Abstract

My chapter aims to advance the debate on a problem often raised by philosophers who are skeptical of implied narrators in movies. This is the concern that positing such elusive narrators gives rise to absurd imaginings (Gaut 2004: 242; Carroll 2006: 179-180). Friends of the implied cinematic narrator reply that the questions critics raise about the workings of the implied cinematic narrator are "silly ones" to ask. I examine how the "absurd imaginings" problem arises for all the central arguments for the elusive cinematic narrator and discuss why the questions critics pose about this narrator are legitimate ones to ask.