From Aesthetics and Ethics to Hermeneutics of the Cinema: The Aesthetic and Moral Values of Cinema in the Perspective of the History of Film Theory and Practice

Ewa Mazierska

Abstract

Mazierska analyzes relations between ethics and aesthetics of the cinema, assuming that the two fields are characterized by historical and cultural changeability. The earliest motion pictures were shown at fairgrounds. Then, they were exploited for political, ideological and moral purposes. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation was a turning point. In the past, film theorists evaluated films from the point of view of its relation to reality, psychological probability, in the aspect of re-production of film pictures and the capacity to show major social problems. Kracauer, Balázs, Arnheim and Bazin formulated, each in its own way, a peculiar aesthetic ideal of the cinema which was to be „truthful”. Burch and Barthes (film semiotics) offered a new perspective. They pointed out a plurality of meanings and a variety of codes according to which films could be „read”, and their reception in a wide cultural context. Hierarchies in the history of movies happen to change, and so does their ethical rating. From this point of view, Mazierska discusses propaganda film, feminist cinema, popular movies and post-modernist cinema. She claims that of key importance is Susan Sontag’s view that aesthetic pleasure can be a source of moral value. And that a connection between art and morality is of different character than that between life and morality. The latter consists in intelligent awakening of consciousness.