Includes bibliographical references and index.

Section I Cinema as reflective form -- Cinematic reflection -- Cinematic self-consciousness in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window -- Moral variations -- Section II Moral variations -- Devils and angels in Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her -- Confounding morality in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt -- Section III Social pathologies -- Cinematic tone in Roman Polanski's Chinatown: can "life" itself be "false"? -- Love and class in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows -- Section IV Irony and mutuality -- Cinematic irony: the strange case of Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar -- Passive and active skepticism in Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place -- Section V Agency and meaning -- Vernacular metaphysics: on Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line -- Psychology degree zero? the representation of action in the films of the Dardenne Brothers.