and put onto a computer and then animators
could work with that digital data to create his computer-generated character.28 In
addition to the digital apes in that film, Weta Digital, the digital effects company
founded by Peter Jackson in 1993, created other computer-generated animals,
such as a herd of elk, a grizzly bear, and horses. Finally, in The Avengers (2012),
real-time motion capture was used so that the actor Mark Ruffalo was able to
perform as both his fictional character Dr. Bruce Banner and his fictional computer-
generated character the Hulk. Previously, the Hulk character was done entirely in
CGI without any of the real actor being present, as in the film Hulk (2003). In
that film, the Hulk was clearly not as realistic as Ruffalos Hulk. Integrating a real
human actor with a computer-generated character at the same time shows how far
computer technology has progressed.
By using new technologies like performance capture and motion capture,
filmmakers can make their computer-generated characters appear more lifelike.
For instance, motion capture was used in the film The Polar Express (2004) and
Beowulf (2007) to capture the body motions and facial expressions of real actors
to make the computer-generated characters more lifelike. The problem is that
when you make a computer-generated character look too lifelike, you run into the
problem of the uncanny valley where the viewer thinks it looks eerily uncanny
and unlife-like.29 Thus, the characters in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001),
The Polar Express (2004), and Beowulf (2007) have been described as falling into
the uncanny valley and looking creepy.
However, there are some CGI characters that have fooled viewers into think-
ing they were real, like the CGI character of the actor Jeff Bridges as a young man
in Tron: Legacy (2010) and the CGI character of the actor Brad Pitt as an old man
in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), but for the most part, viewers are
134|What Is Film?

not fooled by such CGI characters. For instance, they realize that the pirate with
tentacles around his face named Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean film
series (Dead Mans Chest in 2006 and At Worlds End in 2007) is not a real human
character, but a computer-generated character (though some film reviewers actu-
ally thought he was the real actor wearing prosthetic makeup). They also realize
that the young actor Arnold Schwarzenegger could not be fighting with the much
older version of himself as he appears to do in the film Terminator: Genysis (2015).
Despite the ongoing problem of how to make CGI characters look more real
without at the same time making them look eerily unreal, there has still been a
steady increase in the number of computer-generated characters in contemporary
films. For examples, consider the computer-generated cyborg that coughs named
General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), the villain
that changes into moving sand named Sandman in Spider-Man 3 (2007), and
the elfish creature named Dobby in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010).
The most realistic CGI character to date is probably Gollum in the Lord of the
Rings film series (20012003). The voice, body language, and facial expressions
of Gollum were made by using the voice, body language, and facial expressions of
the real actor Andy Serkis, thus making the computer-generated character appear
more lifelike. While certain aspects of Gollums face look eerily unreal, such as his
large, bulging eyes, pale skin, and pointy teeth, his overall facial features and facial
expressions are strikingly realistic. Perhaps his unrealistic and animalistic features
keep him from falling into the uncanny valley because they cause film viewers
to not have any expectation that he is human, and hence they are not as disturbed
by the fact that he looks like a human.
One way to avoid the pitfall of the uncanny valley then could be to intro-
duce non-human elements into the facial features and bodies of computer-
generated characters. In the film Avatar (2009), the bright blue skins of the
humanoid Navi and their Navi human hybrids called avatars may have been
designed to fulfill the purpose of avoiding the uncanny valley, since film viewers
dont expect such creatures to be human or even to look human if they have such
strange blue skin. As a result, the filmmakers avoided the problem of those charac-
ters looking creepy to film viewers, unlike some of the characters in Final Fantasy:
The Spirits Within (2001) and The Polar Express (2004). More studies need to be
done to determine if introducing non-human elements to human-looking CGI
characters can avoid the problem of the uncanny valley and thus make film
viewers perceive such characters as being deserving of their empathy rather than
their revulsion.
 A New Theory of the Ontology of Film |135

