Landscape as a Category of Film Aesthetics: Key Approaches

Abstract

This article examines a variety of approaches to the concept of landscape in the philosophy of film in order to establish terminological accuracy and highlight problematic topics in conversations about space in film aesthetics in particular and to clarify the status and boundaries of the term landscape in philosophical use in general. Three groups of approaches to landscape in the philosophy of film were identified in the course of the study and analysis of literature on this issue: landscape as an auxiliary element for the director/crew/viewer (Béla Balázs, Susan Cathleen Gunn, Chris Lukinbeal, etc.); landscape as an autonomous category which is more than just an applied landscape/setting in the frame and which in its interaction with cinematography helps the latter to express its specific features to the fullest (Tom Gunning, Martin Lefebvre, Jean Epstein); single approaches failing to fit into the above categories, with the concept of landscape being subject to author’s specific interpretation (Giles Deleuze, Amy Lynn Corbin). The variety of related areas that had to be addressed in the course of this study (from sociology and politics to cultural geography and Deleuze’s concepts) gave rise to numerous interpretations of the term landscape, even within the framework of film aesthetics. The results of the research roughly outline the problem field on the one hand and indicate the need to continue working in this problem field on the other. One of the problematic issues is the traditional use of the term landscape, while the specificity of the autonomous landscape–cinema interaction requires a thorough study.

For citation: Nepsha V.S. Landscape as a Category of Film Aesthetics: Key Approaches. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2021, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 111–121. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1505-V122