Silly Questions and Arguments for the Implicit, Cinematic Narrator

Abstract

This chapter aims to advance the debate on a problem often raised by philosophers of film who are skeptical of implied narrators in movies. This is the concern that positing such implied narrators leads to absurd imaginings. Indeed, the debate over the cinematic narrator has been at a stalemate most centrally because there seems to be no resolution as to whether it is or is not legitimate to "fill in" the implications of the implied narrator's presence in the story world. I examine how the "absurd imaginings" problem arises for all the central arguments for the elusive cinematic narrator and discuss why it is legitimate to fill in the implications of the implied narrator's presence in the world of the fiction film.

Subjectivity in Film: Mine, Yours, and No One’s

“…In what follows, we will make good on this suggestion by criticizing two contrastive and prevailing views of who is located at the perspective spot, and the second is the view that in general, film experiences do not mandate that the viewer experience anyone as located at the perspective spot. Theorists who presume film experiences to mandate an experience of the viewer as herself located at the perspective spot include: Mitry (1965), Wilson (1986;Curran (2016;2019). Theorists who deny this and hold that the experience is always or normally impersonal include Currie (1995;cf.…”