Badiou and Cinema

Applies Badiou’s philosophy to films such as Hiroshima Mon Amour, Vertigo and The Matrix. Alex Ling employs the philosophy of Alain Badiou to answer the question central to all serious film scholarship – namely, ‘can cinema be thought?’ In addressing this question, the author uses well-known films to illustrate Badiou’s philosophy and to consider the ways in which his work can be extended, critiqued and reframed with respect to the medium of cinema.

Reviews of Badiou and Cinema

As learned as it is exciting. Alex Ling has produced a textbook example of how to investigate Badiou's "Platonist Cinema" with utter rigor and fidelity. From "Hiroshima Mon Amour" to "The Matrix", he provides readings of films that mix his own ingenuity with Badiou's insights into the inessence of cinema. Yet "Badiou and Cinema" is more than simply an illustration of philosophical thought. It opens up the possibility of a truly thoughtful cinema, a cinema that thinks events in its own way, beyond the exigencies of both extant film theory and philosophy.–John Mullarkey, Kingston University