philosophy in film

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

Dr. Don Francis: How many hemophiliacs have to die before it’ll be cost effective for you people to do something about it? A hundred? A thousand? Give us a number so we won’t annoy you until the amount of money you start losing on lawsuits makes it more profitable for you to save people than to kill them!

Bobbi Campbell: Now for years and years and years people in my hometown were telling me I was a freak because of my sexual orientation, until I came to San Francisco, and I found a community of freaks just like me. We stood together. We stood together! And it took a long time. But we finally forced this one tiny spot of the universe, the Castro, to realise that how we choose to have sex, and where, is our own damn business. Which to all other people who haven’t gone through what we’ve gone through sounds funny and they may laugh, but I know speaking for most of us, I would rather die as a human being than continue living as a freak.
Dr. Mervyn Silverman: Clearly there’s a lot of strong feeling on the subject…
Voice in the crowd: What good is all the gay rights in the world if we are all dead?

Chip: 666… that’s my room number!

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Veronika: What else do you want to know about me?
Alexandre Fabbri: Everything
Veronika: [picks up her purse and dumps the contents on the bed in front of him]

BROKEN WINGS
Directed by Nir Bergman

youtube.com/watch?v=PBJI32Wume8

PERSONAL VELOCITY
Written and directed by Rebecca Miller

Paula: I used to write. Then I used to paint. I think I’m going to be one of those people with a lot of potential who never really takes off.
Norwegian Man Who Dies with Paula: Those are always the best kind of people.

youtube.com/watch?v=klxyh_BrLic

THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Directed by David Fincher

[b]Sean Parker: We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the internet!

Marylin Delpy: You’re not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be.

Marylin Delpy: What are you doing?
Mark Zuckerberg: Checking in to see how it’s going in Bosnia.
Marylin Delpy: Bosnia. They don’t have roads, but they have Facebook.
[Mark says nothing]
Marylin Delpy: You must really hate the Winklevosses.
Mark Zuckerberg: I don’t hate anybody. The “Winklevii” aren’t suing me for intellectual property theft. They’re suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn’t go exactly the way they were supposed to for them.

Mark Zuckerberg: I’m just saying I need to do something substantial in order to get the attention of the clubs.
Erica Albright: Why?
Mark Zuckerberg: Because they’re exclusive. And fun. And they lead to a better life.
Erica Albright: Teddy Roosevelt didn’t get elected president because he was a member of the Phoenix club.
Mark Zuckerberg: He was a member of the Porcelain, and yes he did.

Sean Parker: When you go fishing you can catch a lot of fish, or you can catch a big fish. You ever walk into a guy’s den and see a picture of him standing next to fourteen trout?

Mark Zuckerberg: I was drunk, and angry, and stupid…
Marylin Delpy: …and Blogging.
Mark Zuckerberg: And Blogging.

Erica Albright: The Internet’s not written in pencil, Mark, it’s written in ink[/b]

THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE
Written and directed by the Coen Brothers

[b]Reidenschneider: They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz Something-or-other. Or is it? Maybe it’s Werner. Anyway, he’s got this theory, you wanna test something, you know, scientifically - how the planets go round the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap - well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes you look at it, your looking changes it. Ya can’t know the reality of what happened, or what would’ve happened if you hadn’t-a stuck in your own goddamn schnozz. So there is no “what happened”? Not in any sense that we can grasp, with our puny minds. Because our minds… our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the “Uncertainty Principle”. Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy’s on to something.

Ed Crane: And then it was Riedenschneider’s turn. I gotta hand it to him, he tossed a lot of sand in their eyes. He talked about how I’d lost my place in the universe; how I was too ordinary to be the criminal mastermind the D.A. made me out to be; how there was some greater scheme at work that the state had yet to unravel. And he threw in some of the old “truth” stuff he hadn’t had a chance to trot out for Doris. He told them to look at me, look at me close. That the closer they looked, the less sense it would all make; that I wasn’t the kind of guy to kill a guy; that I was The Barber, for Christsake. I was just like them - an ordinary man. Guilty of living in a world that had no place for me, yeah. Guilty of wanting to be a dry cleaner, sure. But not a murderer. He said I was modern man, and if they voted to convict me, well, they’d be practically cinching the noose around their own necks. He told them to look, not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. Then he said the facts had no meaning. It was a pretty good speech. It even had me going…

