Spectres of the Imagination: A Post-Phenomenological Perspective on the Filmic Image and its Uses

The article reconsiders the joint development of a theory of the moving images by Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler. Their theory highlights the spectrality of moving images, and formulates a hypothesis about its meaning for the filmic experience. This meaning has especially to do with the way imagination elaborates the sense of images flowing on the screen: it is an effect of the work of imagination synthesizing the visual experience, and not a “special effect” added to a special genre of movies. Filmmakers make accordingly specters appear on the screen as a signature of their reflection upon the action of imagination through the filmic narration.