With more advances in computer programs and computer technologies, there

may even come a time when CGI characters are completely indistinguishable
from real actors and actresses. When that happens, real actors and real actresses
might not be needed to act in films, and since real actors and real actresses usually
cost more than CGI ones, filmmakers may decide to use their CGI counterparts
instead. At this point in time, though, there are interesting hybrids of real and
unreal elements in computer-generated films. Some film reviewers have suggested
that the actor Andy Serkis should have received an Academy Award for his role
in helping to create the Gollum character through the use of his own body and
facial movements being incorporated into that CGI character, and they add that
the reason he didnt get nominated for such an award was because he was play-
ing a CGI character. Perhaps we should allow actors and actresses to be recog-
nized for their acting abilities even when they help to create their CGI characters.
Furthermore, the artists responsible for creating the CGI characters should get
recognition for their talents too, as they have already done in the category of best
visual effects.
When watching such films nowadays, viewers often wonder about what is
real and what is not real in them, and they are often surprised and amazed at how
such computer-generated images can look so lifelike and realistic. Nevertheless,
some CGI is still not as convincing or believable as others, and theres still the
problem of computer-generated characters that we are repulsed by because they
fall into the uncanny valley. CGI has come a long way since when I wrote my
doctoral dissertation in 2002, but I am confident that CGI will continue to evolve
and produce even more spectacular images in the future.
In conclusion, there are many different ways in which filmmakers can cre-
atively manipulate film images. They can creatively manipulate the subject matter,
composition, type and duration of shots, editing of shots, motions, sounds,
textures, and colors of film images. Furthermore, computer technology allows for
the creation of film images without having to photograph any real objects from
the real world. Images can be drawn and painted on computer screens, just as
painters draw and paint their images on canvas. These images are then digitally
incorporated directly onto the film images themselves. Since there is no need to
photograph real objects from the real world to create film images, the transpar-
ency doctrine that film viewers see real objects when they look at film images of
objects is no longer tenable. Curries perceptual realism is also inadequate, since
film representations need not be photographic representations of real objects.
They can also be computer-generated representations of imaginary objects. As a
136|What Is Film?

result, when film viewers see film images, they are not always seeing representa-
tions of real objects in the real world.
In this chapter, I showed some of the many different ways in which film-
makers creatively manipulate film images. These creative manipulations clearly
demonstrate that films do not slavishly record reality through a mechanical and
automatic recording process. Instead, films alter, distort, and transform reality, as
well as create new realities. In doing these things, films show themselves to be cre-
ative works of art. By showing how films are creative works of art, I have refuted
the realist claim that film viewers see real objects in the real world when they look
at film images. First, by discussing the diverse ways in which filmmakers alter the
appearances of their photographically produced film images, I showed how film
viewers do not see the real objects that were filmed when they look at the final film
images projected on film screens. Second, by discussing animated and computer-
animated films which are not photographically produced, I showed how film
viewers do not see the real objects that were filmed because these films show them
imaginary objects that dont exist in the real world. Thus, the creative manipula-
tion of artistic features in photographically produced film images and the artistic
creation of imaginary subject matter in animated and computer-animated film
images both show that the realist thesis is false.
 Conclusion

I believe that my account of films as creative works of art improves upon the three
philosophical doctrines of film realism because it retains their strengths and elim-
inates their weaknesses. It retains the popular appeal of the transparency doctrine
because it allows for the fact that there are photographic aspects involved in film
production, so films can indeed show us the way objects looked at the time of
filming. But it also shows that films are more than just a series of snapshots that
records reality in a mechanical way. Filmmakers can manipulate every element
that can appear in a film image or series of film images. They can manipulate
the subject matter, composition, type and duration of shots, editing of shots,
motions, sounds, textures, and colors of film images. They can also employ ani-
mated images, computer-animated images, and computer-generated images that
show film viewers things that do not necessarily exist in the real world.
My account also addresses the problem with cognitive illusionism, which is
that film viewers typically do not believe that they are in the presence of real
events when they watch films. My account explains how film viewers do not
experience cognitive illusions when they watch films because they are aware of the
artistic and creative elements in film images and the artificial viewing conditions
under which they see films, which call attention to the fact that what is being seen
138|What Is Film?

are visual images of fictional events that are being projected onto a film screen and
not real events that are presently occurring.
Since films are creative works of art, there can be illusionistic elements within
them that can cause film viewers to see perceptual illusions of reality. When they
see what appears to be continuous motion in a film image, they experience an
illusion that that motion is real. They do not see the series of still photographs
that are used to create the illusion of motion because each photograph is shown
too rapidly for their eyes to distinguish them. As a result, they may perceive real
motion on the film screen when they are really seeing an illusion of motion.
Tromp loeil paintings, or illusionistic paintings that depict subjects realisti-
cally, had similar effects on their viewers. Illusionistic Baroque ceiling paintings,
like those of Andrea Pozzo, were designed for people to perceive perspectival reces-
sion into deep space, when in reality the ceilings were much flatter than they were
perceived to be and lacked much real depth. From ideal viewing positions, such
as directly under the midpoint of a painted ceiling scene, viewers would see an
illusion of a deeply receding space. But at other viewing positions (such as along
the perimeters of the room), viewers would see that the ceiling actually joined the
adjacent walls at right angles, which destroyed the illusion of a deep and receding
space. My account allows for these and other illusionistic effects because it rec-
ognizes that the same techniques that artists employ to create illusions in other
works of art, like drawings and paintings, can be used to create illusions in film
images. As I have shown, filmmakers can manipulate spatial depth, perspective,
movement, relative sizes of objects, colors, lighting effects, etc. in order to create
various illusions in their images. My account therefore allows for the creation of
and experience of perceptual illusions in films.
Filmmakers can also use computer technology to facilitate film viewers
abilities to experience perceptual illusions. As I have shown, through computer-
generated images of morphing objects, film viewers can experience a perceptual
illusion of seeming to see one thing seamlessly change into another thing. For
example, film viewers can experience a perceptual illusion of seeing the character
Dr. Bruce Banner transform into The Incredible Hulk when watching The Aveng-
ers (2012). Even when they know and believe that such a transformation is not
really happening, the perceptual illusion continues, which shows that perceptual
illusions are cognitively impenetrable. My account allows for these perceptual
illusions because it says that film images do not have to record the appearances of
actual things, but can also create the appearances of imagined things that do not
exist in reality.
 Conclusion|139

