What is it about?
This essay offers an analysis of Kiarostami's hybrid docu-fiction by looking at its treatment of ideas about seeing, what it means to see, and the ethical implications of seeing or not seeing others. It also explores questions about what a film's responsibilities are when it comes to representation and whether genres such as documentary or narrative are as distinct as we might expect.
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Why is it important?
In this moment of "alternative facts" and "fake news," our cynicism about the authenticity of representation is at an all-time high. This essay's focus on the ethics of seeing and the ethics of representation offers some optimism, grounded in the ethics of seeing propounded by Wittgenstein and by Stanley Cavell. I (mis)quote the line from Hamlet because, in both that play and in Kiarostami's film, the relationship between being and seeing is developed in complex and intricate ways.
Perspectives
This article arose out of my own personal experience of wonder and delight at Kiarostami's film. I have seen it and taught it many times, and I wanted to try to understand why it always has such a profound effect on me---so I decided to write about it as a way to discover that. I wanted to write something that would express my joy in this remarkable film while trying to remain level-headed about it--the perpetual task of the scholar.
Elizabeth Finnegan
D'Youville College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: To See or Not to See: A Wittgensteinian Look at Abbas Kiarostami's Close-up, Film-Philosophy, February 2018, Edinburgh University Press,
DOI: 10.3366/film.2018.0060.
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