Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 5 No. 27, September 2001
Adam Muller
Rediscovering the Virtues in Popular Film
Joseph H. Kupfer _Visions of Virtue in Popular
Film_ Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,
1999 ISBN 0-8133-6721-2 236 pp. It is no secret that interest in
normative ethics has increased across the humanities and
social sciences in recent years. This trend has been driven,
as much as anything else, by growing public awareness of the
profound consequences of new developments in 'hard'
scientific disciplines like molecular biology and genetics,
and by a much longer-standing set of concerns involving the
sustenance and protection of the environment. Literary and
Film Studies have also benefited from this revival of
ethical interest, and a number of fine critical studies have
appeared over the last ten or so years which have succeeded
in building new (and very necessary) bridges between ethics
and the arts. Of the two disciplines, by far and away
Literary Studies has been the greater beneficiary of this
ethical turn, as excellent works by Wayne Booth, Martha
Nussbaum, and more recently Colin McGinn attest. Films have
traditionally proven to be of less interest to ethicists
than literary fictions, perhaps because of the greater
number of literary works from which to choose ethical
exempla, but more probably because of the relatively more
pronounced tradition in literature of texts deliberately
designed to confront issues of enduring social and moral
significance. The presence of these texts underwrites Doris
Lessing's defense of literature's ethical import, a defense
marshalled in her 1986 Massey Lectures in which she argues,
*pace* Aristotle, that literary fictions offer readers
'laboratories of social change', [1] or imaginative
domains in which to test the limits of their moral
intuitions, thereby becoming better able to refine
them. Film, by way of contrast, was
originally created primarily as a means of mass
entertainment, and so from its start conceded the ethical
terrain to literature, offering instead vaudevillian
slapstick and (at best) a minimal narrativity. The later
aestheticization of film -- a project self-consciously
undertaken by great early film theorists including
Eisenstein, Kracauer, and Bazin -- failed to remove the
lingering odour of the boardwalk, the carnival, and the
country fair. Even today, at a time in which film is most
often taught as 'art', the technical sophistication and
accomplishments of directors, cinematographers, and
performers frequently justifies its being so-conceived; only
secondarily is film celebrated for its ethical complexity
and depth, and for its role as an instrument of narrative
communication. Significantly, when film scholars do turn
their attention to the ethics of cinematic representation,
as they did during the much-discussed 1984 conference on
Image Ethics held at the Annenberg School, the kinds of
questions raised don't often address film's ability to
contribute to our capacity for moral self-reflection and
critique; instead the questions asked and answers given seem
concerned principally with the ethics of image appropriation
and the psycho-politics of spectatorship, the latter hardly
counting as 'ethical' at all. As a result, the world of the
film-fiction and the ethical contestations therein have
remained subordinate to (or in extreme cases they have
become read simply as a function of) the ethical imperatives
organizing the world of the viewer. For the film theorist,
empathy and other social emotions fail to register
analytically at all. These issues and concerns, then, along
with the sense that film has something more to offer the
applied ethicist, comprise the main *raisons d'etre* for
Joseph Kupfer's new analysis of virtue in popular film.
Kupfer, a philosophy professor at Iowa State University, has
written widely on ethics and aesthetics, and in _Visions of
Virtue_ he offers an account of virtue deeply indebted to
the work of Alisdair MacIntyre, and to the cluster of
neo-Aristotelian thinkers with whom MacIntyre is now
regularly associated. It seems strange how easily Kupfer
borrows from MacIntyre given the sustained philosophical
attack on him following the publication of _After Virtue_,
his landmark critique of modernity and defense of community
standards and practices. Indeed Kupfer spends more time
explaining how films mean than he does defending his
conception of virtue, and his explanation of the former is
(admittedly deliberately) not really all that
robust. And yet despite his disengagement from
the philosophical paratext surrounding MacIntyre and his
work, and quite possibly because of his tendency to rely
upon Aristotle when MacIntyre himself won't do, Kupfer
manages to offer an account of virtue quite appropriate to
his subject matter. Specifically, Kupfer defines virtues as
'the qualities that promote attainment of those goods that
are internal to activities' (29), and goes on to analyze the
actions or activities of characters in films like _Groundhog
Day_ in terms of the extent to which they promote (or fail
to promote) *eudaimonia* or wellbeing. By so doing he hopes
to encourage a dialogue with Aristotle 'by reinterpreting
the Aristotelian perspective in light of popular American
movies, which confront it with a contemporary sensibility.
