Skepticism Films Knowing and Doubting the World in Contemporary Cinema [Hardcover]

Cinema has always displayed an affinity to characters with distorted or even hallucinatory relations to reality. With films such asThe Truman Show, theMatrixfilms orInception, contemporary filmmakers add another layer to this canon of film characters: unwitting ordinary victims of deception for whom the skepticist fear that the world is not real but a simulation, fake environment or a dream has become true. These are 'skepticism films': dramatized, fictional configurations of the thought experiments which are part and parcel of philosophical reflection on knowledge and doubt.

Skepticism Films: Knowing and Doubting the World in Contemporary Cinemaintroduces skepticism films as updated configurations of skepticist thought experiments which exemplify the pervasiveness of philosophical ideas in popular culture. Philipp Schmerheim defends a pluralistic film-philosophical position according to which films can be, but need not be, expressions of philosophical thought in their own right. It critically investigates the influence of ideas of skepticism on film-philosophical theories and develops a typology of skepticism films by analyzingThe Truman Show, Inception, The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, The Thirteenth Floor, Moonand other contemporary skepticism films. With its focus on skepticism as one of the most significant philosophical problems,Skepticism Filmsprovides a better understanding of the dynamic interplay between film, theories of film and philosophy.

Here is an intriguing volume about a small group of mainstream contemporary films that question the very notion of reality, films such asThe Truman Show,The Matrix,The Thirteenth Floor,Vanilla Sky, andInception. A scholar of the philosophy of film, Schmerheim uses a finely focused theoretical lens to unpack the films and the ways in which they leave viewers without solid ground to stand on, upending traditional notions of narrativelÓ`