Customer Reviews

The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Enlarged Edition

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Cavell relies on his own experience of cinema in such a way that the reader is invited to try to find himself with respect to his claims. There may or may not be a meeting of the minds. But this doesn't mean Cavell is biased. He's simply calling it as he sees it. He asks nothing more and nothing less of us. I don't see that a personal judgment might not be objective. And if it is very difficult to experience what Cavell is gesturing towards, that seems like all the more reason for being cautious when referring to what you might wrongly be calling "subjective prejudices." This book is worth the hard work.

Since Stanley Cavell was an esteemed philosophy professor at Harvard University, when he wrote this book, it was a boon for film theorists everywhere; the academic elite were finally taking film theory seriously. However, even though in the book there are great moments of insight into the spectatorship of films, Cavell is very biased towards his own cinematic experience and will often make broad claims to the superiority of the classic films with which he grew up over any recent film. His predilections are often purely personal and do not involve an objective understanding of the films. The book contains many wonderful moments that stem from a thought-provoking philosopher yet it is very difficult to experience them through the author's subjective prejudices.