Undergraduate thesis is presenting a phenomenological theory of film representation by Allan Casebier, who is attempting to construct a realistic epistemology of film representation, in contrast with idealistic and nominalistic undercurrents of contemporary film theory. The theory is built on phenomenological concepts of Edmund Husserl; noema, noesis, hyle as the sensible data and horizont. Casebier’s ontology of film representation is presented in comparison with other models of film theory, which are inspired by structuralism and semiotics. In contrast with them, Casebier’s theory of transcendence is based on the characteristic of the apprehended object as independent of the perceptual acts of the perceivers. In the final chapters of the thesis, I apply Casebier’s model to the case of Short Cuts by Robert Altman, a film adapted from the short stories of Raymond Carver. I also apply the model to the literary original and analyse the key differences when phenomenologically comparing the two mediums, like the greater array of sensible data or hyle in film and a different functioning of the horizont in the literary medium.
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