Philosophy Now Forum

Based on an “autobiographical novel”. Fictional nonfiction as it were.

These things don’t happen very often: Jewish family flees pre-war Nazi Germany to run remote farm in Kenya.

Had the Nazis won the war though they might well be there today. And this story would never have been told.

That is the extraordinary magic of movies. Through them you can not only know of such things but watch them unfold. Even if only through the acting of others.

Imagine being in such a situation. You roll the dice: Stay with the devil you know in Germany or take a chance with the devil [if it is a devil] you don’t know in Kenya. Think of all those Jews who had a chance to get out but chose instead to stay.

But while some are able to make the best of a new [more difficult] situation, some are not. Some can’t let go of the past, some can’t let go of the future.

It goes full circle. Germany: leave or stay? Kenya: leave or stay?


Nowhere In Africa [Nirgendwo in Afrika]

Regina [narrating]: I couldn’t remember Germany. I only knew there’s snow and seasons. And that our family was there. Everyone, not just mum and dad. Everyone. And that I liked that. But I know as well that I was always afraid of something. Of the other children, of the people on the streets. I was even afraid of dogs. Germany is a dark place for me. Not so light and hot as Kenya.

Though for others, perhaps, the other way around.

Walter [in a letter to Jettel]: “You can’t trust anybody, even those people who were our best friends.”

What if it gets like that again? Only here this time.

Max [to Jettel]: One person always loves more. That’s what makes it so difficult. And the one who loves more is vulnerable.

So, who here loves me more than I love them?

Regina [narrating]: I had to think about chocolate. But mum explained to me that from this point on we were poor. And there’s no chocolate for poor kids. I promised to be brave.

You might be brave regarding other things, of course.

Walter: You didn’t bring the refrigerator right? Jettel?
Jettel: No I didn’t. There was no space left in the boxes. You know, we were allowed to have just …
Walter: But there was space left for this crap! What did you do with all the money?
Jettel: I bought this.
Walter: You bought an evening gown?!
Jettel: Yes I did.

Conflicting goods, let's call them.

Jettel: I can’t stand it anymore.
Walter: That’s what you always say.
Jettel: But I want to go back and live with people, whose language I can understand! You don’t earn a single cent here. Every day we eat eggs and semi-solid food! How could Regina go to school?
Walter [in a burst of anger]: Dammit, we are alive!!
Jettel: Yeah we are alive! And why? All day long we’re hoping for rain for cows that don’t even belong to us. My God, I feel like I’m dead…and sometimes I wish I were.
Walter: We just got out in the nick of time!
Jettel: What are you talking about?
Walter: Yesterday the Nazis burned down all the synagogues in Germany and pillaged all the Jewish shops. They smashed everything to pieces. People, houses, shops, everything.
Jettel: How did you find that out on this goddamn farm?
Walter: From a Swiss radio station this morning.

If you can't trust the Swiss...?

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic.

He means a fractured and fragmented fool, right?

You sometimes see in a wind a piece of paper blowing about anyhow. Suppose the piece of paper could make the decision: ‘Now I want to go this way.’ I say: ‘Queer, this paper always decides where it is to go, and all the time it is the wind that blows it. I know it is the wind that blows it.’ That same force which moves it also in a different way moves its decisions.

Next up: windy exchanges here.

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.
Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
The result of philosophy is not a number of "philosophical propositions", but to make propositions clear.
Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.

Ah, the early Wittgenstein.

Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.

Cue Veritas Aequitas!

In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it, there is no value...and if there were, it would be of no value.

See, I told you.

A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.

Ours or theirs?

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library ... ve-nothing


"Christ was a paradoxical misunderstanding from the gospels. He was a sad and sorrowful phenomenon of decadence, born of pagan fatigue.

The Antichrist is the healthy son of all the bold hatred that Life has bred in the secrecy of its own fecund breast, during the twenty and more centuries of christian order.

Because history returns.

Because eternal return is the law that rules the universe.

It is the destiny of the world!

It is the axis around which life itself turns!

To perpetuate itself.

To run itself back.

To contradict itself.