Finally, my revised account improves upon the theory of perceptual realism

because it says that film representations are not always of real things or real events
in the real world. Just like other artists, filmmakers can manipulate the appearance
of reality in their images, so that what is depicted in them does not necessarily
look like what was seen in reality at the time of filming. The spatial and temporal
relations that are represented in film images may therefore not resemble the spa-
tial and temporal relations that film viewers typically perceive and experience in
the real world. By observing the ways in which filmmakers creatively manipulate
the appearance of reality in film images, we can see how film images need not be
accurate recordings of reality.
An additional defect of perceptual realism is that it cannot successfully explain
how film viewers recognize resemblances to reality by picking out the relevant
spatial features in film images and matching them to spatial features they have seen
before in the real world. A better way to understand how the recognition process
works is to look at how we perceive the visible features of two-dimensional objects
in works of art, since the visible features within two-dimensional film images have
more in common with the visible features in other two-dimensional works of art
than they do with visible features of three-dimensional objects in the real world.
Just as artists manipulate the formal art elements of line, shape, color, value, texture,
volume, space, and movement in their visual images, filmmakers manipulate these
art elements in their film images. When we look at film images with an eye to these
formal art elements and how they are creatively manipulated, we can better discern
the ways in which the film world is created to look like the real world, as well as
discern the ways in which the film world is created to look unlike the real world.
Hence, we can see how resemblances to reality are not an inherent feature of the
medium, but an artistically contrived, representational feature.
Thus, I believe that my account is an improvement upon the three philosoph-
ical doctrines of film realism because it retains their strengths and eliminates their
weaknesses. It shows that even though films can be mechanical and automatic
reproductions of reality, they typically go beyond a slavish copying of reality. They
creatively alter and transform the appearances of the real world being filmed, and
they can create new virtual worlds. It also shows that films can present film viewers
with perceptual illusions, such as the illusion of motion, when they watch films.
Finally, it shows that films dont just record the actual appearances of real things
in the real world to represent fictional things. They also represent the fictional
through artistic creations of imaginary things that are drawn and painted from
artists imaginations rather than from photographing or filming anything real.
140|What Is Film?

According to my revised account, films are creative works of art, in which

a filmmaker manipulates formal art elements to create imaginary new worlds,
rather than record the real world as it actually looked at the time of filming.
Films can depict imaginary things that do not exist in the real world through
computer-generated images. As a result, the transparency doctrine that we liter-
ally see real objects and real things in the real world when we look at film images is
false. Also, Curries account of perceptual realism, which says that film images are
realistic representations of real-world objects formed by photographing real-world
objects, is untenable because the representations can be of imaginary objects that
do not exist in the real world, and the appearances of those imaginary objects
need not bear any resemblances to the appearances of real-world objects.
In this book I have explained and critically evaluated three philosophical
doctrines of film realism, and I have proposed a new theory which explains
films as creative works of art. My theory accommodates the artistic elements of film
images, as well as animated, computer-animated, and computer-generated film
images, which the transparency and perceptual realist doctrines cannot success-
fully explain. I believe that the creative manipulations of film images in the age of
computer technology convincingly show that the realist doctrine is false. We can
no longer believe that films mechanically and automatically record reality through
their reliance on photographic methods of production. Through computer tech-
nologies, filmmakers can alter the appearances of the real world being filmed
and even create the appearances of imaginary, new virtual worlds. Thus, films are
creative works of art, not slavish mechanical recordings or reproductions of reality.
 Notes

Introduction
1. Julie N. Books, The Ontology of Film (PhD diss. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2002).
2. I will usually leave out the word feature when I discuss feature films in the rest of
this book for brevity.
3. Rudolph Arnheim, Film as Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), 8.
4. Ian Jarvie, Philosophy of the Film (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 103.
5. Static films are films that do not have movement or motion in them. A good dis-
cussion of such films is in Justin Remes Motion(less) Pictures: The Cinema of Stasis
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).
6. For a discussion of how film differs from other art forms, see Robert E. Woods
Toward an Ontology of Film: A Phenomenological Approach in Film-Philosophy 5:
24 (August 2001), 120.
7. Nol Carroll gives a list of examples of films with no movementNagisa Oshimas
Band of Ninjas (a film of a comic strip), Michael Snows One Second in Montreal
(a film of photos) and his So Is This (a film of sentences), Hollis Framptons Poetic
Justice (a film of a shooting script), Godard and Gorins Letter to Jane (another film of
photos), and Takahiko Iimuras 1 in 10 (a film of addition and subtraction tables)
in his The Philosophy of Motion Pictures (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008),
p. 59.
142|What Is Film?