The wisdom and resiliency of the Aristotelian view of virtue
are confirmed in its practical relevance to modern life'
(33). From MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum
Kupfer borrows the notion that in order to understand human
conduct as more than simply a disconnected series of
behaviours we must have recourse to some kind of a coherent
biographical narrative or story, a story that is part and
parcel of every narrative film. Kupfer uses this claim to
justify his attention to popular films such as _Groundhog
Day_, _Rob Roy_, and _Jaws_, films which require of their
protagonists actions which reveal their struggle either to
become virtuous or to refine their virtues. The ethical
payoff for viewers of these films consists in their ability
to reveal -- through a by now well-established convention
which holds that narrative films 'are like case studies in
law, filled with the subtlety and messiness that naturally
elicit attention to those loose ends of life so easily lost
on the clean edges of academic theory' (32) -- the narrative
content of our own ethical-interpretive frameworks. But even
if Kupfer is right and it is only through stories that we
come to make sense of one another as fully human beings, it
is unclear from his argument, and indeed from his book as a
whole, why the stories we should be looking at are ideally
located in popular films. Nowhere in his book does Kupfer
make clear why the films he chooses to discuss are better
suited to his purpose than any of a large number of
similarly popular films, all possessing more or less the
same sorts of moral outlooks, or better even than a host of
otherwise promising so-called 'art' films. To make the
problem literary for a moment: why look to John Grisham for
a lesson in virtue when we can turn to Tugenev and Flaubert
instead? One of the great curiosities of
_Visions of Virtue_ is Kupfer's silence on the matter of
what it is about popular film per se which makes it suitable
for the kind of ethical reflection he endorses. Even more
puzzling is my sense that an answer to this question can be
readily found in Aristotle, and in particular in the
_Nicomachean Ethics_, a work in which we find a strong
argument for an ethics rooted in a special kind of social
discourse, one centering on the reconciliation of
contradictory appearances or *phainomena*. These
'appearances' are more or less our deeply held beliefs about
what things are really like, and according to Aristotle we
have a responsibility as members of a community to
foreground these beliefs so as to try and reconcile them
with those of others with whom we might otherwise markedly
disagree, and with whom we desire to live together in a
community. In the absence of this reconciliation a community
weakens and slowly begins to pull itself apart. Popular
films, simply by being 'of' the people in significant ways,
are presumably one such site at which appearances converge.
By enacting or representing for a mass audience their
beliefs about virtues such as honour, love, courage, and so
on, the audience (ideally) comes to understand what love,
etc., really mean (for them), and at least minimally is
presented with the basis for ongoing deliberation and
clarificatory debate. Art films, and related works of
'highbrow' literature, precisely in virtue of the relatively
small size of their audiences and readership, as well as of
the kinds of specialized knowledge they assume that their
readers and viewers possess, must of necessity prove less
useful in this regard. Thus Martha Nussbaum's defense in
_The Fragility of Goodness_ of the ordinary as an object of
philosophical analysis and ethical reflection: 'We need
philosophy to show us the way back to the ordinary and to
make it an object of interest and pleasure, rather than
contempt and evasion'. [2] By connecting ethics to
popular film we place ourselves in a position to observe not
simply ethics in practice, but to recognize the manifold
beliefs which ground our daily lives. The seven films that Kupfer examines
in _Visions of Virtue_ are grouped together in two sets of
three chapters each. The first set, consisting of chapters
on _Groundhog Day_, _The African Queen_, and _Parenthood_,
deal with characters who undergo processes of moral
education and reform; the second set, consisting of _Rob
Roy_, _Fresh_, _Aliens_, and _Jaws_, centrally concerns
characters whose virtues are put to the test, usually in
do-or-die situations. The first three chapters address
issues of 'virtue acquisition', the next three with issues
of 'virtue exhibition', and the results of Kupfer's analysis
are mixed. Perhaps the most successful reading in
_Visions of Virtue_ is of Harold Ramis's 1993 film
_Groundhog Day_. The film, which revolves around the conceit
of a protagonist forced to re-live the same day over and
over again until he becomes a better person, is ideally
suited to a discussion of virtue; indeed it is a case study
of moral reform, with the protagonist Phil (Bill Murray)
becoming progressively more attentive, self-deprecating,
generous, and kind. Drawing on Aristotle, Nietzsche, and
Plato, Kupfer offers a lively account of Phil's
transformation from egoist to altruist, a change which
enables him ultimately to win the love of Rita (Andie
MacDowell), a genuinely good person whom, Kupfer argues,
'provides Phil with a moral alternative to the tedium of
unsatisfying pleasure seeking and an incentive to the moral
life' (50). Kupfer does a good job of showing how Phil comes
to better himself through activities such as learning to
play the piano and sculpting ice. Echoing MacIntyre on the
ethical significance of practices, Kupfer argues
that: 'Although Phil embarks on his
self-improvement in order to win Rita's love, he comes to
enjoy the activities for their own sake. The result is a
life made meaningful by activity that is intrinsically
valued. Piano playing, poetry reading, lifesaving all are
