Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema. A Beauvoirian Perspective

摘要

This collection of essays on the relationship between Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy and film studies is very welcome and long overdue. Beauvoir's work may not be readily associated with film, but she was fascinated by the cinema and reflected upon the power of the cinematic experience and how it affected her as a cinemagoer. As the book's introduction by the editors makes clear, Beauvoir wrote passionately about the cinema, and also drew on Hollywood stars and films as references to illustrate some of her arguments about myth and patriarchal hegemony in practice (5). In The Second Sex (1949) she wrote about the specular economy in patriarchal society, a concept that is fundamental to feminist film theory. She also wrote an essay of film criticism entitled 'Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome', which, as the editors point out, critiques cinematic form and content, as well as the complexities of Bardot's stardom. So there is a wealth of connections between Beauvoir's work and the cinema crying out to be explored and developed.