Ed: Frank.
Frank: Huh?
Ed: This hair.
Frank: Yeah.
Ed: You ever wonder about it?
Frank: Whuddya mean?
Ed: I don’t know… How it keeps on coming. It just keeps growing.
Frank: Yeah, lucky for us, huh pal?
Ed: No, I mean it’s growing, it’s part of us. And we cut it off. And we throw it away.
Frank: Come on, Eddie, you’re gonna scare the kid.
Ed: I’m gonna take his hair and throw it out in the dirt.
Frank: What the…
Ed: I’m gonna mingle it with common house dirt.
Frank: What the hell are you talking about?
Ed: I don’t know. Skip it.[/b]

Later…

[b]Ed Crane: I thought about what an undertaker had told me once - that your hair keeps growing, for a while anyway, after you die, and then it stops. I thought, “What keeps it growing? Is it like a plant in soil? What goes out of the soil? The soul? And when does the hair realize that it’s gone?”

Ed Crane: I don’t know where I’m being taken. I don’t know what I’ll find, beyond the earth and sky. But I’m not afraid to go. Maybe the things I don’t understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don’t have words for here.

Ed Crane: Doris and I went to church once a week. Usually Tuesday night.
Priest: B-9. I-29.

Ed Crane: It’s like pulling away from the maze. While you’re in the maze, you go through willy nilly, turning where you think you have to turn; banging into the dead ends. One thing after another. But you get some distance on it, and all those twists and turns, why, they’re the shape of your life. It’s hard to explain. But seeing it whole gives you some peace.[/b]

REPULSION
Directed by Roman Polanski

Carole: I must get this crack mended.

THREE COLORS: BLUE
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

[b]Julie: Today on tv she showed the scores I took from you.
La copiste: Yes.
[pause]
After the accident when nothing was sure I made a copy. When you picked it up I knew you would destroy it. I kept the copy. I sent it to Strasburg.
Julie: Why did you do that?
La copiste: This music is so beautiful. You can’t destroy things like that.

Antoine: I’d like to meet you. It’s important.
Julie: Nothing’s important.

Julie: Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don’t want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps.[/b]

The ending notwithstanding? Here we come back to dasein.

THREE COLORS: WHITE
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Karol: [to the man who wanted help committing suicide] That was a blank. The next one’s real. Are you sure?

He wasn’t.

THREE COLORS: RED
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Valentine: I’m sorry. I ran over your dog, Rita. A German shepard.
The Judge: That’s possible. She disappeared yesterday.
Valentine: She’s in my car…alive. I don’t know what to do.
[pause]
Should I take her to a veternarian?
The Judge: As you wish.
Valentine: If I ran over your daughter would you be so indifferent?
The Judge: I have no daughter , miss. Go away.

Later…

The Judge: Why did you pick up Rita?
Valentine: Because I had run over her. She was bleeding.
The Judge: Otherwise, you’d have felt guilty. You’d have dreams of a dog with a crushed skull.
Valentine: Yes.
The Judge: So who did you do it for?

This cynicism dissolves later in the script. But is it any more or less reasonable?
[b]…

Valentine: Michel, tell me…do you love me?
Michel: I think so.
Valentine: You love me or you think so?
Michel: It’s the same thing.

The Judge: I want nothing.
Valentine: Then stop breathing.
The Judge: Good idea.

The Judge: Deciding what is true and what isn’t now seems to me…a lack of modesty.
Valentine: Vanity?
The Judge: Vanity.

Valentine: You’re not afraid?
The Judge: I wonder what I’d do in their place. The same thing.
Valentine: You’d throw stones?
The Judge: In their place? Of course. And that goes for everyone I judged. Given their lives, I would steal, I’d kill, I’d lie. Of course I would. All that because I wasn’t in their shoes, but mine.[/b]

THE IDES OF MARCH
Directed by George Clooney

[b]Stephen Meyers: I can’t find the goddamn polls!

Stephen: Because you wanna win. Because you broke the only rule in politics. You wanna be president? You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can’t fuck the interns. They get you for that.

Paul: Well, one day we’ll grab a beer and you can tell me what you had on the governor that put me out.
Stephen: How do you know I didn’t have something on you?[/b]

Here’s the thing though: Clooney exposes [going all the way back to Mr Smith Goes to Washington] Hollywood’s rendition of the jaded, cynical opportunists in American politics. Then he hosts a dinner for Barack “change we can all believe in” Obama who, in his own way, is smack dab in the middle of all this!

