To my mind, this is the most brilliant philosophical mind America produced during the 20th century. It's interesting to observe how politely and clearly and directly he speaks and all of those traits are part of what makes his thought philosophically attractive.

@mathproof :I remember hearing the story years ago that Heidegger, whose department office sat atop a university tower edifice would tell students: "when you see a light on in the tower you know God is thinking." While once enjoying "Continental philosophy" back in graduate school many moons ago, I now find precious little of note in any of it not already to be had from reading Kant and his greatest pupil, Herder. The rest constituting execrably written elaborations at excruciating length.

It's a question Cavell himself might ask, in a slightly different spirit: What is it about our experience of film that resists our taking it as seriously as he would want it to be taken--that resists the idea that everything in a film matters? OTOH, I have seen Cavell keep a roomfull of self-consciously hip and radical academics spellbound with a clip and subsequent discussion of Fred Astair doing "I've Got a Shine on my Shoes" (Bandwagon), so clearly there are limits to the indifference.

Wunderbar

that's true, but personally, I can't stop thinking about how the interviewer sounds like David Sedaris!

If youre dissatisfied by all you say and all that is said to you thats philosophy

45:30 first impact influence

@mathproof Interestingly, a number of philosophers of the group we're talking about had math backgrounds: I've always thought there a connection between several of the more obscure of the mathmaticians-turned-philosophers such as Pythagoras or. for example, Edmund Husserl than is noted by those who take "Continentals" seriously...as if both disciplines encourage one to disregard the world of physical objects around us for some other one underlying it. One fundamentally escaping description.

At 20:00 Cavell refers to the well known exchange between Wittgenstein and Russell where "Wittgenstein asks Russell if I am a philosopher or a complete fool." It's totally wrong to phrase it this way because W. was asking his mentor after giving him a paper he had written at the behest of R. .. ,not am I a philosopher in a general sense but if his paper showed promise enough to do studies at Cambridge. See the bio by Ray Monk.

"Lichtenstein" is really Wittgenstein, and "Gadar" really Godard. Who did the subtitles?

@clarakapp Quite right.

His accent and tonality reminds me of Harold Bloom.

@mathproof : Cavell's effect on his audience that day was something like this: he provoked us (well, me anyway) into noticing everything we had just watched happen on that screen. Cavell's idea that everything in a film matters doesn't imply a particular aesthetic judgement about a particular film. I think it does however imply the idea that any aesthetic judgment that ignores any of what happens on screen is necessarily incomplete, or say partial. Criticism is representative.

Benjamin died so young. However, whatever he wrote about films is far superior to Barthes and Sontag. Just in a few lines Benjamin would give an amazing account of film. On the other hand, unlike Benjamin, many others who would go on writing books after books without coming anywhere near him.

@mathproof Actually, you misspelled Heidegger twice. And I'm sorry, but that grammar rule is nonsense. Ob ü oder ue - das hat keine Auswirkung auf das Geschlecht oder sonst irgendeine grammatische Form. Please tell your German teacher to stop teaching that. Other than that, I indeed have nothing original or insightful to add. Just a sucker for grammar and spelling--although I do admit that I tend to take opinions less seriously when they contain these types of mistakes.

because he says absolutely nothing and it is completely boring