Flannery Wilson

"When philosophy first noticed art it was in connection with the possibility of deception” Arthur Danto reminds us. Art is a friendly deception. It must deceive in order to succeed, and it must be friendly in order to keep its audience happy.

The art critic, unlike the artist, aims to distinguish and describe deception in art. Critics discern distinctions between artistic and real life deception and communicate the various ways in which art disguises that distinction.

In fiction, this trust is either maintained or betrayed via the »storytelling contract.« The artist or storyteller must stick to the (implicit) storytelling contract, which says that the storyteller must lie in good faith -- in ways that we expect and want. This includes the audience’s tacit acceptance of the lying.

In »Deception and Trust«, a chapter in »The Philosophy of Deception«, Alan Strudler raises a similar point (Martin 139). Strudler credits Bernard Williams with the idea, but then arrives at his own conclusion: »Deceiving that involves breach of trust and deceiving that involves other forms of manipulation are acceptable under very different circumstances« (139). A breach of trust, he argues, is a form of manipulation, and some, but not all instances of deception involve this manipulation.

Strudler distinguishes between a trustworthy truth-teller and a reliable truth-teller – reliable truth-tellers tell the truth on a consistent basis, but not necessarily for the right reasons. I may reliably lie because someone is always holding a gun to my back. In this case, we act as puppets, forced to tell the truth by a liar with bad intentions (142).

When we watch movies, we depend on reliable, trustworthy liars to entertain us. As long as the filmmaker maintains the deception, and the deception is not hidden from the audience, then the filmmaker remains both reliable and trustworthy. Untrustworthy filmmakers, on the other hand, use lies to manipulate audiences under the pretense of truth.

The lie is only beautiful when it’s transparent; when the storyteller says: “I am telling the truth about lying.” Hence, art must be realistic enough to be believable – but not so believable that it’s boring.

Art is self-reflexive like the Ourobouros, from Plato’s Timaeus, who eats his own tail – a powerful yet self-contained animal that relies on its own form for nourishment. This self-reflexivity must not be too apparent, but at the same time not too hidden.

Flannery Wilson received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Riverside. She teaches film, visual and media studies in addition to French and Italian language and literary analysis. She has a burgeoning interest in the philosophy of film – more specifically: aesthetics and narration.

Her published research sheds light on cross-cultural interactions between French and Italian and Chinese cinema(s). Her articles have appeared in »Modern Chinese Literature and Culture«, »Senses of Cinema«, and the »Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema.« Her book: »New Taiwanese Cinema: Within and Beyond the Frame, for the “Traditions in World Cinema”« series through Edinburgh University Press, was released in paperback in April of 2015.