To pursue itself.

To not die.

Because life is a movement, an action.

That pursues thought.

That yearns for thought.

That loves thought.

And this being walks, runs, bustles around.

Life wants to stir in the kingdom of ideas.

But when the way is impractical, then, thought weeps.

It weeps and despairs...

Then weariness makes it weak, renders it christian.

Then it takes its sister life in hand and seeks to confine her in the realm of death.

But the Antichrist — the spirit of the most mysterious and profound instinct — calls Life back to himself, shouting barbarically to her: Let’s begin again!

And Life begins again!

Because it does not want to die.

And if Christ symbolizes the weariness of life, the sunset of thought: the death of the idea!

The Antichrist symbolizes the instinct of life.

He symbolizes the resurrection of thought.

The Antichrist is the symbol of a new dawn."

Hail Novatore!

Nowhere In Africa [Nirgendwo in Afrika]

Walter [to Jettel]: You treat me like I’m a leper! As a lawyer I was your favourite panty remover! And now? Sweat-stained and unshaved I don’t even exist for you!

That'll do it. Right, gents?

Walter [petting a stray dog Regina wants to keep]: We’ll call him Rummler, like the Nazi chairman in Leobschutz. Everyday we can say “Rummler, you bastard”, and nobody will arrest us!

In the best of all possible worlds, say.

Regina [narrating]: Suddenly we were no longer refugees but enemies of the state. We didn’t even know why the British were locking us up. We were Germans and Germany was in war with Great Britain. But we were Jews as well and obviously not on Hitler’s side.

Politics, let's call it.

A letter from Walter’s father in Germany: "My dear son, It’s nice to hear that you had luck with your 2nd farm. Emigrating has become impossible. Pretty soon Hitler will close the borders. There’s nothing left we could sell anyway. People say that the Jews will be banned in ghettos, Walter, for the first time in my life I am afraid. Afraid".

The rest, as they say, is history.

Regina: No I won’t undress myself. I’m not a little child anymore.
Friend: You are stupid if you dirty your school clothes.
Regina: I’m not a child anymore. You must not see my breasts.
Friend: Your breasts aren’t different from other women’s breasts.
Regina: Of course. A Mzungus breasts are different than black women’s breasts. You must not show them.
Friend: Mzungus’ schools teach strange stuff.

On the other hand, at least they're not perverts?

A letter from Jettel’s family: “My dear loved ones, we are very afraid. We are being sent to Poland to work. Don’t forget us. Mother and Kathe.”
Regina: What does it mean?
Walter: They weren’t allowed to write more than 20 words. They gave away one.

Or two?

Jettel: Perhaps they want to try to escape through Poland. Maybe they found a way out.
[Walter just walks away]
Jettel: Say something, Walter, finally! Please talk to me!
Walter: Your mother wanted you to know it. She wouldn’t have written if not. Poland means death.
Jettel [striking him]: No!
Walter: Shall I tell you something? Sometimes I envy you this letter! Now you can be certain! I have to ask myself every day, if my father is okay. Where he is. Where my sister is.

Not unlike millions upon millions of others?

Jettel: Sometimes I don’t see you a day…and a night. Where are you then?
Owuor: I’m visiting my wives and my children. I have 3 wives and six children. At the lake. Near Kisumu.
Jettel: They don’t see you often.
Owuor: They understand that I can’t leave Memsaab alone.
Jettel: But your wife is always alone.
Owuor: That’s something different. White women are helpless, black women aren’t.

Uh, leave it at that?

Regina: Mamma… why are the Jews so hated? You and dad, you are not really Jewish. You eat meat. And you don’t pray right? In school they told us that the Jews killed God’s son.
Jettel: For me and dad, Judaism has never been as important. We thought we were as much German as possible. The German culture, the language. That was our home.
Regina: Maybe we Jews are really different?
Jettel: Aunt Ruth and uncle Salommon were different. They obey the Jewish rules. Tolerance doesn’t mean that everyone is the same. That’d be stupid. What I’ve learned here is how valuable differences are. Differences are good. And intelligent people will never hold it against you.

