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Hermeneutics of Film

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Hermeneutics of the Film World

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Abstract

Reconsidering interpretive problems in film studies, this chapter shows how a possible and promising solution derives from a combination of Merleau-Pontyan film phenomenology with Ricœurian hermeneutics of film. According to Ricœur, such a combination is based on the relative incompleteness of the two philosophical perspectives taken individually. Hermeneutics of the film focuses on the process of film interpretation and is engaged in investigating how different meanings of the same film can arise and coexist. Faced with movies as worlds and filmgoers as interpreters, film hermeneutics considers interpretations as inherently relative and contextualized. It does not pursue the construction of a general theory because it is aware of the historicity of its (and any) perspective and how film, in its historical transmission and in its encounter with the filmgoer, is part of an experience that can always reveal new interpretations and meanings. From the hermeneutic perspective, the film is enriched in this never-ending process of screening, viewing and interpretation.

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  1. University of Turin, Torino, Italy

    Alberto Baracco

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  1. Alberto Baracco
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Baracco, A. (2017). Hermeneutics of Film. In: Hermeneutics of the Film World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65400-3_4

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