SYNOPSIS
Friday, December 1, 2017 7:15 pm -10:00 pm, Combination Room, Trinity College, Univ. Of Toronto, 6 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto
John Caruana, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Ryerson University
Repetition and Belief: A Kierkegaardian Reading of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.
Abstract
Terence Malick's The Tree of Life is regarded by many as one of the most important films in recent memory. It has often been noted that before turning to cinema, Malick was a promising young philosopher with particular expertise in Heidegger's thought. But what is not commonly known is that in addition to Heidegger, Malick had also planned, while at Oxford, to write his doctoral dissertation on Kierkegaard. The Danish philosopher has another interesting connection to cinema. His concept of repetition has been a source of major inspiration for two of the most important thinkers of film in the twentieth century: Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell (who was Malick's supervisor at Harvard). For both film-philosophers, Kierkegaardian repetition is a critical tool in conceiving of a renewed belief in life. Nowhere is that more evident than The Tree of Life which is a powerful expression of this reanimated faith in the world. In The Tree of Life, Malick makes explicit reference to Kierkegaard's own interpretation of Job. Revisiting certain critical insights from the Book of Job, The Tree of Life tells the story of a family's attempts to come to terms with a devastating loss. Focusing on Kierkegaard's notion of repetition sheds light on how belief qua trust, for Malick, has the potential to transfigure what is otherwise a crippling experience of irrecoverable loss.
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John Caruana
John Caruana is Associate Professor of Philosophy as well as the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University. While his past publications, in various journals and book collections, have focused on continental philosophers, including Levinas and Kristeva, his most recent work has explored the intersections of film, philosophy, and religion. He has published on the cinema of Bruno Dumont, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Abbas Kiarostami, Eric Rohmer, and the Dardenne brothers. He is - along with Mark Cauchi - the co-editor of Postsecular Cinema: Between Malick and von Trier (SUNY Press, forthcoming).
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