Cinema and nihilism

What subtle links bound the philosophical movement to nihilism (a vision of the world which asserts that "If God doesn't exist then everything is permitted" according to Dostoyevsky) in the world of cinema ? To try to answer this question we gathered around Françoise Bonardel, three philosophers keen on cinema: Pacôme Thiellement, Sam Azulys and Thibault Isabel.
First, they will try to define the polysemous word nihilism.

Then they will consider to what extent cinema, in its essence (the weight of its economy and its technique) represents a modern version (thus disguised ?) of nihilism.

The themes discussed are many: social, cultural, philosophical... and fascinating. Indeed:
- does the fact to talk to a huge audience makes a cinematographic work systematically poor ?  No if we refer for example to movies by Woody Allen, Sydney Polack or Charlie Chaplin.
- Do we have to oppose popular and entertaining cinema (mass cinema) to author cinema, more elitist ? No because the author movie mixes "elitism" and "self-obsession" and joins a concentric spiral... deprived from any story or drama (ed. Aristotle).

From an initiatory point of view: to watch a movie, isn't it to open a direct way to one's Psyche, one's soul, and to reach a kind of intermediary space... ? Is the fact of observing pictures in motion meaningless ? Is this action which is part of our every day life deprived from consequences on our body, our soul, or even our spirit ?

As recalls Pacôme Thiellement, to fix the image of somebody on something, is to steal a bit of his soul (ed. "the spectrum theory" of Balzac which was discussed with Nadar, a conception which is shared by all the Shamans by the way...) since "as the Muse of the Poet it gives him the gift of ubiquity..." he adds...

In a society like ours, which gives more and more credit to technique, does it cut itself from every form of transmission of the elders: since it is all about what is technologically new, and that our fathers don't master, what attention or credit to bring to their know-how and to their savoir-vivre... ?

For more than two hundred years that technical tidal wave which began, and that each generation adds its Promethean silt... Do these sediments form a fertile substratum (progressive march of history) or a quagmire (dark age) ?
Does the cinema, beyond the exaggeration of its blockbusters and box-office statistics, attest a diversity (thus unity and cohesion) of a civilization or does it reflect its caricature, uniformity ?

Answer by our three participants in this 56-minutes debate filmed at the Forum 104.