The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables

Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film

Joel Mayward (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

246 Seiten

2024
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-30672-8 (ISBN)

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The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables examines the work of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been celebrated for their powerfully affecting social realist films. Though the Dardenne brothers’ films rarely mention religion or God, they have received wide recognition for their moral complexity and spiritual resonance. This book brings the Dardennes’ filmography into consideration with theological aesthetics, Christian ethics, phenomenological film theory, and continental philosophy. The author explores the brothers’ nine major films—beginning with The Promise (1996) and culminating in Young Ahmed (2019)—through the hermeneutics of philosopher Paul Ricoeur. By using Ricoeur’s description of "parable" as a "narrative-metaphor" which generates an existential limit-experience, Joel Mayward crafts an innovative Ricoeurian hermeneutic for making theological interpretations of cinema. Drawing upon resources from three disciplinary spheres—theology, philosophy, and film studies—in a dynamic interweaving approach, Mayward proposes that the Dardennes create postsecular cinematic parables which evoke theological and ethical responses in audiences’ imaginations through the brothers’ distinctive filmmaking style, what is termed "transcendent realism." The book ultimately demonstrates how the Dardenne brothers are truly doing, not merely depicting, theology and ethics through the cinematic form—it presents film as theology, what Mayward refers to as "theocinematics." This is valuable reading for scholars of theology, philosophy, and film studies, as well as film critics and cinephiles interested in the cinema of the Dardenne brothers.

Joel Mayward is Assistant Professor of Christian Ministries, Theology and the Arts at George Fox University, USA. He has a PhD from the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, University of St Andrews, UK.

Introduction: A Cinematic Turn in Theology

Part I: Cinematic Parables

1 Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film Studies

2 Film and Parable: A Ricoeurian Parabolic Hermeneutic

Part II: The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables

3 Traces of Hope: The World Behind the Films

4 Transcendent Realism: The World of the Films

5 Guiding Images: The World in Front of the Films

Conclusion: Toward Theocinematics

Erscheinungsdatum	05.09.2022
Reihe/Serie	Routledge Studies in Religion and Film
Zusatzinfo	31 Halftones, black and white; 31 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
	Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
ISBN-10	1-032-30672-6 / 1032306726
ISBN-13	978-1-032-30672-8 / 9781032306728
Zustand	Neuware