undertaken by Phil as ends in themselves. At the same time,
Phil comes to value people for their own sakes, not for what
they can provide him' (52). Similarly effective is Kupfer's
juxtaposition of _Groundhog Day_ with Stephen Frears's 1989
film _Dangerous Liasons_. Kupfer compares Phil with Valmont
(John Malkovich), and argues that both characters undergo
similar moral transformations, similar in that they are both
brought on by contact with virtuous others, although the
latter's moral reform remains necessarily incomplete because
he is evil, whereas Phil is just morally
immature. Kupfer's subsequent readings of
_Parenthood_, _Fresh_, and _Rob Roy_ succeed, but are not
particularly surprising. To say of Ron Howard's _Parenthood_
(1989), for example, that it shows us how: 'Parents who
assume too much credit for their children's successes or
failures are guilty of lacking humility, even though they
may not lack love or compassion' (97), seems not to say very
much at all. Nor does Kupfer startle us when he observes of
_Rob Roy_ that: 'Just as Rob's sterling nature elevates the
moral life of the clan, so do the clan and Rob's family
sustain him' (151). Yet Kupfer's critical emphasis on
language in _Rob Roy_, and especially on the connection
between moral standards of speech (reciprocity, regard for
promise keeping, etc.) and virtues such as respect,
integrity, and fidelity, ultimately proves rewarding, not
least because of its clarification of the nature of the
reciprocity linking Rob Roy to his clan. These moral
standards, standards violated or ignored by the film's
evil-doers to their great disadvantage, make a moral
community possible in the first place. At the personal level
these standards, and the virtues to which they are
connected, also form the basis for other virtues like
courage and trustworthiness, all of which in turn enhance
the moral character of the community. In Kupfer's
words: 'The linguistic virtues are important
to an individual's overall moral character because his
relationship to himself is mediated by how he speaks with
other people. We cannot maintain our self-respect and
integrity unless we exercise these virtues in social
intercourse. In being true to other people, individuals are
true to themselves, to what they believe and value'
(127). Perhaps the least successful reading
in _Visions of Virtue_ involves John Huston's _The African
Queen_ (1951). In it Kupfer argues for the transformative
power of romantic friendship, which in the film is
exemplified by the romance between Charlie Allnutt (Humphrey
Bogart) and Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn). Beginning with
the notion that 'lovers inspire one another to be better
than they presently are and enable each other to see their
potential for moral improvement' (63), Kupfer goes on to
show how Charlie loses his loutishness and Rose her
priggishness as their journey down river progresses, and how
consequently 'they see themselves as ennobled by one
another. Each enables the other person to see herself or
himself developing into a finer individual' (78). So far as
it goes this reading of the film is persuasive, and indeed
it is relatively consistent with a number of other
interpretations of the Rose-Charlie relationship, and of
Aristotle's views on friendship as well. What troubles me
about Kupfer's reading is how reductive and flat it seems.
Love, or at least the process of falling in love, is
chaotic, passionate, capricious, contradictory, and often
whimsical, all of which makes it wonderfully well-suited for
representation in narrative films, including _The African
Queen_. Very little of this excitement is conveyed by
Kupfer's account, nor are its ethical implications explored
other than tangentially. It would be too strong to call this
a misreading of the film, but nonetheless it does suggest a
regrettable under-reading of it. To a lesser extent this
same problem bedevils Kupfer's account of _Aliens_, in which
he offers a compelling reading of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)
as an agent of justice, a reading which for the most part
neglects the ethical implications of her concurrent role as
a surrogate mother. Although Kupfer does indeed offer some
analysis of the relationship between Ripley and Newt, his
claim that Newt is simply a 'miniature Ripley' (217)
obscures the extent to which these characters' virtues fail
to overlap. And yet Kupfer's reading of _Aliens_ is finally
a satisfying one. By considering the film alongside _Jaws_
he is able to alert us to a number of semantically rewarding
thematic and structural parallels between the two works, as
well as to contrast the virtues of their protagonists and
the self-deceptions of the films' other
characters. In sum, _Visions of Virtue_ works
reasonably well as an exposition of virtue in selected
popular films, but it remains philosophically underwhelming.
Kupfer spends too much time generating (sometimes quite
constricted) readings of the films he discusses, and not
nearly enough assessing their ability to problematize or
reflect back upon the philosophical accounts of virtue he
deploys. Nor does he provide an adequate explanation of his
choice of films, something which might have gone a long way
towards offering an overdue justification for ethical-
philosophical interest in popular culture more
generally. Center for Professional and Applied
Ethics University of Manitoba,
Canada Footnotes 1. See Doris Lessing, _Prisons We
Choose to Live Inside_ (Toronto: House of Anansi,
1986). 2. Martha Nussbaum, _The Fragility of
Goodness_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.
260. Copyright © _Film-Philosophy_
2001 Adam Muller, 'Rediscovering the
Virtues in Popular Film', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 5 no. 27,
September 2001
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol5-2001/n27muller>.
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