Philosophy in Film
Season 1
Importance of Freedom in Life
Masks and Puppets
by Mackenzie McMaster
Text: "The Grand Inquisitor" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoevsky Film: "The Seventh Seal" directed by Ingmar Bergman, "Tree of Life" directed by Terrence Malick Description: Within this episode, we explore the ideas of existentialism covered in the works listed above. The most prominent connection between them is finding the meaning of life. In the Tree of Life, you follow a family from Texas in the 1950s through their experience grieving the loss of one of the sons. They struggle to find the meaning of life as they wrestle with their faith and relationships with each other. In the Seventh Seal, a knight returns from the Crusades to find out that a plague has taken over his homeland. As personified Death comes to take him, he challenges him to a game of chess to get more time to search for lifes meaning. While freedom comes with consequences, it's greatly important. Combining the films and the texts, you can recognize the connection between the meaning of life and taking advantage of the freedom you're given. Recording this allowed me to see the extent of ideas covered by existentialism. These stories at base have little similarities but by thinking deeply to understand you recognize how much they actually have on common.
Texts: "The Ethics of Ambiguity" by Simone De Beauvoir, "Beyond Good and Evil" by Nietzsche (Part 1 On the prejudices of philosophers) Films: "No Country for Old Men" directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, "Being John Malkovich" directed by Spike Jonze Description: Within this episode, we explore ideas of existentialism described by Simone De Beauvoir and Nietzsche as represented in the films listed above. Simone De Beauvoir defines a future-myth as acting based on the belief that future goals or outcomes are guaranteed. The main character in No Country for Old Men, Llewelyn, provides a great representation of this idea by running off and directing his wife around with the assumption that he would end up safe with this stolen money to live the rest of his life. He kills others and acts as if this end goal is guaranteed. The main character Craig from the other analyzed film, Being John Malkovich, also gives the audience a great example of future-myths. He believes that his love interest Maxine will love him no matter what and he leaves his life as John Malkovich thinking she will remain with him. The philosophical ideas formed by Nietzsche are best shown in "Being John Malkovich". Nietzsche goes against popular belief that people masking hides their true identity by saying that masking actually just reveals another side of them. People wear many masks and this compares to Craigs puppets and the ability for people to take over John Malkovich and become him. Craig is still himself while puppeteering and taking over John's body but he is showing parts of himself that would be hidden when he is just himself. This goes to show the meaning of authenticity and masking. Much like the first episode where we unpacked the basics of existentialism, these ideas can be hard to understand just by reading the text. The writing is old and not in the way we are used to reading now which makes it a lot harder. These films reflect the ideas of the texts and apply them in an easier to understand manner for the audience. When reading these excerpts, it can be easy to just read it and think of the described beliefs more literally. For example, reading about people masking their true selves and just thinking of kids pretending to be someone who they're not at school to try to be popular. Or when you read about future-myths to just think about living like your biggest dream is going to come true. However, these films make you think more deeply about the beliefs described and allow you to see how common these things actually are. You can begin to apply these ideas on a different scale.
Texts: "Existentialism is a Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sarte, "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camu Films: "Ikiru" directed by Akira Kurosawa, "Groundhog Day" directed by Harold Ramis Description: Within this episode, we explore a basic overview of existentialism and apply aspects developed by Sartre and Camu to the film Groundhog Day. Sartre states that existence precedes essence. In Groundhog Day, the main character, Phil, is seen by his peers as mean and sarcastic until he actually fixes his act and helps people. Sartre also identified the term "bad faith" as when you are not using your free will to actually do what you want. Phil represents a life in bad faith as he miserably works at his job only to get by even though it's not what he wants to be doing. The repeating of the same day throughout the film is representative of the absurd that is described by Camu. Phil even goes through the same process of rejecting the absurd before accepting it that the text outlines. Existentialism can be a lot to grasp, especially when just becoming familiar with it. The texts can be difficult to read and hard to dissect. However, by pairing these two texts with film, a new level of understanding can be reached. Storytelling applies the ideas that these philosophers describe perfectly while providing visuals and real world examples. Creating this episode and comparing the medias allowed me to get a better grasp on not only the ideas described by Sartre and Camu but also on the idea of existentialism as a whole. Applying these ideas to a specific story makes it easier to see comparisons and apply these ideas to other areas of life.