What Film Is Good For: On the Values of Spectatorship

For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an answer. Their responses range from the most personal to the most theoretical—and, together, recast current debates about film ethics. Movie watching here emerges as a wellspring of value, able to sustain countless visions of "the good life." Films, these authors affirm, make us reflect, connect, adapt; they evoke wonder and beauty; they challenge and transform. In a word, its varieties of value make film invaluable.
 

Julian Hanich is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Groningen. He is author of The Audience Effect: On the Collective Cinema Experience and Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear.

Martin P. Rossouw is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Image Studies at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is author of Transformational Ethics of Film: Thinking the Cinemakeover in the Film-Philosophy Debate.