On the other hand, if you call yourself God's chosen people, don't be surprised if that rubs other denominations the wrong way?

Jettel: I’m not going back to Germany.
Walter: What about us?
Jettel: How can you still believe in that country?
Walter: I’m a lawyer, and I love my job. Perhaps you’ll laugh at me but I feel I could be useful in a new Germany.
Jettel: You’re such a damn idealist! Do you think the Nazis suddenly disappeared? We’d have to deal with our parents’ murderers!
Walter: I’m proud to be an idealist because it shows that I believe in mankind. That may sound naive but every other belief will lead to destruction.

In the end, they go back. But it’s extraordinary how their positions are reversed.

Science

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” Will Durant

Not counting the "epistemologists", perhaps?

“I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me 'Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid' - then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of God, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no God is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all.” Douglas Adams

Fifty-fifty?

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.” Stephen Hawking

Seventy-thirty?

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.” Claude Levi-Strauss

Though every once in a while...both?

“If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.” Albert Einstein

He wondered what Einstein came back as. Hell, he might even be one of us!!

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” Carl Sagan

And now, Carl?

Ballet and the working class. In England no less. Enough said?

Not quite: It’s the young lad who is enthused. At the very least, a poof. And born and bred in a family of miners no less.

Given how many men do in fact pursue dancing as a career, it can’t always be this bad. One thing for sure, if you are the only boy in the class it can only increase your chance of getting the girl. Well, if you’re straight.

As for the miner’s strike, we know how that turned out. In a word, Margaret Thatcher. Workers of the world unite? Around Donald Trump? But at least we do know whose side the cops are on.

And a scab is a scab. Even if your wee boy is a “fucking genius”. But it’s also easy to see how the world can turn you inside out. It all depends on how “your situation” is or is not the same as the guy next to you. For the working class money can be everything. And it’s obscene how this can pummel some really, really talented children. The one’s who don’t have “the script” to fall back on.


Billy Elliot

George: Jesus Christ, Billy Elliot! You’re a disgrace to them gloves, your father, and the traditions of this boxing hall!

Plus he's probably...

Mrs. Wilkinson: Balance! Balance! Balance! Balance!
Striking miners: Scab! Scab! Scab! Scab!

"Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...out! out! out!"

Billy: What’s wrong with ballet?
Dad: What’s “wrong” with ballet?
Billy: It’s perfectly normal.
Dad: “Perfectly normal”?
Grandma: I used to go to ballet.
Billy: See?
Dad: Aye, for your nanna. For girls, not for lads, Billy. Lads do football, or boxing, or wrestling. Not frigging ballet!

Next thing you know, he'll be posting here!

Dad: I’m bustin’ my ass for those 50 pences and you’re - look, from now on, you stay here and look out for your Nana. Got that? Good.
Grandma: They used to say I could have been a professional dancer if I’d had the trainin’!
Dad: WILL YOU SHUT UP?!

Stick with the script, Granny.

Billy: Miss, what have I blown not coming to the classes?
Mrs. Wilkinson: This’ll sound strange, Billy, but for some time now I’ve been thinkin’ of the Royal Ballet School.
Billy: Aren’t you a bit old, miss?
Mrs. Wilkinson: No, not me…you! I’m the bloody teacher!

He'll catch on.

Billy: I don’t want to do your stupid, fucking audition. You only want me to do it for your own benefit!
Mrs. Wilkinson: Look, Billy…
Billy: Because you’re a failure!
Mrs. Wilkinson: Don’t you dare talk to me like that!
Billy: You don’t even have a proper dancing school. You’re stuck in some crummy boxing hall! Don’t pick on me because you fucked up your own life!
[she slaps him]

Deservedly?

Debbie: Billy, do you not fancy us, like?
Billy: Don’t know. Never really thought about it.
Debbie: If you want, I’ll show you me fanny.

Crack and all?

