Acknowledgments xi Biographical Notes xii General Introduction 1Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli Part I Artistic and Aesthetic Value 23 Introduction 25Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort 1 A Plurality of Values: Art, Fine Art, and Motion Pictures 30Paisley Livingston 2 Public Aesthetics and Artistic Value in Iranian Cinema 46Khatereh Sheibani 3 Appreciating Nature through Film: A Defense of Mediated Appreciation 69Glenn Parsons 4 Reframing the Director: Distributed Creativity in Filmmaking Practice 86Karen Pearlman and John Sutton Part II Moral Value/Ethical Value 107 Introduction 109Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort 5 Screen Stories as “Imaginative Ecology”: A Thought Experiment 113Carl Plantinga 6 Interactive Documentary and Ethics: Toward an Ethics of Representativeness 130Willemien Sanders 7 The Ethics of Filmmaking: How the Genetic History of Works Affects Their Value 148Mette Hjort 8 Film Production and Ethical Criticism 171Ted Nannicelli 9 Emotion and the Cultivation of Ethical Attention in Narrative Cinema 190Jane Stadler Part III Spiritual Value 209 Introduction 211Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort 10 Abundant, at Ease and Expansive?: The Influence of Māori and Polynesian Spirituality on 21st Century New Zealand Motion Pictures 213Ann Hardy 11 Secularity, Transcendence, and Film 235Roy M. Anker 12 The Poetics of Karma: Reincarnation and Romance 254Richard Allen Part IV Environmental /Ecological Value 279 Introduction 281Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli 13 Ecocinema and Ecological Value 285Robert Sinnerbrink 14 From Content to Context (and Back Again): New Industrial Strategies for Environmental Sustainability in the Media 308Pietari Kääpä and Hunter Vaughan 15 Jordnar Creative: A Danish Case Study of Green Filmmaking and Sustainable Production 327Anne Ahn Lund, Josefine Madsen, and Meryl Shriver-Rice Part V Cultural, Social and Political Value 351 Introduction 353Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli 16 Color Charts: A Cultural Chronicle of Non-Chinese Ethnic Images in Hong Kong Cinema 357John Nguyet Erni 17 Film Policy, Social Value, and the Mediating Role of Screen Agencies 382Ruth McElroy and Caitriona Noonan 18 Cinema as Ceilidh and Hui: The Place of the Audience within Emergent Perspectives upon a Folk Cinema 401Jamie Chambers 19 The Past and Future of Public Value: The End of an Illustrious Career or Its Reinvention? 427Tom O’Regan and Anna Potter Part VI Cognitive, Educational, and Developmental Value 445 Introduction 447Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli 20 Representing the Redacted: Depicting the “Torture Archetype” in Film 450Jared Del Rosso 21 Negotiating Power through Art: Participatory Video and Public Value 469Paul Cooke 22 Virtual Reality and the Rhetoric of Empathy 488Dooley Murphy Part VII The Value of Health 509 Introduction 511Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli 23 Narrative Sense-Making in the Service of Health—A Neurocinematic Approach 515Pia Tikka 24 The Smoking Machine: Public Health Films and Public Value in Britain and Denmark, 1950–1964 536C. Claire Thomson 25 The Benefits of Genre: Feel-Good Films as a Path to Health and Well-Being 558Mette Hjort 26 Movies in the Closed Wards: Instruments of Mental Health in Military Psychiatry 576Kaia Scott Index 597

A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value brings together original essays by world-renowned scholars investigating the varied intersections of the moving image and the public good. Covering a wide range of types and genres of cinema, this unprecedented volume explores the past, present, and possible future contributions of motion pictures to public value. With a cross-disciplinary approach, the text presents original conceptual work, global perspectives, philosophical arguments, historical discussion, empirical research, and specific case studies of the direct and indirect public value developed through motion pictures. Organized into seven thematic sections, this Companion identifies and discusses the various kinds of values that motion pictures can deliver, including artistic and aesthetic, ethical and moral, spiritual and religious, cultural, environmental, political, and cognitive. Throughout the text, readers are provided with deep insight into the issue of public value as it relates to cinema and its positive impact on human life and society. A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, and is a valuable resource for scholars across a variety of disciplines.