Film, Nihilism and the Restoration of Belief
This book explores the possibility that cinema can challenge our contemporary nihilism and restore belief in new transformative possibilities for life.
This book explores the possibility that cinema can challenge our contemporary nihilism and restore belief in new transformative possibilities for life.
This book explores the possibility that cinema can challenge our contemporary nihilism and restore belief in new transformative possibilities for life.
Film & video, Philosophy (general), Popular culture
Despite the clichés which govern much of its current forms, the cinema continues to have a vital political and aesthetic significance. Our commitment to, and our sincerity towards, our ways of being in the world have become catastrophically eroded. Nihilism and despair have taken hold. We must find a way to renew our faith in our capacity to transform the world, a faith that will give us back the reality of a world eroded by the restrictive capitalist ontology of modernity. How can we restore belief in the reality of a world when scepticism and universal pessimism have taken hold? Is it possible to find alternative ways of living, being and thinking? This book will discuss the means by which some filmmakers have grasped the vocation of resisting and transforming the present, of cultivating new forms of belief in the world when total alienation seems inevitable.
Click on the circles below to see more reviews
‘In our time of economic misery, war and conflict, and general lethargy, it has been easy for nihilism and discontent to become widespread. To lose faith in humanity has become acceptable within our society. However, the culture of alienation is reaching a tipping point, we must begin to think, act and enact towards a different objective, if we are to begin to dig ourselves out of a very deep hole. Darren Ambrose’s book offers us some consolation. If film can offer us a transformative experience, that changes our personal perception, then can we use it to create changes in a larger context? Film, Nihilism and the Restoration of Belief is perhaps one of the most original and important books in the subject of cinema and its effects on our collective conscience.” ~ Stephen Lee Naish, Author of U.ESS.AY: Politics and Humanity in American Film