Tony: Audition?
Mrs. Wilkinson: For the Royal Ballet School. It’s where they teach the ballet.
Dad: You’ve got to be joking, love.
Mrs. Wilkinson: No, I’m perfectly serious.
Tony: Have you any idea what we’re going through? I’ve been in a fucking cell, all night…and you come around here, talking shite.
[he turns to Billy]
Tony: And you…Fucking ballet!
[back to Mrs. Wilkinson]
What are you trying to do, make him a fuckin skirt for the rest of his life? Look at him. He’s only 11 for fuck’s sake.

On the other hand, all the great damcers around the globe were once eleven.

Tony [grabbing Billy and putting him up on the kitchen table]: Go on, then. Let’s see this fucking dancing.
Mrs. Wilkinson: This is ridiculous!
Tony: If you’re a fucking ballet dancer, then let’s be having you.
Mrs. Wilkinson: Don’t you dare!
Tony: What sort of a teacher are you? He’s got the chance to dance. Now, you’re fucking telling him not to. Dance, you little twat! No? So, piss off. He’s not doing any more ballet! If you go near him again, I’ll smack you, you middle-class cow.

The class stuggle? It's back!

Billy: So, what’s it like?
Dad: What’s what like?
Billy: London.
Dad: I don’t know, son. I never made it past Durham.
Billy: Have you never been?
Dad: Why would I want to go to London?
Billy: It’s the capital city!
Dad: Well, there are no mines in London.
Billy: Jesus Christ, is that all you think about?

Yeah, if that’s how you put bread on the table and pay the fucking rent.

Tutor: Before you go, may I ask you one last question. What does it feel like when you’re dancing?
Billy: Don’t know. Sorta feels good. Sorta stiff and that, but once I get going…then I like, forget everything. And sorta disappear. Sorta disappear. Like I feel a change in my whole body. And I’ve got this fire in my body. I’m just there. Flyin’ like a bird. Like electricity. Yeah, like electricity.

Not all that different from posting here?

Dad [at the Union Hall]: He did it! He fucking did it!
Miner: Jackie, have you not heard, man? We’re going back. Strike’s over. The union caved in yesterday.

Uh, win some, lose some?

The Leary family. You gotta love 'em. At least I do. Every single one of them embody the sort of oddball eccentricity I seek out in others.

Muriel Pritcherd too.

Of course they can also drive you up the wall. So it’s more just a nice place to visit than anything else.

And then there is loss. The loss of a child in particular. There is no right way to deal with it. But many will argue there are lots of wrong ways.

The film also brings out all the mangled thinking that goes on about “class” in America. It’s not as brazen as in other cultures but in other respects it is even more despicable. The film was shot in Baltimore. That’s the home of Anne Tyler, the author of the book the film is based on. I live in Baltimore too. And here there is a world of difference between Roland Park and East 21st Street.

But I don’t pretend it doesn’t include me. As regarding so many things, I find myself being tugged in all different directions.


The Accidental Tourist

Macon [voiceover]: The business traveler should bring only what fits in a carry-on bag. Checking your luggage is asking for trouble. Add several travel-size packets of detergent so you won’t fall into the hands of unfamiliar laundries. There are very few necessities in this world which do not come in travel-size packets. One suit is plenty, if you take along travel-size packets of spot remover. The suit should be medium gray. Gray not only hides the dirt but is handy for sudden funerals. Always bring a book as protection against strangers. Magazines don’t last, and newspapers from elsewhere remind you you don’t belong. But don’t take more than one book. It is a common mistake to overestimate one’s potential free time, and consequently over-pack. In travel, as in most of life, less is invariably more. And most importantly, never take along anything on your journey so valuable or dear that its loss would devastate you.

Any tourists accidentily here?

