This week, we tackled the idea of “thinking film” with this week’s reading courtesy of Daniel Frampton in Film Minds. In this, Frampton puts forward the idea that “cinema and memory are both ‘composed of a series of images’” and that “if a film has a person in it then an immediate possibility offers itself in the guise of that person’s indicated thoughts and perceptions”.

This concept, put more simply, is that one is able to make meaning of the frame through the support of the camera as it broadcasts the thoughts about our reality with the world of film. As such, what is within the frame is not a reproduction of the reality one lives, but rather that the film exists in isolation, its own world. What exists in the frame is merely a projection of the real.

This is an interesting concept in of itself because it suggests that film is actually very hollow, and gives rise to the idea that inside every film is meaning to be made. I interpret these ideas as suggesting that people make different meaning from the film in different ways, and I do somewhat agree this this philosophy in that sense. This is evident in the fact that the whole business of film critics is to discuss the meaning made by a film and sharing an interpretation to the world. It’s also evident in the many discussions one has with another person who shared the experience of the film. People can form different understandings and opinions, and so in that way, film does think.

However, as I’ve mentioned I think in a previous blog, I feel like too many films these days are more interested in directly telling you what is happening in the narrative and in the frame for one to form their own meaning. That to me is an extremely disappointing and narrow-minded way of filmmaking as an audience member, as it not only underestimates the audience’s intelligence but also disconnects them from the purpose of the film. I find this infuriating because I hold a kind of purist view about how art should be displayed – as art. I love the idea of the intellectual stimulation that would come from Frampton’s philosophy, the idea of being enlightened by a film, perhaps aesthetically, or perhaps in terms of technique or cinematography.

Whilst it’s obvious that film’s don’t literally think, I like to believe in Frampton’s philosophy, and hope I can kind of integrate any sort of intellectual stimulant in any future works I do. Really enjoyed this reading.