Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Foreword xi
5. Introduction: Film Ethics as Delivering the Goods 1
6. Part I: Adaptive Goods
7. 1. . . . A Portal to Another World: On Cinema, Climate Change, and a Good Apocalypse 13
8. 2. . . . Scaling Down: On the Unsustainable Pleasure of Large-File Streaming 24
9. 3. . . . It’s Invaluable: On Film Spectatorship in the Era of Covid-19 36
10. 4. . . . Stabilities and Mobilities: On the Generic Values of Emplacements, Displacements, and Outplacements 46
11. Part II: Empathic Goods
12. 5. . . . Lies, Loops, or Liberation: On the Dis/Obedience of Feeling More 57
13. 6. . . . Public Engagement: On Postcolonial African Cinema’s Critical Value 69
14. 7. . . . Shedding Light on Abject Lives: On Global Cinema as Ethical Art 80
15. 8. . . . Empathy: On Its Limitations and Liabilities 91
16. 9. . . . Political Impact: On the Societal Vibrancy of Film 102
17. Part III: Sensitive Goods
18. 10. . . . Moral Reflection: On the Reflective Afterlife of Screen Stories 117
19. 11. . . . Challenge and Discomfort: On Situated Elitist Pleasures in Art and Indie Film 128
20. 12. . . . Heterocosmic Connections: On the Many Worlds and World Values of Cinema 138
21. 13. . . . Depth of Experience: On Early Phenomenology and the Value of Boredom in the Cinema 150
22. 14. . . . Striking Beauty: On Recuperating the Beautiful in Cinema 162
23. Part IV: Reviving Goods
24. 15. . . . Wondering Offscreen: On Cinema’s Transformations of Our Relation to the Unseen 177
25. 16. . . . Coming to Wonder: On Cinema’s Renewal of Vision 188
26. 17. . . . Moral Improvement: On How Watching Films Might Make Us Better People 198
27. 18. . . . Cinematic Ethics: On Film as Transformative Experience 209
28. 19. . . . Spiritual Exercises Before a Screen: On “Film as Philosophy” and Its Transformational Ethics 221
29. Part V: Communal Goods
30. 20. . . . Remembrance and Reflection: On Social Justice Cinema in the #BlackLivesMatter Era 237
31. 21. . . . Making Movie Generations: On the Cultural Work of Hollywood Remaking 249
32. 22. . . . Reaching Unlettered Audiences: On Global Blockbuster Cinema and Its Oral Affinities 261
33. 23. . . . Love of Community and Reality: On André Bazin and the Good of Cinema 274
34. Part VI: Medial Goods
35. 24. . . . Projection and Protection: On Cinemagoing as Playing Hide-and-Seek with Reality 289
36. 25. . . . An Animated and Animating Medium: On Hegel, Adorno, and the Good of Film 300
37. 26. . . . The Bigger Picture: On Watching Films on a Cinema Screen 314
38. 27. . . . Quality Time: On Resisting What’s Next, or Staying with the Credits 326
39. Part VII: Unsettled Goods
40. 28. . . . Wanton Destruction: On Cinema’s Antisocial Thrills 339
41. 29. . . . Alienating Interventions: On What the “Bad” in David Lynch’s Films Is “Good” For 349
42. 30. . . . Dangerous Situations: On Whether Cinema Is Poisonous 361
43. 31. . . . Good for Nothing? On How Films Help Us through the Night 368
44. 32. . . . Medium-Sized Matters: On Whether Cinema Has Made Any Difference 378
45. Afterword 388
46. Contributors 393
47. Index 401