What are these filmmakers trying to do? The intentionalist fallacy!

On the intention of the author or authors (filmmakers).

While it is of course true that we usually cannot know the intention of the author(s) – unless they are living and can tell us (have told us) what they intended – but even here, they are often an unreliable source, since there is a large unconscious component that goes into artistic creation of which the author may not be aware  – in other words, the author aimed at one thing but the work produced is something else – and, finally,  knowledge of an author’s intention is useless for evaluating a work – yes, he may have intended this and achieved it but what has that to do with our judgment of the work as good or bad, etc? The author may have intended to write a fluff piece for money and achieved fully his intention, but it’s still a fluff piece.

The concept of intention is indeed problematic, even though it is key in legal thinking and writing. Determining the intention of someone is what the law is largely about. Call it a legal fiction, if you will, but it is used all the time. If a defense attorney tried to claim that we cannot know, in principle, the intention of the accused, he would be reminded that he is basing himself on a principle, not recognized as valid by the court.

I propose using the intention of the author as a kind of “legal fiction,” and allow talk about intention into the conversation about a work of art, a film, say. Even though we cannot know it, let’s talk about it anyway, if we want, and then look at our answer to the question, How do the filmmakers want us to respond to the character played by Morgan Freeman? Our answer will always be provisional and a kind of collectively negotiated guess. Thus for all practical purposes, ie, for the purpose of discussion, we will regard as definitive this group’s consensus of opinion (with of course minority opinion acknowledged as well).

Why do this? Why insist that talk of the filmmaker’s intention be legitimized?

Because it helps us clarify our answer to the question, What do we think that we are responding to?

If someone says, eg, In this film Morgan Freeman is an obnoxious rich man, using his money, power and influence, to try to seduce a checkout girl.

And someone else says, But you don’t really think that the filmmakers intended us to conceptualize and respond this way to Morgan Freeman in this movie, do you?

I don’t care about the intention of the filmmakers and, besides, we can’t really know it anyway.

Well, the question still stands. What is it that you think that you are responding to then? It seems to me that you are responding to the film, as if it were real life. But, obviously, that can’t be the case. (No sane person is incapable of telling the difference between Donald Duck and a picture of Donald Duck). It must be that you are responding to a fictional character, ie, a literary character fashioned in such a way by the filmmakers’ conscious intentions (including the real actor himself). In the creation of the screen image of this character, decisions have been made about how to select and arrange the actor’s behavior, so that he represents the kind of character the filmmakers want.

If we are allowed to ask the question, How do the filmmakers intend us to respond to this fictional character?, and if we have the answer to this question (provisionally, to be sure, as a result of class discussion and negotiation, then we can get a handle on how our responses differ from each other’s and even begin to get a handle on why they differ, this latter question answerable by the respondent who wishes to negotiate his response with others. In other words, he will need to search himself for the subjective factors which “caused” him to respond in the way he did. Perhaps he will understand that he is resymbolizing the character of Morgan Freeman on the basis of his image of his father, whom he hates for oedipal reasons, whatever!

What I am saying is that the image (symbol) of the character created by the filmmakers is motivated (intended) and one’s interpretation (resymblization) of this image is also motivated.

The alternative is to slough ahead insisting on one’s sovereign subjectivity: This is the way I see it, and I don’t care if it’s the way I’m supposed to or not, cause we can’t know how we are supposed to respond. I also don’t care how others see it either. We all respond differently, period. And I am not at all interested in negotiating my response in relation to that of others. This is the way I see it and that’s an end to it!