Chapter 1: Transparency
1. For a discussion of the influence of the camera obscura on Dutch Baroque artists, see
Svetlana Alpers The Art of Describing (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983).
2. John Rupert Martin, Baroque (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 70.
3. Kendall Walton, Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism, Criti-
cal Inquiry 11 (December 1984), 252. Dominic Lopes similarly says, When we look at
photographs we literally see the objects that they are of (on p. 433) in his article The
Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency, in Mind 112: 447 (July 2003), 433448.
4. Ibid., 249.
5. Ibid., 264. Walton says a photograph is always of something which actually exists
(250). I use the term real as synonymous with Waltons term actual.
6. Ibid., 266.
7. Ibid., 261.
8. Walton subscribes to a causal theory of seeing in which to see something is to have
visual experiences that are caused in a certain manner by what is seen. Ibid.
9. Edwin Martin, Critical Response I: On Seeing Waltons Great-Grandfather, Criti-
cal Inquiry 12 (Summer 1986), 797.
10. Kendall Walton, Critical Response II: Looking Again Through Photographs: A
Response to Edwin Martin, Critical Inquiry 12 (Summer 1986), 803.
11. Andr Bazin, What Is Cinema?, vol. 1, trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1967), 1213.
12. Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 23.
13. Roger Scruton, Photography and Representation, in his The Aesthetic Understanding:
Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustines Press, 1998,
reprint of 1983 version). For some credible arguments against Scrutons views, see Berys
Gauts A Philosophy of Cinematic Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010),
2349. Gaut also adds the reproduction challenge, which says that films are not art
because they merely reproduce reality mechanically (p. 34). Clearly films do not merely
reproduce reality in a mechanical way, as there are film images that depart from reality
by the filmmakers intentional actions of exerting control over the film images so that
they look the way he or she wants them to look. Gauts examples of these divergences,
following Arnheims, include the use of lenses, camera movements, types of shots, etc.
(pp. 3940), which I will also discuss in this book.
14. Nol Carroll and Jinhee Choi, eds. Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthol-
ogy (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 8.
15. Scruton, The Aesthetic Understanding, 121.
16. Ibid., 136.
17. Ibid., 137138.
18. Ibid., 133.
 Notes|143

19. Ibid., 134.

20. Ibid., 137.
21. Walton, Transparent Pictures, 264.
22. Ibid., 262264.
23. Ibid., 271. By similarity relations, I take Walton to mean similarities in such things
as spatial relations, colors, shapes, and sizes.
24. Vicki Goldberg and Robert Silberman, American Photography: A Century of Images
(Minneapolis & St. Paul: Twin Cities Public Television, Inc., 1999).
25. Ibid.
26. John Hedgecoe, Photography, World Book Online Americas Edition, accessed

Nov. 14, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/42800.
27. Walton, Transparent Pictures, 250.
28. Goldberg and Silberman, American Photography.
29. Dave Johnson, Digital Camera (New York: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001), 280,
286290.
30. Ibid., 297.
31. Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1965), 28.
32. Bazin, What Is Cinema?, 1: 13, 21.
33. Margo Kasdan and Christine Saxton, The Critical Eye (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt
Publishing, 1988), 3132.
34. Ibid., 3234.
35. Michael Rabiger, Robert Sklar, and Nicholas Tanis, Motion picture, World Book
Online Americas Edition, accessed Aug. 19, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol
.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/373560. Gregory Currie, in his book Image and Mind
(1995), argues that the motion in films is real and not an illusion. I will discuss and
critique this view in the next chapter on illusionism.
36. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (New York:
McGraw Hill, 2001), 430, 432.
37. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. motion pictures, art of.
38. Michael Rabiger, Robert Sklar, and Nicholas Tanis, Motion picture, World Book
Online Americas Edition, accessed Aug. 19, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol
.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/373560.
39. Lev Manovich, Digital Cinema and the History of a Moving Image, in The Film
Theory Reader: Debates and Arguments, edited by Marc Furstenau (London: Routledge,
2010), 249.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 250.
42. Dave Gonzales, How Terminator: Genisys made a synthespian of young Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Geek, July 4, 2015, accessed January 26, 2016, http://www.geek.com
144|What Is Film?

