Anna-Maria C. Bartsch

Starting point of my considerations is the general issue of the philosophical conditions to ascribe a film its own „reality“. In order to understand film as a placeholder for „real truth“ any philosophical film theory must first and foremost consider the fact that humans have dispositions that seemingly force him to react in a certain way, even if the specific response appears to be illogical or against „common beliefs“ (esp. morally).

I will elucidate this by investigating the notion of disgust in terms of film from a philosophical point of view. As disgust is not only one of the strongest human emotions that may arise strong reactions and hence determine human acting, it must also be considered as a prevailing term with regard to current debates on racialism in cinema. The concept of disgust works out especially in non-fictional cinema as it seemingly depicts reality. As I will show, herein it becomes apparent that disgust lies deeper than our educated beliefs or „common beliefs“ mentioned above, i.e. of the equality of all people or forbidden positive feelings for the bad antihero. Thus, the notion of disgust and the more general issue of the emotional value of movies seems to be under-theorized and insufficiently understood in philosophical film theory. I will argue that by incorporating concepts such as disgust (as well as its opposite appreciation or liking and other emotions) into a philosophical film theory we can understand and explain many audience members reactions to the stories and characters that movies offer in a more adequate way. 

In my presentation I plead for a philosophical theory of film that most importantly has basic human emotions such as disgust at its center. Only then the conditions of film and the function of cinema can be adequately thematized. By that, it can be argued for an epistemological-based film theory that not only raises the awareness for the difficulties but also for the value of movies for human society.

Anna-Maria C. Bartsch gained her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Munich and gained degrees in Philosophy and Fine Arts at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and Bauhaus-University Weimar. She was a fellow at institutions such as the »Interdisziplinären Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung Halle/ Saale« and the Department of Philosophy at Brown University, where she worked with Paul Guyer.