Wittgenstein

If you think the most interesting things about Wittgenstein are that he was born rich (ie you cleave to the Old Religion) or that he was gay (ie you hold with the New Religion) then maybe this is the movie for you. But if you couldn't care less about those ephemera and care more about the man's actual philosophy, well, look elsewhere. There's no point in wasting your time with this pretentious wank-fest.

This is the type of biography where the protagonist (as a child) introduces his family to the camera and they proceed one by one to climb a stage and gather around a piano. It is theatric, sparse, with often a few props arranged on an empty dark stage: Wittgenstein in bed with his lover, arguments around a table, a blackboard with a few chairs around it where he taught. I came to it after a series of film viewings on celebrated thinkers: Socrates, Augustine, Pascal, Descartes. All done by the same maker, Rossellini, they featured more or less adequate exposition of thought against sober tapestries of history. By contrast here we have bare snippets of the thought, no scenery and only a vague history: the man in soldier's costume alone enacting a WWI trench etc. It's called surreal; more apt to simply call it unusual, eccentric. What was missing from that series I felt was an inclusion of someone more recent and preferably from our own century. Fittingly the only one I found was on Wittgenstein who would have been my own choice as well. Incidentally Wittgenstein fits better than any other with what was delineated in the other project starting with Socrates: drawing limits to reason as what can be reasonably said, embodying what's on the other side. His disdain for philosophical noodling (seen in the desire for a concrete logic), refusal to bother with an academic knowledge of Aristotle and view that philosophy only creates muddles of thought, in all these he can be seen to be in line with Socrates, right down to the quest for a rigorous moral life. His algebraic formulations of logic have disappeared along with that whole school that depended on them for a mechanics of truth, what still seduces is this: the notion that we can strive to speak clearly about the things we can, and more deeply something on the other side of that ('of which we must remain silent') opens itself to us. His project was perhaps obscure in details, a bore; but so amazingly attractive in its large span. And he does deserve a better film than this; not because this one is eccentric by convention rather because the craft is too simple. It's not the fact that homosexuality is so central as many users complain either; it is, but the filmmaker resists implying this wholly explains the man; it softens him if anything as someone who seeks his lover's hand in a dark theater, but it's not said to be the real cause of tension, that remains the quest for a life of clarity. We do get only a rough sketch of the thought; but I urge you to bother with the film on Descartes I mention above, three times the length and full of lengthy dissertation, and you'll see no more than a sketch there either. It's after all the sketch of Wittgenstein's thought that seduces; it's a clear picture. So it's not that either. No for me the real issue is that the cinematic medium offers a richer language (the richest one we know next to personal experience) to lightly sketch the air of those things of which logic can remain silent; love, doubt, being, all this wonderful ambiguity that opens to us. The man's project is the ideal opportunity for such examination. (In other words it's not a fault for me that we learn too little about the real Wittgenstein to be able to explain him, or too little of his words to know the thought and only barely enough; Wittgenstein would probably balk at the thought that knowing more would explain a real him. But that we miss the richly layered picture that constitutes any life.) The film ends with a powerful (deathbed) admission about exactly this; the world that our modern mind, logical, obsessed with knowing, attempts to freeze into sparkling ice, but take a step onto the ice and you land on your back, there's no friction; no the real world where you can go places must be embraced with all its ambiguous friction.

The problem with "Wittgenstein" is that Jarman pushes the man's homosexuality while nearly avoiding his work, and the work is the most important part! Even with a limited budget they could have done a logician's version of "A Brief History of Time," mixing Wittgenstein's biography with his work. I can stand the fact that Jarman used modern theater techniques to tell his story (black backgrounds, unaging and iconic characters, never having a fourth wall, etc.) but the effect and the focus limits Wittgenstein to his surface, that of a standoffish and guilt-ridden Viennese. Read Wittgenstein, read about Wittgenstein, don't see him.

I must disagree with other assessments of Jarman's "Wittgenstein." While the film is clearly not for Wittgenstein initiates (a bit of reading about the man is probably helpful before viewing), I can't class it as the rather boring, trivial exercise in biography others seem to feel it is. Jarman's films are always so contentiously received(which is a good thing), so all I can do is offer my own reception of it. First, while biographical details are somewhat slight, I think there are enough to frame at least a gist of the man Wittgenstein, and second, I must disagree that the exploration of Wittgenstein's sexuality is trivial or inconsequential. Biographically, Wittgenstein's sexuality troubled him greatly. Cinematically, I don't think it's irrelevant to follow a scene of Wittgenstein vainly attempting to explain his philosophy to students and colleagues, an effort which leaves him visibly upset and isolated, his back to the camera and his audience, with a scene of him at the movies, breaking his icy, rigid posture and his earlier-expressed desire that his companion and student, Johnny, not spoil the plot of the movie by distracting him with questions, to deliberately end his isolation and grasp Johnny's hand. Yes, Jarman's portrait of Wittgenstein is not of an attractive or really likable man, and Wittgenstein doesn't seem to have actually been one, so his abrasiveness in the film is not disagreeable for me, much as the abrasiveness of Gauguin in "Lust for Life" isn't. As for Jarman's allegedly un-daring cinematography, I'm no cinematographer, but Jarman seems to have favored dark backgrounds, long scenes and theatrical stagings in other films, and sometimes manages to produce interesting and subtle arrangements thereby. Perhaps his work on "Wittgenstein" was impacted by his encroaching blindness, though I wouldn't suggest writing off the high or low points of the film as the result of his visual impairment. Finally, "Wittgenstein" seems to me like a film deserving of a second viewing. Perhaps it's rather pretentious, perhaps it's a little harsh. Perhaps, though, it's also attempting to make some subtle and not-so-subtle commentary on what's important in a life, how that ought to be presented, and from what perspectives.

