Few films about philosophers or philosophy have ever been made. OK, made philosophers are not blockbuster material. Iris hardly counts. Wittgenstein does. Derek Jarman was a director that sometimes made films that were interesting rather than good, but somehow, I have always liked his work. If you know the slightest bit of fact about Jarman's filmography, you will know that Wittgenstein cannot be an example of conventional docu-drama. It's not. Instead, Ludwig W is thrown into a bustling, yet stripped-down, milieu of aristocrat young men, Austrian family members and --- an Über Gewissheit-framed creature from Mars. The film builds on Wittgenstein's life, and if you've read his books, or read some biography about him, you will recognize most of what is said here. Yet, if there are many familiar things that the philosopher can rest her head on while watching Wittgenstein, the style proves all the more striking. This could have been a theatre play. The background is black. The set design is made up of colorful, striking objects. So is the clothing; remarkably lavish and colorful, extravagantly over the top, no single piece of garment displayed in the present film fails to make an impression on the viewer's eye. Except, of course, Wittgenstein's unchanging drab outfit (but no tie!), that mirrors his overall psychological tendencies towards the ascetic.
Wittgenstein employs an eerie sense of humor that is hard to explain. The philosopher whose philosophy was transported from the strict arena of logic to the rough ground of everyday life, is characterized as a person with very mixed attitudes towards "the everyday" in his own life; tired of his aristocratic surroundings, he dreamt of "a simpler life" of work and honesty (not only for himself, but also for his lover). This striving is depicted with a warm, gentle form of humor. Wittgenstein is less a film about this particular philosopher's thoughts than it is a humorous account of an ever-problematic relation between the thinking life, a life of work and a life of leisure and play. In one of the funniest scenes, Wittgenstein is interviewed by a Soviet bureaucrat. Wittgenstein has set his mind on going to the USSR to be - a manual worker. Of course, that doesn't happen. A recurring theme in the film is the idealized image of work within the mind of an aristocrat (even the über-aristocrat Russell seems to take a more sober attitude).
Like Wittgenstein's philosophy (and love of musicals and detective stories) Jarman does not eshew what to most people appears silly. But that particular silliness augments one important quality of the film: its tenderness.
Actually, I found the film to be a rather moving portrait of Wittgenstein. Moving, because it doesn't deal in "genius cult" but rather strips Wittgenstein down to very humane forms of fear, doubt and loneliness.
No matter how much Bertrand Russell's work bore me in real life - I absolutely adore Bertie the character in this film. Plus: Tilda Swinton is (unsurprisingly) making magic with her sheer presence. Ergo: YOU should watch it.
It is one of my favourite philosophical discussions on film. Unfortunately it is not available at my video store.
ReplyDeleteI had thought it was a play first. Am I wrong?