Sontag and Plato's Cave

 This page is meant to support our first reading from Sontag's On Photography, The Cave.  An amusing TedTalk that explains what Plato had in mind is here. A more somber claymation version is here.

Download a PDF of On Photography here.


The scene from Godard's film that Sontag mentions on page three.

The Chris Marker film Sontag mentions on page five is here: Si j'avais quatre dromadaires.

 New York Times film critic A.O. Scott discusses La Jetee which is Marker's best known work.  

 A key sequence from La Jetee as mentioned by A.O. Scott.


 A mind-blowingly clear print (for Youtube) of Dziga-Vertov's masterpiece Man With a Movie Camera. Sontag mentions it on page twelve. 


 The scene with a model named Veruschka that Sontag mentions on page thirteen. "Naughtiness indeed."


 A trailer for the Michael Powell film Peeping Tom that Sontag describes on page thirteen.

A short historical review of Peeping Tom by British Film Institute (BFI) critic Mark Kermode.

 In a short clip Martin Scorsese discusses the impact and importance of Peeping Tom.


 Finally a short animation about one of Sontag's late works, Regarding the Pain of Others, that features her own voice-over.