British filmmaker Derek Jarman's penultimate film consists basically on literate deadpan tableaux dealing with the life of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The late Jarman, who was known for making gay-themed experimental movies, filmed the whole of Wittgenstein in a indoor stage, as a series of mannerist vignettes. If you want to watch this movie to know about Wittgenstein's theories, don't bother. These are dealt superficially and perfunctorily, while emphasis is made on his homosexuality. This movie is not very deep, but is not very heavy either, I think this was a bit of frivolous exercise on the part of Jarman but it is also lighthearted and quite entertaining.

I only have a slight idea about Wittgenstein's life and work. Perhaps this is the main difference I have with viewers who hate this film. Unsatisfied reviewers seem to fuss over which things should have been included in a film about Wittgenstein or how his life should be understood or examined. My contention with this approach is that I don't need to agree with a film's views to appreciate it. I appreciate writers' and directors' liberties in interpreting subject matter, especially creative and witty interpretations. For fans of surreal and different films, this movie is delightfully and intelligently entertaining. The ton of symbolisms--understated, colorful, clever, cryptic, obvious or not--will make you appreciate the directorial style and the screenplay's ingenuity, and help you understand the philosopher in ways that will not put you to sleep like if you're reading one of his treatises. Breaking the fourth wall with the young Wittgenstein's charming and engaging acting is a treat. The old Wittgenstein's portrayal depicts torture and torment well. An evident contrast exists between the black background and the vivid, exuberant costumes and props--much like the dark life of the protagonist, and the flashy treatment of his life here, but far from flash without substance.

I was marching through comprehensive viewing of the Greenaway section in our local art video store, and got into an argument with the proprietor. He felt that Greenaway was excessive pretentious and juvenile and suggested this film as `real' intelligent filmmaking. I really wanted to discover a new director, so watched with expectation. About the actual art of the filmmaking, I can report that this to be completely mundane. The technique is of stationary filming of a staged play with no risk and little imagination. But the topic has real promise! Wittgenstein is among the dozen most fascinating men of ideas who ever lived. He anticipated the core ideas about logic and language that are commonplace today. But he was profoundly not influential. All these ideas were reinvented by independent means because his explications were so abstruse. I believe them to be necessarily so, and we still don't appreciate the full ambiguities he noted. This is grand, fascinating stuff, but in this play we get the most trivial inklings of his middle period. How sad. Independent of the ideas, his life is remarkable. He was rich and gave it away. He absolutely mastered a strain of philosophical thought and was universally celebrated (though not understood). He tossed it away, disclaiming all his ideas and starting over as his own most powerful detractor. And he did this thrice! He went from the protection of the university to hovels and degradation multiple times. Along the way he designed one of the most puzzling houses on the planet. This is great, great stuff. But this film is motivated by a politico-sexual agenda, so while watering down the great intellectual and physical swings, ascribes them to repressed guilt of his sexuality. Wittgenstein would be appalled, I think, to have his great projects and discipline so debased. In fact, he seemed to have repressed guilt about everything he could conceive, and among these homosexuality was a lesser driver because the environment was so accepting, even encouraging. Alan Turing of the next generation, is a different, more apt story. The report then is that this is not cinematically interesting, and some great drama has been missed in order to make a minor -- and perhaps untrue -- point.

Don't waste your time on this film. Some films are so bad they are fun. This is just so bad it's boring. From a Wittgenstein scholarship perspective, it doesn't get worse than this. It's a mix of rumors, inaccuracies, falsities and "fun-facts" that lack all respect for its subject. Since Terry Eagleton and the other writers have chosen to give the story what I'd imagine they will call a "subjective" or "personal" slant, you wold expect them to at least make it fun! No such luck. Here what's wrong: 1. Andrew Lloyd Webber costumes. 2. Every eccentricity is exaggerated. 3. Horrible actors. 4. Wittgenstein was afraid of being misunderstood and only create a jargon self-proclaimed disciples would propagate. This film is what he had nightmares about. 5. Wittgenstein lived at a time when categories like "homosexual" weren't as firm as today. This films premise that "he was gay and therefore weird and a great philosopher" shows lack of respect. 6.It's a case study of why psychologising your subject leads to disaster. 7. They made an interesting person into a fraternity joke. And, no. It's not bad in an interesting way. Do you're self a favour. Really.

If you think the most interesting things about Wittgenstein are that he was born rich (ie you cleave to the Old Religion) or that he was gay (ie you hold with the New Religion) then maybe this is the movie for you. But if you couldn't care less about those ephemera and care more about the man's actual philosophy, well, look elsewhere. There's no point in wasting your time with this pretentious wank-fest.

British filmmaker Derek Jarman's penultimate film consists basically on literate deadpan tableaux dealing with the life of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The late Jarman, who was known for making gay-themed experimental movies, filmed the whole of Wittgenstein in a indoor stage, as a series of mannerist vignettes. If you want to watch this movie to know about Wittgenstein's theories, don't bother. These are dealt superficially and perfunctorily, while emphasis is made on his homosexuality. This movie is not very deep, but is not very heavy either, I think this was a bit of frivolous exercise on the part of Jarman but it is also lighthearted and quite entertaining.