Films, Documentaries?

[DanJackson]

Hi Philosophers,

 

Do you have any favorite films on philosphy/philosphers? Documentaries? Would love to know.

I do mean those explicitly addressing philosophy, but of course those you find useful for thinking around problems would also be intersting to hear about.

 

Thanks!

[Infinite Zest]

Not philosophical per se, but I liked "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" It's a very good documentary on Noam Chomsky.

[Infinite Zest]

Waking Life is a classic, too!

[Infinite Zest]

And the Examined Life!

[DanJackson]

Thanks for those, added to the list! Watching "Being in the World" now - only a few minutes in so far, but not bad so far.

[smg]

If your going to watch Waking Life you should check out Slacker to.  Less philosophically relevant than Waking Life but still an awesome Linklater film.  Days of Heaven or another Malick film might be worth checking out and pondering too.

[DanJackson]

If your going to watch Waking Life you should check out Slacker to.  Less philosophically relevant than Waking Life but still an awesome Linklater film.  Days of Heaven or another Malick film might be worth checking out and pondering too.

 

 

Thanks!

 

I actually loved his take on A Scanner Darkly, so I should look at more of them. Hadn't heard of Days of Heaven, thank you for that too.

[Monadology]

I don't know about films *on or about* philosophy, but my favorite philosophical film is probably Upstream Color. 

[dgswaim]

"Stalker," Andrei Tarkovsfy.

[Establishment]

Hi Daniel Jackson, welcome to this side of the Stargate.

 

In terms of films about philosophers, there are a couple. There's a french film of Immanuel Kant's last days entitled, Les Derniers Jours d'Emmanuel Kant, made in 1993. A film entitled Wittgenstein made in 1993. Roberto Rossellini produced a few television shorts looking at Socrates, Augustine, Pascal, and Descartes.

 

There are a few films that parade around as "philosophy films", say, Waking Life, Examined Life. I Heart Huckabees, and The Ister. The few good exceptions are films such as I Heart Huckabees, which is a rather nice comedy of no philosophical pretension. The Ister (2004) is a stylistically nice little film centered on interviews with European philosophers with Heidegger and the Danube river as a backdrop. It's value, so far as I'm concerned, had much more to do with its aesthetics than its interviews though.

 

There are also those films that are sometimes called "philosophical films". These tend to really mean spiritual or meditative films of cinematic value. Often these works are produced by certain directors, such as Dreyer, Bresson, Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Malick. Sometimes particular works can be included, like Huston's 1987 adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead, and a number of Japanese films. These aren't important for thinking about problems, but they're morally important films nonetheless.

 

Long story short, there really aren't any films on philosophy (that is, that depict philosophy in practice) for much the same reason there aren't any films that depict academic mathematicians or industrial engineers at work. But I think that Insofar as such a film might be possible, your best luck lies with certain films about the law. These are the cases in which you can have arguments between positions and evidential strength that are accessible and of interest to the layman. The best representation I can imagine is 12 Angry Men (1957). That is, if someone asked me what is the best film that represents what it is that philosophers do, I'd recommend that film. I also have a certain fondness of Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), particularly it's closing verdict, but it's not all that interesting in terms of argumentatives.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Establishment

[Infinite Zest]

I don't know about films *on or about* philosophy, but my favorite philosophical film is probably Upstream Color. 

 

This is one of my all time favorites!

[DanJackson]

Thank you again all!  I have seen Upstream Color, great film Monadology - I liked Primer quite a bit as well. Thanks for The Stalker, dgswaim, adding that to my list.
 

Establishment, thank you for the many films you mention, all of which I'll look at. I'm a film watcher so I've definitely seen many of what you describe as philosophical films.

 

On that note - since there seem to be a handful of films that try to serve as "philosophy films," and few that depict anything close to "philosophy in practice" - how about lectures?

 

I've really enjoyed listening to Avitall Ronell, Agamben, Diane Davis, Butler, Badiou, and others in the lecture/course videos that European Graduate School posts on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/egsvideo/videos). It's like a Derrida party over there.

 

In order to get broader representation of ideas, I would be interested to know: What are your favorite online lectures or videos in this style?

[Greenwood16]

Human, All Too Human is quite the hidden gem. Definitely worth the watch.

