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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Static Flight: Zeno’s Arrow and Cinematographic Motion

  • from III - Complex Cinematism
  • Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University, Virginia
  • Book:
    Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination
    Published online:
    15 February 2024
    Print publication:
    22 February 2024, pp 215-232

  • Summary

    The paradoxes of the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea seem to be perverse arguments about the nonexistence of bodily motion in time and through space. One of the best-known is that of an arrow that remains stationary during its flight. Aristotle refuted Zeno; most modern experts have done the same. Occasionally a modern – cinematic – view of the arrow’s flight has been advanced; this is the chapter’s topic. To Zeno, the arrow only appears to be moving but is at any one moment occupying one specific place. The images on our screens appear to move only because the unmoving images exposed on a filmstrip are projected so rapidly that they are perceived as moving. Extreme high-speed photography and computer-generated “bullet time,” as in the Matrix films and elsewhere, provide a new understanding of Zeno’s brain teaser. The chapter ends on a lighter note with the appearance of a modern Professor Zeno in a comedy film.