Is Clooney the starfucker here?

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Directed by David Fincher

[b]Mikael: Rape, torture, fire, animals, religion. Am I missing anything?
Lisbeth: The names. They’re all biblical

Henrik: You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet - my family.

Martin: The fear of offending is stronger than the fear of pain.

Bjurman: Would you prefer institutionalization?

Lisbeth: [to Bjurman] I just want to know, am I going to have to do this every time I need money to eat?

Bjurman: I forgot to ask you…[rips open condom package]…you like anal sex?[/b]

But then, on her next visit:

Lisbeth: [to Bjurman] Good. You’re alive. You recognize this? I had it with me last time. I set it here, remember? And this snap, you see it? It’s not a snap. It’s a wide angle fiber-optics lens.
[plays video of Bjurman raping her]
: I thought it was going to be another blow job, which is disgusting enough. But I misjudged just how sick you are. Okay, here’s what is going to happen.
[inserts anal plug into Bjurman]
Pay attention. Look at me!
[tasers Bjurman]
Once you can sit again, which could be a while, I admit, we’re going to go to my bank and tell them that I alone have access to my money. Nod.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: After that you will never contact me again. Each month you will prepare a report of a meeting that we will never have. In it you’ll describe how well I’m doing. How sociable I’m becoming. Then you will negotiate with the court to have my declaration of incompetence lifted. If you fail, this video will spread across the internet like a virus. Nod.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: And if anything should happen to me. If I get run over by a car. If you run me over with a car. This will upload automatically. Nod that you understand.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: [picks up Bjurman’s pants] Ooh, Gabardine. I’m taking the keys to this apartment because I’ll be checking on you. And if I find a girl in here with you, whether she came of her own free will or not.
[Bjurman nods to the video]
Lisbeth: No, not the video. I’ll kill you. Do you doubt anything I’ve said? Do you doubt what’s in the reports that have followed me around all my life? What do they say, if you had to sum it up? They say I’m insane.
[Bjurman desperately nods no]
Lisbeth: No, it’s okay. You can nod because it’s true. I am insane.

No, not really. She just lives her life…outside the lines?

The situation she was in with her “guardian” was insane. When the conditions of your life are so whacked, “insane” measures make sense and help you survive. It wasn’t likely any “proper” authority would have believed Lisbeth about the abuse, considering her history and reputation. She had to deal with the matter herself, by the means available to her, in a way that would end the abuse with near certainty.

“Insane”, yes. But she seemed to embody Nietzsche’s notion that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The end of the movie reminded me of Andy Dufresne going from bank to bank in The Shawshank Redemption.

I’ve always wondered, what exactly did Nietzsche mean by that statement? Of course it’s not true in an unconditional sense, for being wounded such that a limb has to be amputated certainly does not leave you stronger or open up any potential to be stronger that wasn’t possible before. However, there are contexts in which N’s statement rings brilliantly profound such as the case with being exposed bacteria and allergens early on in life leading to the development of a stronger, more resistant immune system for life. But what the hell did Nietzsche have in mind? If it was simply the sentiment that hardship can strengthen skills and resolve, well that’s fairly common wisdom.

What is fascinating [to me] is not whether Marla did the paintings…but the discussions that revolved around reactions to art in general and modern art in particular.

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT
A documentary by Amir Bar-Lev

[b]Michael Kimmelman: In a case like Marla, because it touches on all sorts of deep-rooted issues about whether modern art is real or not, it has a kind of strange, hypnotic appeal to it. So, I wrote something that seemed to interest me, really, about the complications of abstract art. Why people don’t seem to really feel that there’s some way of judging what’s good, what’s bad.

There is this large idea out there that abstract art, and modern art in general, has no standards, no truths. And that if a child can do it, that it, sort of, pulls the veil off this con game, and shows you that somebody who is 4 years old can do something every bit as good as what a famous artist who sells pictures for millions of dollars could do. That idea that art is not really about some truth but it’s about some lie being foisted on a public…that abstract art in general and modern art in particular, is one kind of racket, is a put-on.

