For
this post I was rethinking the discussion last week about Godard, Delueze and
the issue of cinema in relation to Eisenstein. This got me thinking about going
back to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s chapter “The Film and the New Psychology.”
Merleau-Ponty discusses the issue with modern psychology in regards to film. He
calls for a new methodology for thinking about man’s place in the world.
Merleau-Ponty writes, “The new psychology has…revealed man to us not as an
understanding which constructs the world but as a being thrown into the world
and attached to it by a natural bond” (53). Although his emphasizes on a new
way of thinking about man, the world and his place in it, Merleau-Ponty is
really concerned with an essence that predicates intelligence. Now, intelligence
for Merleau-Ponty is linked closely with perception. His claim for something
that predates or something that is more deeply rooted than perception seems to
be that of presence—that which creates a biological bond between man and the
world. This is quite a heavy topic in and of itself; however, what
Merleau-Ponty is getting at is the notion of a new way of viewing the world
that is interdisciplinary, combining psychology, philosophy and a technological
advancement, cinema. He writes that psychology, philosophy and filmmaking share
an essential link to the world. This link seems to lie in the realm of
consciousness, but also the inseparable connection between the body and the
mind. Merleau-Ponty’s last line writes,
“if philosophy is in harmony with cinema, if thought
and technical effort are heading in the same direction, it is because the
philosopher and the moviemaker share a certain way of being, a certain view of
the world which belongs to a generation. It offers us yet another chance to
confirm that modes of thought correspond to technical methods and that, to use
Goethe’s phrase, ‘What is inside is also outside’” (59).
The
correspondence Merleau-Ponty writes about between philosophy and cinema becomes
an interesting predicate to thinking about Godard and Delueze. He creates this
connection between the possibilities of cinema to create a different way of, as
he states, “…presenting consciousness thrown into the world…” (58). The chapter begins with critiquing the
methods of psychology and image, but ends up optimistic about the parallels
between philosophy and cinema. However, he also recognizes the adolescence of
this pairing, tying these disciplines to a unique generation of individuals who
will develop with this ability to capture through the cinema what philosophers
have been doing through written language. For Merleau-Ponty, the technology of
cinema has enabled this new manner in thinking—a new manner to portray the
unity of consciousness of body and mind.
jml
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