The Eye of the Cinematograph

The Eye of the Cinematograph demonstrates beautifully what Levinas can bring to film-philosophy - a cinematic ethics evoking the alterity of the Other. Bringing Levinas and Bazin together, Manafi explores the ethical potential of spectatorship, the realisms of the body, and the ethical epiphany possible through film. An eloquent, impressive work.

--Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University

Manafi's monograph is a commendable example of a graduate dissertation manifesting into a monograph. [...] Through Manafi's attempts to render Levinas' ethics through the lens of cinema (a bold gesture against the grain of the philosopher's own general dissociation from the arts), he helps to showcase new encounters with the cinematic image, in an effort to bring further understanding to the often ineffable cinematic image that keeps us returning with renewed inquiry and openness.

--M. Sellers Johnson "Senses Of Cinema"

Proposing a novel marriage between Bazinian realism and Levinasian philosophy, Keyvan Manafi's The Eye of the Cinematograph compellingly asks us to look closely at the filmed body in all its promises and indeterminacies. This is an elegantly written book that sheds new light on the confluences between film ethics, nonprofessional acting and durational cinema.

--Tiago de Luca, University of Warwick