Richard Rushton

A lingering problem arising from my book on »The Reality of Film« (2011) is that if we call everything »filmic reality« how do we then make distinctions between one film and another, or differentiate filmmaking styles, meanings or significance? In order to investigate these problems, this paper outlines three key propositions informing the conception of »filmic reality«;

1. Cinema produces reality. What I mean by this is that films do not reproduce a prior existing reality (cinema’s mode is not one of reproduction or representation); rather, films advocate certain realities and thus also propose certain ways of life (we might agree or disagree with such ways of life but that does not therefore make those ways fake, illusory or unreal in some sense);
2. Filmic reality is therefore social and / or philosophical – and thus derives from an ethos. I take ethos as signalling a ‘way of life’ and thus argue that the key question to ask of a film is ‘what is it advocating as a way of life?’;
3. Films produce meanings. Film cannot therefore be considered aesthetic per se; rather, cinema is a mode of communication in which meanings are transmitted. Interpretation is thus central to what we do with films and of how we engage with them. Here I draw on arguments recently put forward by D.N. Rodowick (in »Philosophy’s Artful Conversation«).

These propositions clarify with some precision what I call »filmic reality«. Throughout, my paper engages in a discussion of Garry Marshall’s »Pretty Woman« (1990).

Richard Rushton is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Lancaster University, UK. He is the author of many articles on film and film theory. He specialises in theories and philosophies of film influenced by Gilles Deleuze, Stanley Cavell, Jacques Rancière, psychoanalytic theory and more. He has published four books: »The Politics of Hollywood Cinema« (2013), »Cinema After Deleuze« (2012), »The Reality of Film« (2011) and (with Gary Bettinson) »What is Film Theory?« (2010).