/news/how-terminator-genisys-made-a-synthespian-of-young-arnold-schwarzeneg
ger-1626902/.
43. John Canemaker and Peter Weishar, Animation, World Book Online Americas Edi-
tion, accessed Aug. 19, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage
/na/ar/co/022610.
44. Nigel Warburton, Seeing Through Seeing Through Photographs, Ratio 1 (June
1988), 67.
45. Ibid., 68.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid, 7374.
49. Nol Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 62.
50. Ibid.
51. Gregory Currie, Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 69.
52. Ibid.
53. Kendall Walton, On Pictures and Photographs: Objections Answered, in Film
Theory and Philosophy, edited by Richard Allen and Murray Smith (1997), 70.
54. Ibid., 70.
55. Ibid., 71.
56. Ibid., 70.
57. Carroll (in his book from 2008) says that we can indeed see objects through a relay
of mirrors and a maze of mirrors, but genuine seeing still requires egocentric infor-
mation. Carroll, The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, 101. Aaron Meskin and Jonathan
Cohen argue that Currie and Carrolls requirements for seeing are too strong, but
leaving out the belief and knowledge requirements concerning the egocentric infor-
mation would alleviate the difficulties, so we can then reject Waltons view that pho-
tographs are transparent, because the visual process of looking at photographs fails
to carry egocentric spatial information about their depicta. (p. 201). See their article,
On the Epistemic Value of Photographs, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62:
2 (Spring 2004), 197210.
58. Warburton, Seeing Through Seeing Through Photographs, 7273.
59. Walton, On Pictures and Photographs, 249.
60. Thomas Wartenberg, Film and Representation, in Art and Representation, edited by
Ananta Sukla (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001), 217.
61. Walton, Transparent Pictures, 253.
62. Ibid., 251252.
63. Ibid., 253.
 Notes|145

Chapter 2: Illusionism
1. Currie, Film, Reality, and Illusion, in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies,
edited by David Bordwell and Nol Carroll (Madison: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1996), 325. According to Carroll, illusionism can often be taken as a cognate
for something referred to as either classic realism or just realism. Nol Carroll,
Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (New York: Colum-
bia University Press), 1988, 90. This type of realism involves the use of narration in
coordination with visual codes of verisimilitude (147). In Visible Fictions, John Ellis
tries to clarify this contemporary sense of film realism as involving probable por-
trayals of characters and events, surface accuracy of costume, setting, and props, and
coherence of events (148). See John Ellis, Visible Fictions (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1981), 610.
2. Robert Stam and Toby Miller, eds., Film and Theory: An Anthology (Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 225.
3. Metz argued that film viewers experience a strong impression of reality. Christian
Metz, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, trans. Celia Britton
et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
4. Hence, in 1974, Colin MacCabe explained realism as an effect the text produced
through a specific signifying organization. John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson,
The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 55. See
Colin MacCabe, From Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses,
in Contemporary Film Theory, edited by Antony Easthope (London: Longman, 1993),
5367.
5. Currie, Image and Mind, xvxvi.
6. Ibid., xvixvii.
7. Ibid., 23.
8. Ibid., 29.
9. See Peter Lamarque, How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions, British Journal of
Aesthetics, vol. 21 (1981): 291304. See also Colin Radford and Michael Weston,
How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina? Proceedings of the Aristote-
lian Society Supplementary, vol. 49 (1975): 6793.
10. Currie, Image and Mind, 23. As Balzs writes, In the cinema the camera carries the
spectator into the film picture itself. We see everything from the inside as it were
and are surrounded by the characters of the film. Bel Balzs, Theory of the Film:
Character and Growth of a New Art (New York: Arno, 1972), 48. Also, Paul Weiss
says that A film is completed by the viewers before it; they are transformed by the
film into occupants of a world, part of which the film makes visible. Paul Weiss,
Cinematics (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975), 5.
146|What Is Film?

