Film Choices & Class Schedule!

Philosophy & Theology in Film

Hi, all!

I have finally chosen the films we will discuss for the next four months in my upcoming class Philosophy & Theology in Film. If you are a paid subscriber (just $5 a month!), you will have access to all posts, videos, and Zoom discussions. You can go at your own pace and/or join just for the films that interest you. If you are a free subscriber, you can still see occasional free posts.

This class is for anyone who wants to learn to think more critically and empathetically about the products, questions, and philosophies arising in contemporary culture. You might not currently be a film lover–but this course is for anyone who loves stories. In it, you will be engaging questions about the meaning of life, the nature of reality, the complexity of the human experience, and the existence and character of God.

What is included:

For each new week of the course, I will be posting:

• Information about the film, the director, and the context of the filmmaking

• An optional reading

• A video introducing the film and the philosophical concepts that are relevant to the film

• A Zoom link for an optional online group discussion

• A Recording of the group discussion

FILM/ TOPIC LIST:

Monday, Feb. 19: For the first week of class, we will watch and discuss the short film (52 minutes long) Dekalog One by Polish film master, Krzysztof Kieślowski. This beautiful, harrowing film is the first in a series of ten short films based loosely on the Ten Commandments that aired on Polish television. This film is not the easiest to find streaming with subtitles. There are two options, and neither is ideal. You can find a free version on youtube here, but Portuguese subtitles sometimes make it hard to read the English ones. A better option is paying for a one-day subscription (4.99 Euros) to watch the film HERE. This is a legit site where you can access many Eastern European films. *All of the other class films are MUCH easier to access!*

The discussion for this film will be at 2 pm Eastern time on Saturday, Feb. 24. That is 11 am Pacific time, 7 pm UK time, and 8 pm EU time.

**After the first meeting, I will take a poll about future meeting times!**

Monday, Feb. 26: We will watch documentary film Stories We Tell directed by Sarah Polley. This will be paired with a lecture on historian/critical theorist Hayden' White’s concepts of “metahistory.”

Monday, March 4: This week’s film is Memento, director Christopher Nolan’s first major feature film. My lecture video will focus on theories of the nature of reality posed by Plato and Descartes, as well as a discussion of meaning and hermeneutics via Jacques Derrida.

Monday, March 11: We will watch Terrence Malick’s gorgeous Days of Heaven alongside looking at Blaise Pascal’s understanding of the human condition (and multiple biblical texts).

Monday, March 18: The watching of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope will be paired with a lecture and discussion on Friedrich Nietzsche’s main ideas about power, survival, and lack of intrinsic value.

Monday, March 25: We will focus on another classic this week–Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 satirical film, Modern Times. The film viewing/ discussion will be coupled with a lecture on some of Karl Marx’s main ideas about the “alienation of the worker.”

Monday, April 1: It’s time for another satire! This week we will focus on the blockbuster film Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig. We will be discussing the film via the lens provided byLaura Mulvey’s seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”

Monday, April 8: This week’s film, Crimes and Misdemeanors by Woody Allen, focuses on ethical questions in a world in which God is perceived as dead. We will look at Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism alongside the film.

Monday, April 15: Perhaps the most difficult film of the class, Fellini’s 8 1/2 is this week’s focus. Its’ abstract, surreal, gorgeous, and fascinating! We will discuss the film alongside some short readings from Freud.

Monday, April 22: This week’s film is one of the most famous works of “visual philosophy”–Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. We will discuss the film alongside readings from Sartre, Nietzsche, and the Bible.

Monday, April 29: Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run is great fun! This week, we will watch the film and discuss the notion of competing narratives in a postmodern context (with help from Jean Francois Lyotard).

Monday, May 6: This week’s film is a modern classic, an explosive examination of different ways to approach, acknowledge, and attempt to eradicate systemic racism. Spike Lee’s brilliant Do the Right Thing will be discussed alongside readings from MLK and Malcolm X.

Monday, May 13: We will focus on questions of class and human communication when discussing Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown this week.

Monday, May 20: This week’s film is the dystopian Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón’s (loose!) remake of the P.D. James novel. We will discuss some of Slavoj Žižek’s ideas about capitalism and culture, as well as some of the biblical allusions in the film.

Monday, May 27: Our last film is mind-bending blockbusterEverything Everywhere All at Once directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Our main focus will be art and empathy.

Well, there you have it! I hope that y’all are as excited as me. As I said above, I will still have some free posts. But most of the film posts and Zoom links will be for paid subscribers. Please join me!