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Philosophy of the Essay Film Archive

Chats perchés

Chris Marker’s mimetic, comical and historical prophecy
 by / RP 192 (July/Aug 2015) / Article, Philosophy of the Essay Film

Jokes between sight and said

Let me start from scratch – with an unspectacular filmic operation that has the minimalistic charm of a one-liner joke. A one-liner joke is a type of verbal joke, one that has it all in one line, just like the joke that Karl Valentin, a Bavarian comedian, once made and …


The history of cinema, as experience

by / RP 192 (July/Aug 2015) / Article, Philosophy of the Essay Film

Film as metahistory

In 1998 at the Cannes Film Festival, Jean-Luc Godard – having completed his Histoire(s) du cinéma project – presented a special reprint of the magazine Trafic. This included an article by the American artist Hollis Frampton. [1] Frampton’s essay, ‘For a Metahistory of Film: Commonplace Notes and Hypotheses’, …


Art, documentary and the essay film

by / RP 192 (July/Aug 2015) / Article, Philosophy of the Essay Film

Film as document

The moment when Siegfried Kracauer knew that he wanted to write of film as what he terms the ‘Discover of the Marvels of Everyday Life’ is relayed in his introduction to the Theory of Film from 1960. [1] Kracauer recalls watching a film long ago that shows a …