French Literature Reviews - 2026

Vivian Sobchack, Anna Caterina Dalmasso, Alice Lenay, Le corps du film. Une phénoménologie de l'expérience filmique
Art and Visual Culture

Translated into French for the first time, The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (Le corps du film – Une phénoménologie de l'expérience filmique), a foundational text in Vivian Sobchack's thought, offers a fresh perspective on the phenomenological tradition by interrogating our cinematic experience and, more broadly, our relationship with screens.

How can we describe the encounter that takes place with a film? Drawing on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Vivian Sobchack takes as her starting point our experience of encountering others: when I meet another human being, I can see their physical body, but I can only deduce, guess, imagine, or infer what that person sees and feels. The film as another subject introduces a different and unprecedented gesture: it presents itself to me by showing me what it sees, revealing the perceptual activity of its seeing body. How are we to characterize such a body? And the relationship that is consequently established between us?
This journey through media philosopher Vivian Sobchack's foundational essay allows us to grasp her radical approach to cinema and refreshes our perspective on the contemporary flows of images we live with today.

Read a few pages on the publisher's website…

Contents

Preface: The Iconic Turn of Cinema, by Anna Caterina Dalmasso

The Body of the Film, by Vivian Sobchack

Afterword: The Body of the Self, by Alice Lenay

Phenomenology as a philosophical movement investigates the structures of conscious experience and perception as lived from the first-person point of view. Developed significantly by thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this tradition emphasizes the embodied nature of human perception and our relational encounter with the surrounding world.

Readers interested in the intersections of philosophy, media theory, and visual culture may find this translation relevant to their inquiries. Translated into French for the first time, The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience offers a perspective on the phenomenological tradition by interrogating our cinematic experience and our relationship with screens.