If you take an artist like Pollack, you know, everyone basically figured this is the ultimate example of modern art gone crazy. It’s a guy dripping, splashing paint. Pollock literally invented a whole new way of painting. The photographs of him just dripping and splashing, walking around these canvases made it look that much more like he was really not an artist.

Reporter: My mother had a thing against Pollock. She hated his paintings because she felt like every time she saw a Jackson Pollock painting, it was saying, “You’re stupid and I’m not, and there’s people smarter than you that get me”. She felt personally insulted by his paintings.

Michael Kimmelman: …money, money is the ultimate, sort of distorting thing [in the art world].

Michael Kimmelman: I think one of the fundamental problems people have with art, because a lot of it used to be transparently clear, it was telling a story, that there’s some assumption that art has an obligation to explain itself to you. And that if it doesn’t that, somehow, it’s the art’s fault. But modernism wanted to tell a variety of stories. Now, it continues to tell stories. There’s narrative in all sorts of art. If we’re talking about abstract painting there are still stories being told. They may be stories about the characters who made these pictures and that was the case with Pollock.

Michael Kimmelman: [Marla’s 4 year old] innocence also says something about the ultimate cynicism of the art world. There’s a lot of art that’s been made, especially in the modern era, which is about alienating its viewership. This idea of actually, kind of, sticking it to the very people who are supposed to be patronizing it. Probably the worst thing you can say about an artist is, everything this artist does is joyous and wonderful, and openhearted and just simple and free. In certain circles, that might sound like you’re not serious. I think, probably, some of the appeal, though, to a large public of the Marlas of the world, is that it seems pure, innocent joy, no cynicism, no irony, no sarcasm. None of that kind of stuff that goes along with modern art. You know, nobody’s saying “fuck you” in this picture. They’re just saying, “I’m a happy girl who loves painting.”

Michael Kimmelman: All writers, all storytellers, are imposing their own narrative on something. I mean, all art in some ways is a lie. It looks like a picture of something, but it isn’t that thing, it’s a representation of that thing… Your documentary is itself going to be a lie. It’s a construction of things, it’s how you wish to represent the truth and how you’ve decided to tell a particular story. By that I don’t mean that certain things don’t happen. Of course they do. It’s not that there is no such thing as truth. But we come to like and trust a certain story, not because it’s necessarily the most absolutely truthful, but because it’s a thing that we tell ourselves that makes sense of the world, at least at this moment.[/b]

Well put.

Thanks, so you’re unsure of what N. meant as well?

I think he was just plain wrong. This spiritual machismo is present in a number of religions and subcultures and I think it has done a lot of damage. Sure, a person may be able to do things without worrying or hesitation they would not have been able to do without certain kinds of hardship and pain. But I think those who do this are cutting portions of themselves out, using or at least experiencing the harsh experiences as purging, toughening them up like leather. Scars instead of skin. A hopeless heart. Others, still in contact with the damaged parts of themselves function openly less well and do not appreciate what they went through in the way the ones who are positive about this do.

Surely we all know someone or have seen someone who has been shattered by experiences that did not kill them, but who have lived on, half or less the person they were before. Sure, it can be tough sometimes to see the loss in those who beat their chests and say I can take it. Or is it harder? seems it can be right on the surface with them also?

I can see how some people do manage to grow through horrible experiences, gaining empathy and depth of character, and this can be a kind of strength, but unless I missed something this is not the ‘stronger’ N was writing about.

CITIZEN KANE
Directed by Oeson Welles

[b]Emily: Really Charles, people will think…
Charles Foster Kane: …what I tell them to think.

Bernstein: Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured of.

Bernstein: A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.

Charles Foster Kane: Hello Jedediah.
Leland: Hello, Charlie. I didn’t know we were speaking…
Charles Foster Kane: Sure, we’re speaking, Jedediah: you’re fired.

Leland: You talk about the people as if you owned them. As though they belong to you. Goodness. As long as I can remember you’ve talked about giving the people their rights…as if you could make them a present of liberty…as a reward for services rendered.
[pause]
Remember the workingman?..You used to write an awful lot about the workingman…but he’s turning into something called “organized labor”. You’re not going to like that one little bit when you find out it means your workingman expects something as his right, and not your gift. When your precious underpriveleged really get together…Oh, boy…that’s going to add up to something bigger than your privilege…
[pause]
You don’t care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love them so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. It’s something to be played your way, according to your rules.[/b]