 

http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/human-all-too-human.html

[ZiggyPhil]

Berkeley puts out a huge number of courses in a variety of disciplines at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ I've greatly enjoyed Campbell's and Searle's courses on philosophy of mind and language (respectively), and they both have others I haven't gotten to yet.

 

Yale also has a decent number of courses at http://oyc.yale.edu/ though unlike Cal (and to my dismay), they have stopped adding more. Kagan's course on death is pretty good, but I really recommend Gendler's course - lots of interesting stuff at the intersection of philosophy and science.

 

Berkeley's and Yale's videos are also available on itunes and youtube.  I should note that I cannot comment on the quality of the video, since I only listened to the audio versions. 

[Monadology]

You can find recordings of John Caputo's lectures/classes here:

 

http://trippfuller.com/Caputo/

http://trippfuller.com/Caputo/Fall2010%20Caputo/

 

It sounds like you are interested in continental philosophy, so you should really dig his stuff. I haven't had the chance to listen to much, but I've found them interesting and helpful. 

[Nastasya_Filippovna]

Perhaps this suggestion seems outlandish, and I accept that, and it's certainly not premised on any formal philosophical theories or training, but I think Lars Von Trier's Antichrist is incredibly philosophically provocative. Now it of course it very graphic, but von trier's sex and violence is not the tarantino-esqe comedic or glam violence you witness in American cinema. This movie, for me, really raises a lot of metaphysical discomfort about the nature of our equilibrium with rationality and emotion, intuition and reason, morality and conventions, and who we really are versus who we have become via social construction. Willem Dafoe is in it too which earns it another gold star lol. I found it spellbinding and disturbing, I highly recommend it to folks- it's a love-it-or-hate-it for sure.

Another great "philosophy"-oriented director- old school Cronenberg.

[smg]

Thank you again all!  I have seen Upstream Color, great film Monadology - I liked Primer quite a bit as well. Thanks for The Stalker, dgswaim, adding that to my list.

 

Establishment, thank you for the many films you mention, all of which I'll look at. I'm a film watcher so I've definitely seen many of what you describe as philosophical films.

 

On that note - since there seem to be a handful of films that try to serve as "philosophy films," and few that depict anything close to "philosophy in practice" - how about lectures?

 

I've really enjoyed listening to Avitall Ronell, Agamben, Diane Davis, Butler, Badiou, and others in the lecture/course videos that European Graduate School posts on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/egsvideo/videos). It's like a Derrida party over there.

 

In order to get broader representation of ideas, I would be interested to know: What are your favorite online lectures or videos in this style?

 

I'm a sucker for Critchely's EGS lectures.   Caputo is great too.

Edited November 19, 2014 by smg

[DanJackson]

So many great suggestions - thank you all, I ran out of 'reputation points' to disperse, but I'll be back...

[Dumbnamechange]

I know this is an old post, but the film that best embodies philosophy is The Act of Killing. It's the greatest film ever made, and is on a par with Philosophical Investigations (greatest book) for the most vicarious, most intense, and most transformative "philosophical experience". 

 

Upstream Color was alright. I really admire the director, but if you look around and hear him describe what we was trying to do with that film, I think it's undeniably a failure. Admirable, though, and awfully pretty.

 

If you just want Youtube videos of lectures, look up Brad Younger. I have no idea who he is, but he uploads pretty much every philosophy lecture on the internet.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Jerk^~philosopher

[sidebysondheim]

Perhaps this suggestion seems outlandish, and I accept that, and it's certainly not premised on any formal philosophical theories or training, but I think Lars Von Trier's Antichrist is incredibly philosophically provocative. Now it of course it very graphic, but von trier's sex and violence is not the tarantino-esqe comedic or glam violence you witness in American cinema. This movie, for me, really raises a lot of metaphysical discomfort about the nature of our equilibrium with rationality and emotion, intuition and reason, morality and conventions, and who we really are versus who we have become via social construction. Willem Dafoe is in it too which earns it another gold star lol. I found it spellbinding and disturbing, I highly recommend it to folks- it's a love-it-or-hate-it for sure.

Another great "philosophy"-oriented director- old school Cronenberg.

 

I will agree about Antichrist (probably just because I love von Trier). I think von Trier's Dogville presents a lot of philosophical(esque) problems as well, and is significantly less disturbing than Antichrist. 

[herenowagain]

So this is a bit playful, but "Cabin in the Woods" has a great Kantian ending. That is, not letting yourself be used no matter the consequences.