Wittgenstein (1993)

Director: Derek Jarman

Screenplay: Derek Jarman, Terry Eagleton and Ken Butler

Cast: Clancy Chassay as young Wittgenstein, Karl Johnson as adult Wittgenstein, Nabil Shaban as Martian, Michael Gough as Bertrand Russell, Tilda Swinton as Lady Ottoline Morrell, John Quentin as Maynard Keynes, Kevin Collins as Johnny, Lynn Seymour as Lydia Lopokova

An Abstract Candidate

 

How many toes do philosophers have?

Ludwig Wittgenstein fascinates me as a philosopher, which is as apt as an amateur writer on abstract films who will openly state his lack of philosophical prowess but is aware of how his work, in attempting to deal with what he felt were huge issues about philosophy even in terms of language betraying it, is inherently dealing with the abstract in itself. His premise is simple even - that our misuse of language needed to be dealt with and cleared away to be able to attempt philosophical ideas - but it is with truth that, going out of my way to try to read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), it is an abstract and difficult little novella of philosophy. Claimed to be the ladder to climb up to a newer enlightenment through, and to be then discarded afterwards, it was, however, a difficult text for me to even begin with let alone for me to understand. Wittgenstein the film, a biography by Derek Jarman, is very simple in contrast as a telling of the Austrian philosopher's life to his death, in telling a cohesive glance of his views and personality, but tells it in an unconventional way. Particularly as we are still dealing with the author of the likes of the Philosophical Investigations (1952), Wittegenstein trying to show the limitations of language, and that to resolve this issue involved dealing with the resulting "language games", it is not something visually dynamic as a biopic subject immediately, but just as fascinating in the right hands here especially as the production itself plays with presentation.

Even as a pure non- sequitur, when actor Michael Gough, making his first appearance as philosopher Bernard Russell, a champion of Wittegenstein, is shouting about there being no rhinoceros under a table, is showing us this will be an unconventional "biopic" but playing with this issue important to its subject work. In this film which is artificial in its black stages, the subject nature of words and their symbolism that became the concern of its subject is naturally within a film playing with the contract of cinema itself. The life of Wittgenstein, with a young child version, future war reporter and journalist Clancy Chassay, and Karl Johnson as the adult Wittgenstein sharing roles as their own narrator, is told as straightforward as an autobiography can. But we are dealing with a philosopher, which inherently provides an issue for a mainstream adaptation that their achievements, unless they had very dramatic lives, were dealing with very cerebral and internal issues of human existence, which sadly many mainstream biopics do not think are "cinematic" enough. Jarman proves this wrong, even if this is a work where the drama is dealing with this existential concern of the subject, from Wittgenstein's concerns from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to the post-humorously published Philosophical Investigations, including the fact he felt later (in the film depiction) his first work was deeply flawed and led to him drastically changing his ideas to perfect them. Refocusing philosophical theories in mind to this and avoiding starting as a lonely philosopher based on their own internal thoughts, he wished for them to be pushed into a sociological version through humanity as a whole interlocking together, legendary filmmaker Jarman making this his central conflict whilst both dealing with the man himself, from his personality to being a gay man in a different time period, and also having a gleefully quirky tone on purpose.

This is a very playful film, one of Jarman's last before his tragic passing due to illness connected to HIV, Blue (1993) the film after a sobering work dealing with this, and his emotions, entirely by a blue image and just narration, one of the most powerful works from the nineties and British cinema in general. Wittgenstein still is serious, but it is for a film about a philosopher where such deep concerns are contrasted by being deliberately a comedy, fully embracing its artificiality too as it has a vivid aesthetic of elaborate costumes, including on Jarman collaborate Tilda Swinton here, and in precise set design. The green Martian alone, played by Nabil Shaban, who I first encountered in the fascinating horror film Born of Fire (1986), is one of the more overt undercuttings of pretence, an abrupt inclusion even for a Jarman film in itself in how we have this figure, with an xylophone, yet again apt for this particular subject as the figure is just as philosophical in dealing with perception of reality with the younger Wittgenstein. As much as this factors into Ludwig Wittgenstein the man himself, a figure who struggles even to grasp a derisive V sign gesture at his direction, a figure who in another film would be an exaggerated curiosity in his thought patterns. It brings into this, through these sides, a deliberate sense of camp. Jarman as an LGBTQ filmmaker, both for serious political art an campaigning throughout his life, and also in its joyous and transgressive depictions, shows both Wittgenstein's romantic life with a male student he has a relationship with through for his whole life, and for upturning conventions of this genre with the tone. It is seen as simple in how, with one of Ludwig's sisters being a painter, historical accuracy is thrown out the window with a female figure as the nude model with very short hair, tattoos and piercings, deliberately stamping the film with choices like this. Whilst with a film like Sebastiane (1976), the challenge came from proudly depicting the nude male body in a constant rush of its entirely film length, Wittgenstein even when it skips to something serious and meaningful in its subject, empathy for him and trying to grasp his ideas, has its tongue in its cheek and a twisted sense of humour most of its length.

Abstract Spectrum: Whimsical

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None