11. Currie, Image and Mind, 179.

12. Ibid., 4041.
13. Ibid., 281.
14. Ibid., 80.
15. Ibid., 165. For instance, Andr Bazin wrote that Whatever the film, its aim is to
give us the illusion of being present at real events unfolding before us as in every-
day reality. Andr Bazin, Orson Welles: A Critical View, trans. Jonathan Rosenbaum
(New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 77. Christian Metz believed that the spectator
constantly identifies with the cameras perspective and that the spectator knows that
she is watching a representation but believes it to be real, thus experiencing a strong
impression of reality. See Metz, The Imaginary Signifier.
16. Currie, Image and Mind, 2426.
17. My examples are not designed to give an account of what film viewers actually believe,
or typically believe, in these hypothetical situations, rather they are designed to show
that film viewers are not always directly responding to their beliefs about the reality
of what they see depicted in film images.
18. Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart, 80.
19. Currie, Image and Mind, 181.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 184.
22. Ibid., 170.
23. Ibid., 186.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 2526. Currie attributes this view to early classical film theorists like Hugo
Mnsterberg, 167.
26. Ibid., 173.
27. Ibid., 25.
28. Ibid., 176.
29. Ibid., 177.
30. Currie does allow for a few rare exceptions like the dolly-zoom combination shot
of Jimmy Stewart looking down a stairwell in Hitchcocks Vertigo (1958), which he
says encourages us to imagine that we are having the vertiginous experience. Ibid.,
170171.
31. Walton, On Pictures and Photographs, 62.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Currie, Image and Mind, 177.
35. Ibid., 178.
36. Walton, On Pictures and Photographs, 64.
37. Murray Smith, Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction, The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53: 2 (Spring 1995), 120.
 Notes|147

38. Carroll, Mystifying Movies, 44.

39. Currie says that point-of-view shots do not cause film viewers to imagine that they
are the character whose subjective viewpoint is being represented. Currie, Image and
Mind, 174176.
40. Currie does allow for an exception, namely the shot in Vertigo (1958) where Hitch-
cock presumably invites us to imagine that we are having the vertiginous experi-
ence. Ibid., 170171.
41. Kofi Outlaw, The Crazy Tech Behind James Camerons Avatar, Screen Rant, August
8, 2008, accessed January 23, 2016, http://screenrant.com/crazy-3d-technology
-james-cameron-avatar-kofi-3367/.
42. Tim Dirks, Film Milestones in Visual/Special Effects (F/X), Filmsite, accessed
January 1, 2016, http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects21.html.
43. Ibid.
44. Currie, Image and Mind, 30.
45. Since publishing my doctoral dissertation The Ontology of Film in 2002, Rafe

McGregor has written an article in which he endorses Curries view that cinematic
images really do move. See his article, Cinematic Realism Reconsidered, Polish
Journal of Philosophy 6: 1 (Spring 2012), 5768. My arguments against Currie that I
wrote in 20012002 and are in this book are also applicable against McGregor.
46. Following Currie, I take movement to be synonymous with motion.
47. Ibid., 31.
48. Ibid., footnote 16. Currie refers the reader to Paul A. Boghossian and J. David
Vellemans, Colour as a Secondary Quality and C.L. Hardins, Color Subjectivism.
49. Ibid., footnote 17. Currie cites Philip Pettits, Realism and Response-Dependence.
50. Michael Rabiger, Robert Sklar, and Nicholas Tanis, Motion picture, World Book
Online Americas Edition, accessed Aug. 19, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol
.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/373560.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Currie, Image and Mind, 34.
54. Ibid., 3435.
55. Ibid., 35.
56. Ibid., 3536.
57. Ibid.
58. Currie does mention that one way to argue that there is real movement of cine-
matic images is to adopt Daniel Dennetts view that what is real is what is useful (see
Dennet, Real Patterns, 2751), but he quickly dismisses this argument because
he thinks that we should distinguish between usefulness and truth, which Dennetts
view cannot account for. Ibid., 37.
59. Ibid., 38.
60. Ibid.
148|What Is Film?

61. Ibid., 39.

62. Ibid.
63. The motion that we see in film is commonly said to be the result of an optical illu-
sion resulting from a synthesis of individual still photographs or frames, as quoted
in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, s.v. motion pictures, history of.
64. Currie, Image and Mind, 3839.
65. Ibid., 39.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., 3940.
68. Ibid., 44.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., 40.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid., 4041.
73. Ibid., 41.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2016, s.v. motion picture, accessed February 9, 2016,
http://www.britannica.com/art/motion-picture.
77. Andrew Kania, The Illusion of Realism in Film, in British Journal of Aesthetics 42: 3
(July 2002), 250.
78. Berys Gaut, A Philosophy of Cinematic Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 65.
79. Carroll, The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, 93.
80. Kania, The Illusion of Realism in Film, 252.
81. Carroll, The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, 91.
82. Ibid., 82.
83. Ibid., 91. He explains that most projectors cant be slowed down enough to let view-
ers see one frame at a time.
84. Ibid., 92. Carroll also notes how videocassettes and DVDs would not allow me to
use the projector-slowing method because they do not involve a projection of static
images, so for continuously streaming images that are not projected, I believe we
would have to reexamine the arguments for real motion.
85. Jerry Fodor, Prcis of The Modularity of Mind, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
8: 1 (March 1985), 3. Fodor discusses our perceptual processes as input driven, very
fast, mandatory, superficial, encapsulated from much of the organisms background
knowledge, largely organized around bottom-to-top information flow, largely
innately specified (hence ontogenetically eccentric), and characteristically associated
with specific neuroanatomical mechanisms (4).
 Notes|149

