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{{BBAB}} [[File:Cinema (book).jpg|thumb]]

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.