On Film

260 Pages·2015·1.99 MB·English

by  Stephen Mulhall

On Film
The first edition of Stephen Mulhall’s acclaimed On Film was a study of the four Alien films,
andmadethehighlyoriginalandcontroversialargumentthatfilmsthemselvescanphilosophize.
In its second edition,OnFilmincreasedits breadth and vision considerably to encompass films
such as the Mission: Impossible series and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.
InthissignificantlyexpandedthirdeditionStephenMulhalladdsnewchaptersontheJason
Bourne films, the fourth Mission: Impossible movie, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and Star Trek: Into
Darkness,andRidleyScott’sPrometheus(inwhichhereturnstotheAlienuniversehecreated).In
sodoing,Mulhallreappraisesinfascinatingwaysthecentralissuestakenupinearliereditions
of On Film: the genres of science fiction and thriller, the impact of digital asopposed to photo-
graphicmodesoftechnologyonthenatureofcinemaasamedium(anditsrelationtotelevision),
andthefateofsequeldominmainstreamcontemporarycinema(withitsemphasisonremakes,
reboots and multi-media superhero franchises).
On Film, third edition, is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, film theory
andculturalstudies, andinthe wayphilosophy canenrichourunderstandingof cinema.
Stephen Mulhall is a Professor of Philosophy, and a Tutorial Fellow of New College,Oxford,
UK. Heis the author of The Routledge Guidebook to Heidegger’s Being andTime(2005, 2013), The
ConversationofHumanity(2007),andTheSelfanditsShadows(2013).
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On Film
Third edition
Stephen Mulhall
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Thirdeditionpublished2016
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare, MiltonPark,Abingdon, OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
Routledge isanimprint oftheTaylor &FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2016StephenMulhall
TherightofStephenMulhalltobeidentifiedastheauthorofthisworkhasbeenasserted
byhiminaccordance withsections77and78oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct
1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedorutilizedinany
formorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,
including photocopyingandrecording, orinanyinformationstorage orretrievalsystem,
withoutpermission inwriting fromthepublishers.
Trademarknotice: Productorcorporatenames maybetrademarks orregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintenttoinfringe.
Firstedition publishedbyRoutledge 2001
Secondedition publishedbyRoutledge 2008
British LibraryCataloguing inPublication Data
Acataloguerecordfor thisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongress Cataloging inPublication Data
Mulhall,Stephen, 1962-
Onfilm/byStephenMulhall.–Thirdedition.
pagescm
Includesbibliographical referencesandindex.
1.Alien(Motionpicture)2.Sciencefiction films–Historyandcriticism.
3.Motionpictures– Philosophy.I.Title.
PN1997.A32253M852016
791.4375–dc23
2015024401
ISBN:978-1-138-79684-3 (hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-79685-0 (pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-75759-9 (ebk)
Typeset inGaramond andGillSans
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
For Eleanor and Matthew
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Contents
Preface to the third edition ix
Preface to the second edition xiii
PARTI 1
Introduction 3
1 Kane’s son, Cain’s daughter: Ridley Scott’s Alien 9
2 Making babies: James Cameron’s Aliens 31
3 Mourning sickness: David Fincher’s Alien3 52
4 The monster’s mother: Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection 71
PARTII 83
5 Film as philosophy: The priority of the particular 85
6 PreCrime, precognition and the pre-reflective cogito: Steven
Spielberg’s Minority Report 104
PARTIII 125
7 The impersonation of personality: Brian De Palma’s Mission:
Impossible 127
8 The burden of sex: John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II 142
9 An accelerated mutator: J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III 151
PARTIV 171
10 The legacy of Jason Bourne: Identity and the sinfulness
of origins 173
viii Contents
11 The Enterprise, the Botany Bay and the Kobayashi Maru:
Rebooting Star Trek with Khan’s wrath and Abrams’
red matter 188
12 The disavowal of animation: Brad Bird’s Mission:
Impossible – Ghost Protocol 207
13 Cinematic repetition and how to avoid it: Sequels, prequels
and Prometheus 223
References 239
Index 241
Preface to the third edition
When I began to consider the possibility of a third edition of this book, I initially
pictured it as modifying the second edition in just the way that the second edition
modified the first – that is, as further testing the interpretative model employed in
the first edition by applying it to another sequence of films possessed of the char-
acteristicsthatmadetheAlienseriesandtheMission:Impossible series so appropriate for
my purposes. That would have required identifyinga third set ofinterlinked films set
in a distinctive cinematic universe (and ideally centred on a single protagonist), with
each individual film exemplifying the work of a different director, and thereby
invitingconsiderationinrelationtootherfilmsbythatsamehandoreyeaswellasin
relation to its predecessors. Such sequences remain rare; but there was one plausible
candidate – the series of movies about Jason Bourne (The Bourne Identity [2002], dir.
DougLiman;The Bourne Supremacy [2004], dir.Paul Greengrass; The Bourne Ultimatum
[2007], dir. Paul Greengrass; and The Bourne Legacy [2012], dir. Tony Gilroy). To be
sure, there were anomalies: Greengrass has directed two instalments of the series, but
he relates them so tightly to one another that they could well be counted as a single
extended episode; and Jason Bourne himself is absent from the fourth film, but the
mode of his absence is such as to make this film’s internal relation to its predecessors
more insistent and more interesting.
If I could make a discussion of this series the centrepiece of the new edition, then I
would also be able to update my discussions of the previous two series – a pressing
concern from my point of view, since the Mission: Impossible series had recently
acquired a fourth instalment (subtitled Ghost Protocol [2011]), directed by Brad Bird
(whose origins in Pixar and digital animation more generally made the question of
Hollywood’s accelerating transition from celluloid to CGI unavoidable), and the
originator of the Alien series had more recently returned to that universe with Pro-
metheus (2012:dir.RidleyScott).Suchupdatingmightalsoinclude morerecent work
by some of the directors involved in those two series: I had caught up with David
Fincher’swork after Alien3 inthesecond edition ofmybook,buthehasbeen equally
productive since then; and ofcourse J.J.Abrams’work since Mission:Impossible III has
been highly influential, as well as having a particular bearing on my interest in
sequels and their conditions of possibility (with his rebooting of the Star Trek
franchise, and his impending resuscitation of Star Wars).