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Focuses on the extent to which contemporary cinema contributes to political/philosophical thinking about the future of Europe´s core Enlightenment values - liberty, fraternity, equality.

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This groundbreaking volume for the Thinking Cinema series focuses on the extent to which contemporary cinema contributes to political and philosophical thinking about the future of Europe´s core Enlightenment values. In light of the challenges of globalization, multi-cultural communities and post-nation state democracy, the book interrogates the borders of ethics and politics and roots itself in debates about post-secular, post-Enlightenment philosophy.

By defining a cinema that knows that it is no longer a competitor to Hollywood (i.e. the classic self-other construction), Elsaesser also thinks past the kind of self-exoticism or auto-ethnography that is the perpetual temptation of such a co-produced, multi-platform ´national cinema as world cinema´. Discussing key filmmakers and philosophers, like: Claire Denis and Jean-Luc Nancy; Aki Kaurismäki, abjection and Julia Kristeva; Michael Haneke, the paradoxes of Christianity and Slavoj Zizek; Fatih Akin, Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière, Elsaesser is able to approach European cinema and assesses its key questions within a global context. His combination of political and philosophical thinking will surely ground the debate in film philosophy for years to come.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: European Cinema into the 21st Century: Enlarging the Context?
Chapter 2: Film as Thought: The ´Film and Philosophy´ Debate
Chapter 3: Film as Thought Experiment
Chapter 4: "Europe" - A Thought Experiment
Chapter 5: A Cinema of Abjection?
Chapter 6: Post-heroic Narratives and the Community-to-Come
Chapter 7: Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy and Beau Travail
Chapter 8: Hitting Bottom: Aki Kaurismäki and the Abject Subject: The Man Without A Past
Chapter 9: "Experimenting with Death in Life" Fatih Akin and the Ethical Turn
Chapter 10: Black Suns and a Bright Planet: Lars von Trier´s Melancholia as Thought Experiment
Chapter 11: Anatomy Lesson of A Vanished Country: Christian Petzold´s Barbara
Chapter 12: Control, Creative Constraints and Self Contradiction: The Global Auteur

Bibliography
Filmography
Index

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Constitutes an interdisciplinary epistemological and philosophical map, a challenging and precious tool to register, draw and address the complex socio-political dynamics of our time with a critical and experimental spirit ... [An] essential text (a must read for these dangerous times). New Review of Film and Television Studies

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