86. Nol Carroll, Prospects for Film Theory: A Personal Assessment, in Post-Theory:
Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Nol Carroll (Madison:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 50.
87. Jerry Fodor, Prcis of The Modularity of Mind, 3.
88. Ed Tan, Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film: Film as an Emotion Machine,
trans. Barbara Fasting (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996), 232.
89. Lazarus, Richard S. Emotion and Adaptation (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991), 26.
90. Lazarus says that an emotion, once generated, involves a compelling urge toward
action. Ibid., 97.
91. Richard Allen says that we can consciously and voluntarily participate in the per-
ceptual illusion by having a projective illusion, in which we imagine (or entertain
in thought) that we are seeing what is represented in the film images from within
the narrative, adopting the point of view of the camera. The films motion, sound,
special effects, and narrative facilitate our ability to experience the projective illusion,
but this illusion is diminished, or even destroyed, if the viewer is medium-aware,
or aware that he or she is seeing images and images of successive shots of profilmic
events. Richard Allen, Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of
Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 4, 100, 107115.
92. I am here endorsing a cognitivist position in which film viewers reactions can be
explained not just in relation to their feelings and physiological responses, but also
to their beliefs, thoughts, inferences, and judgments, as described by Carl Plantinga
in his article, Spectator Emotion and Film Criticism in Film Theory and Philosophy,
ed. Richard Allen and Murray Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 378.
The cognitivist position is also discussed by Nol Carroll in his article, Prospects
for Film Theory, 3768, and Gregory Currie in his article, Cognitivism, in A
Companion to Film Theory, ed. Toby Miller and Robert Stam (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1999), 105122.
93. Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, 8081.
94. Ibid., 80.
95. Ibid. Carroll does not believe that film viewers are subject to an illusion, not even in
the epistemically benign sense of illusion, in which x is an illusion of y simply
means x looks like y (if we opt for a resemblance theory of pictorial representation).
Carroll, Mystifying Movies, 9697.
96. Smith, Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction, 118119.
97. Ibid., 119.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid., 120. Nol Carroll writes of two, simultaneous, nonconflicting modes of
awareness: a focal mode, directed at what is being represented, and a subsidiary
150|What Is Film?

mode, through which we remain constantly aware that what is before us is a repre-
sentation. Carroll, Mystifying Movies, 44.
101. Ibid.
1 02. Smith says that even the most basic comprehension of a fiction film requires that we
never cease to attend to the fact that it is a representation built upon conventions and
that all films implicitly call our attention to their artificial status. Ibid., 121.
103. Malcolm Turvey, Seeing Theory, in Film Theory and Philosophy, edited by Richard
Allen and Murray Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 433.

Chapter 3: Perceptual Realism

1. Currie, Image and Mind, 281.
2. Currie, Reply to My Critics, Philosophical Studies 89 (1998), 355.
3. Currie, Image and Mind, 13.
4. Currie, Reply to My Critics, 355. See also Currie, Image and Mind, 13.
5. Currie, Image and Mind, 111.
6. Ibid., 109.
7. Ibid., 111.
8. Currie writes, A representation R is perceptually realistic in its representation of
feature F for creatures of kind C iff: (i) R represents something as having F; (ii) Cs
have a certain perceptual capacity P to recognize instances of F; and (iii) Cs recognize
that R represents something as having F by deploying capacity P. Ibid., 110.
9. Ibid., 8082.
10. Currie writes, But nature has endowed me with other, more automatic, less flexible,
less rational capacities as well, among them a horse-recognition capacitya quick-
and-dirty mechanism which, somewhere deep in my visual-processing system, iden-
tifies a certain input as a horse. He adds that my horse-recognition mechanism is
prone to be fooled by donkeys at dusk, stuffed horses and, in particular, pictures of
horses. Ibid., 85.
11. Ibid., 8081.
12. Ibid., 81.
13. Ibid., footnote 9, 88.
14. Ibid., 89.
15. Ibid., 82.
16. Ibid., 89.
17. Ibid., 85.
18. Leslie Horn, Transformers VFX Guru Explains Why Building CGI Bots is Getting
Harder, Gizmodo, June 27, 2014, accessed January 26, 2016, http://gizmodo.com
/transformers-vfx-guru-explains-why-building-cgi-bots-is-1597172174. Scott Farrar is
 Notes|151

