Fantasy, Imagination and Film

In his article Fantasy, Imagination and the Screen, Roger Scruton offers an account of fantasy, arguing that it is directed away from reality in some important sense, and that cinema is its natural representational medium. I address certain problems with Scruton's basic account, thereby producing a significantly amended version, though one that owes a great debt to his. I explain why, as he says, much fantasy is significantly directed away from reality; and conclude with some brief remarks about why it might be that cinema is indeed a good medium for the fantasist's ends.