Violent content in film has been extensively debated from a myriad of different perspectives, and both within and across a number of different disciplines. Oftentimes, the more violent the content that a film contains, the more likely such content is considered to negatively detract from the value of the work in question. However, this dissertation provides an argument to the contrary with respect to a specific set of cinematic examples and a particular way in which violent content is represented within them. In what follows, I argue that there are grounds to believe in the philosophical value of engaging with works that “morally shock” their audiences through the representation of violent content. First, by analyzing a combination of works ranging from the more conservative American classic Deliverance (1972) to the more controversial French avant-garde Irréversible (2002), I provide a case for reclassifying violent films into different genres, only one of which contains films which elicit a particular kind of response that I single out for further examination. In considering the implications of our responses to these “morally shocking” films, I provide a foundation against which such films can be considered to have a distinct kind of philosophical value by exploring their significance with respect to: (1) issues of interpretation and value in the philosophy of film, (2) recent developments in research on moral judgment, and (3) arguments both for and against the idea that film can be thought of as a kind of philosophy. Ultimately, I argue that our response of moral shock to the content of these films has the subversive effect of destabilizing our moral orientation and consequently motivating philosophical reflection in innovative ways. / Philosophy

L’ambition de cette thèse n’est pas de poser objectivement les rapports qu’entretient À la recherche du temps perdu avec le cinéma(tographe), pour la simple et bonne raison que ceux-ci sont à peu près inexistants, du strict point de vue de l’objectivité. N’ayant jamais mis les pieds dans un lieu qui projette ce type bien particulier d’images en mouvement, Proust n’est pas un écrivain intéressé par ce qu’on nomme aujourd’hui « cinéma ». On ne trouve que peu souvent son nom dans les anthologies faisant état des écrivains du début du siècle dernier qui ont commenté le spectacle des vues animées. Si par hasard il y est, on cite généralement les passages du Temps retrouvé, où est assez sévèrement critiqué le « défilé cinématographique des choses ». Que la critique de Proust à l’endroit du cinéma(tographe) soit une critique essentiellement négative n’est pas en soi gênant et ne contredit pas nécessairement le besoin de faire le point sur cette question. Il nous faut seulement adopter une vision plus artiste du problème, ou du moins accepter que le cinéma n’est pas limité à un seul mode d’existence stable : « cinéma » est en fait un pot-pourri d’idées, de concepts et de pratiques qui est voué au changement, et c’est précisément ce changement qui est digne d’intérêt. Une telle relativisation de l’idée de « cinéma » nous permettra d’explorer les différentes séries d’images et les séries techniques qui parcourent le roman de Proust et ses adaptations écraniques, afin de voir si elles sont en mesure de recouper l’une ou l’autre des fonctions que l’on a pu attribuer au cinéma au cours de son histoire. La présente thèse est donc en quelque sorte le procès-verbal des définitions du cinéma qu’a pu nous offrir notre lecture de Proust. Elle est aussi celui des différentes lectures que le cinéma nous permet de faire de la Recherche, des lectures « cinématographiques ». / This thesis does not objectively study ongoing relations between In Search of Lost Time and the cinema medium for the simple reason that, from the strict point of view of objectivity, they are almost non-existent. Having never set foot in a place that shows this particular type of moving images, Proust is not interested in what is now called “cinema”. At best, his name infrequently appears in anthologies of the early 20th century’s writers who commented this kind of spectacle. If by chance he is, the excerpts generally selected are the ones of Time Regained where the “cinematic parade of things” is quite severely criticized. But Proust’s criticism of cinema, albeit an essentially negative one, is not that much inconvenient and does not particularly contradict the need to investigate the matter. We just have to think the problem in a more artistic way, or at least to accept that cinema is not limited to a stable, single mode of existence: “cinema” is – and should be – a potpourri of ideas, concepts and practices that is bound to change, and it is precisely that change that is worth investigating. Such a relativization of the idea of “cinema” will allow us to explore different series of images and series of techniques that run in Proust's novel and its screen adaptations, while letting us see if they are able to match some functions that have been attributed to cinema during its history. This thesis therefore intends to be a record of cinema’s definitions that our reading of Proust’s work could offer. It is also a record of the many readings of In Search of Lost Time that cinema allows us, “cinematographic” readings.

This thesis explores the historical, theoretical and philosophical development of cinematic media as a collective form of technological perception and consciousness. Central to my inquiry is the philosophical notion that with the invention of cinema emerges a cyborg vision, a new modern mechanics of thinking that extends the phenomenological and epistemological experience of human perception and knowledge into hitherto unknown realms of thinking, sensation and being. Drawing on some of the key cultural thinkers and philosophers of the twentieth century, including Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze, as well as contemporary philosophers of media such as Jonathan Beller, Sean Cubitt, D.N. Rodowick and Mark B. Hansen, my research into the philosophy of cinema and digital media articulates a branch of media theory that reads the political economy of the moving image through an amalgam of continental philosophy, marxist theory and film studies. Coterminous with the investigation into the philosophical object of cinematic or media consciousness, the thesis also endeavors to map the historical genealogy of the moving image as it evolves from the industrial mechanics of cinematic technologies to the virtual informatics of digital culture. Central to this inquiry is the idea that the history of cinematic and visual media is inextricably connected with the rise, towards the end of the twentieth century, of postmodern consumer culture and the global information society. The transition from a modern industrial economy to a postmodern information economy that reorganises the logic of production according to the 'variables' of scientific knowledge, communication and informational technologies, parallels a metamorphosis in our media consciousness as the representational ontology of cinematic moving image is transformed by the virtual ontology of the digital image. The first part of my thesis looks at the period of industrial cinema, focusing on Soviet constructivism and the films of Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein. In this section I trace the origins of cinema as a mode of communication for the commodity, examining how the modern cinematic imaginary opens up new economies of vision and sensation for capital. Following this investigation into what Jonathan Beller calls the cinematic mode of production, the second part of my thesis proceeds to investigate how cinematic consciousness is transformed from the industrial to the post-industrial era. Taking Deleuze's historiographical demarcation of cinema into the two regimes of the 'movement-image' and the 'time-image' as a philosophical frame, the second section of my thesis investigates how in the post-war films of the Italian neorealists and Michelengelo Antonioni our cinematic consciousness develops a new way of thinking the ontology of time and space. This analysis leads into my discussion of how in the age of digital special effects and the Hollywood blockbuster, cinematic consciousness is further expanded with the time-consciousness of the 'virtual' as our bodies attempt to accommodate the heightened flows of information that bombard our senses in the interfaces of digital culture.

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