a veteran of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the visual effects company started by
George Lucas in 1975 for making the computer graphics in the film Star Wars (1977).
19. Currie, Image and Mind, 85.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 86.
22. Currie, Film, Reality, and Illusion, 326. This quote also appears in Curries Image
and Mind, 20, but there he uses the term Likeness for Perceptual Realism. Schier
says, The crudest form of the illusion theory is just the resemblance model in excel-
sis. Schier, Deeper into Pictures, 9.
23. Currie, Image and Mind, 8486.
24. Currie, Reply to my Critics, 362. This criticism was made against Currie by Dome-
nic Lopes in his article, Imagination, Illusion and Experience in Film, Philosophical
Studies 89 (1998), 343353.
25. Currie, Image and Mind, 106.
26. Ibid., 103.
27. Ibid., 106.
28. Ibid., 99.
29. Ibid., 100.
30. Ibid., 102.
31. Ibid., 106.
32. Currie says that when we say that a real horse and a picture of a horse look alike, we
acknowledge also that they look quite different. Ibid., 82. He does not say how
they look quite different, how we recognize those differences, or how we utilize those
differences in our recognitional capacities.
33. Ibid., 13.
34. Currie, Reply to My Critics, 355.
35. Currie, Image and Mind, 12.
36. Nol Carroll, Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1988), 123124, Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing), 1976, 34.
37. Carroll, Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory, 124.
38. Goodman, Languages of Art, 5.
39. Bazin, What Is Cinema?, 1: 96.
40. Ibid., 9697.
41. Arnheim, Film as Art, 2021.
42. Ibid. This first part of this example of what happens in real life is Arnheims description
of the situation, while the second part about what transpires when looking through a
film image of the same situation is my description, which he would endorse.
43. Ibid., 21. After Arnheims description of what happens in real life, I have added my
own description of what happens in the corresponding film image, which he would
152|What Is Film?

endorse. He says, One scene may be immediately followed by another that takes
place at a totally different time. (Ibid.).
4 4. Ibid., 87.

Chapter 4: Summarizing the Doctrines of Film Realism

1. Currie, Reply to My Critics, 355.

Chapter 5: A New Theory of the Ontology of Film

1. Arnheim, Film as Art, 89.
2. Gerald Mast, Kracauers Two Tendencies and the Early History of Film Narrative,
Critical Inquiry 6 (Spring 1980), 455.
3. Kracauer, Theory of Film, 28.
4. Bazin, What Is Cinema?, 1: 14, 21.
5. Walton, Transparent Pictures.
6. H. Gene Blocker, Pictures and Photographs, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
36 (Winter 1977), 158.
7. Rafe McGregor, A New/Old Ontology of Film, Film-Philosophy 17: 1 (2013),
265280.
8. Gaut, A Philosophy of Cinematic Art, 49.
9. Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 198200.
10. Ibid., 199.
11. Ibid., 165168.
12. Kasdan and Saxton, The Critical Eye, 3132.
13. Ibid., 3234.
14. Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 206.
15. Lee R. Bobker, Elements of Film (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969),
137.
16. Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 197.
17. Ibid., 196.
18. Kasdan and Saxton, The Critical Eye, 28.
19. Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus, The Filmmakers Handbook: A Comprehensive
Guide for the Digital Age (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 56.
20. Corey Powell, Deep Digital Science Behind Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,
Discover, July 12, 2014, accessed January 26, 2016, http://blogs.discovermagazine
.com/outthere/2014/07/12/mind-blowing-digital-science-behind-new-planet-apes
/#.Vqn097SmM9.
21. Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 193.
 Notes|153

22. John Canemaker and Peter Weishar, Animation, World Book Online Americas
Edition, Aug. 19, 2001, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar
/co/022610.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Michael Maher, The VFX of WETA Digital, Rocketstock, August 27, 2015, accessed
January 26, 2016, https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/the-vfx-of-weta-digital/.
26. Ascher and Pincus, The Filmmakers Handbook, 108113.
27. Rick Marshall, Oscar Effects: Building a Better Dragon in The Hobbit The Desola-
tion of Smaug, Digital Trends, February 25, 2014, accessed January 26, 2016, http://
www.digitaltrends.com/movies/building-better-dragon-hobbit-desolation-smaug/.
28. Nick Broughall, How Weta changed motion capture tech for Dawn of the Planet
of the Apes, TechRadar, November 21, 2014, republished August 27, 2015,
accessed January 26, 2016, http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/how
-weta-changed-motion-capture-tech-for-dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-1273893/1.
29. The term uncanny valley (bukimi no tani in Japanese) was first introduced in
an essay published in 1970 by the Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori. He
used that term to explain his hypothesis that as a robot becomes more realistic, we
feel more empathy for it, but when it starts to look fully human, we get a feel-
ing of uncanniness that precludes our empathy. See Barbara Flueckiger, Comput-
er-Generated Characters in Avatar and Benjamin Button in Digitalitt und Kino,
edited by Harro Segeberg (Munich: Fink, forthcoming), 5, accessed January 1, 2016,
http://www.zauberklang.ch/AvatarButtonFlueckiger.pdf.
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