For Alain Badiou, films think, and it is the task of the philosopher to transcribe that thinking. What is the subject to which the film gives expressive form? This is the question that lies at the heart of Badiou's account of cinema. He contends that cinema is an art form that bears witness to the Other and renders human presence visible, thus testifying to the universal value of human existence and human freedom. Through the experience of viewing, the movement of thought that constitutes the film is passed on to the viewer, who thereby encounters an aspect of the world and its exaltation and vitality as well as its difficulty and complexity. Cinema is an impure art cannibalizing its times, the other arts, and people -- a major art precisely because it is the locus of the indiscernibility between art and non-art. It is this, argues Badiou, that makes cinema the social and political art par excellence , the best indicator of our civilization, in the way that Greek tragedy, the coming-of-age novel and the operetta were in their respective eras.

作者簡介：

阿蘭·巴迪歐（Alain Badiou），法國當代著名哲學傢，巴黎第八大學、巴黎高等師範學院教授，國際上非常活躍的左翼思想傢，積極參與政治活動與藝術實踐，齣版哲學著作、思想評論、戲劇作品等60餘部，主要有《存在與事件》《主體理論》《非美學手冊》《愛的多重奏》《柏拉圖的理想國》等。

譯者簡介：

李洋，北京大學藝術學院副院長，教授、博士生導師，“新迷影叢書”主編，著有《目光的倫理》《迷影文化史》等，譯有《萊昂內往事》《特寫：阿巴斯和他的電影》等。

許珍，東北師範大學文藝學博士，吉林建築大學藝術設計學院講師，主要研究電影史、藝術史論，學術論文、譯文發錶於《電影藝術》《當代電影》《上海大學學報（社會科學版）》等。