Sarah: Macon, ever since Ethan died, I’ve had to admit that people are basically bad. Evil, Macon. They’re so evil they’d take our 12-year-old boy and shoot him through the skull for no reason. There have been times I haven’t been sure I…Haven’t been sure I could live in this kind of world anymore.
Macon: It’s true what you say about human beings. I’m not trying to argue.Tell me, Sarah, why would that cause you to leave me?
Sarah: Because I knew you wouldn’t try and argue. You believed all along they were evil. This whole past year I’ve felt myself withdrawing from people just like you do, Macon. I’ve felt myself becoming a Leary.
Macon: Well, there are worse disasters than that, I guess.
Sarah: Not for me. Macon, I know you loved Ethan. And I know you mourn him, but there’s something so…What do you call it? Muffled about the way you experience things. It’s like you’re trying to slip through life unchanged.
Macon: Sarah, I’m not muffled. I endure. I’m holding steady.
Sarah: I know you think that, but I think you’re fooling yourself. It’s not by chance you write books telling people how to make trips without a jolt so they can travel to wonderful, exotic places and never be touched by them. Never feel they’ve left home. That traveling armchair isn’t just your logo. It’s you.

Yo, Muriel!
Point taken though, right?

Muriel: Or just call for no reason. Call and talk.
Macon: Talk?
Muriel: Sure. Just pick up the phone and talk. Talk about anything. Don’t you ever get the urge to do that?
Macon: No, not really.

My guess: she'll never take no for an anwer.

Julian: What do you do for a living, Charles?
Charles: I make bottle caps.
Julian: Bottle caps? Is that a fact.
Charles: Well, it’s not half as exciting as it sounds, really.

And he means it.

Macon: Is this the Thanksgiving we all die?

The turkey may be a tad undercooked.

Macon: He’s younger you know.
Rose: Two years.
Macon: But he’s got a younger lifestyle. Singles apartments and so on.
Rose: He’s tired of all that.
[pause]
Rose: Don’t try to spoil this, Macon.
Macon: Sweetheart, I only want to protect you. It’s wrong, you know, what you said at Thanksgiving. Love is not what it’s all about. There are all kinds of other issues.
Rose: He ate my turkey and didn’t get sick. Two big helpings.

Back to basics, let's call it.

The Accidental Tourist

Macon [to Muriel]: Last year, I exp…I lost…I experienced a loss. I lost… I lost my son. He was just… he went into a hamburger joint and someone came, a hold-up man, and shot him. I can’t go to dinner with people. I can’t…can’t talk to their little boys. You have to stop asking me. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m just not up to this. Do you hear? Every day, I tell myself it’s time to be getting over this - I know that people expect it of me. But if anything I’m getting worse. The first year was like a bad dream; I was there at his bedroom door in the morning before I’d remember he wasn’t there to be wakened. The second year is real. I’ve stopped going to his door. I’ve sometimes let a whole day go by without thinking about him. I believe Sarah thinks I could have prevented what happened somehow - she’s so used to my arranging her life. Now I’m far from everyone. I don’t have any friends anymore. And everyone looks trivial and foolish, and not related to me.

Pray for him?

Porter: Can you tell me one unique thing about her? I mean, one really special quality, Macon, not something sloppy like “she appreciates me”?
Macon: I’m not such a bargain myself, in case you haven’t noticed. When it comes right down to it, somebody ought to warn her away from me.

It won't work.

Muriel: Don’t leave me, Macon.

On the other hand...

Sarah: Macon, come home. Let’s try again.

He does and they do...though with considerably less body heat.

Sarah: The trouble with you is, you don’t believe in people opening up. You think everyone should stay in their own little sealed package.
Macon: Okay. Let’s say that that’s true. Let’s say for now that you do know what the trouble with me is, that nothing that I might feel could surprise you. And that the reason I don’t want to hear about this thing is that I can’t open up! If we agree on all that, can we drop it?!

Sure, for now.

Macon [to Sarah]: I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you’re with them.

Who are you here?

Macon [to Sarah]: It’s wrong to think we can plan everything. As though it were a business trip. I don’t believe that anymore. Things just happen.

Next up: the things that don't happen.

Macon [to Sarah]: When I saw you at Rose’s wedding, I knew that somehow you had recovered, that you’d gone on with your life after Ethan. Well, I’d tried, but I couldn’t do it on my own. This woman, this odd woman, helped me. She’s given me another chance to decide who I am. To step out of the Leary groove and stay out. You don’t need me anymore. We both know that. But I need her.

Anyone here need me?

Roberto Bolaño

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

Same with posting here?

Life left us all where we were meant to be or where it was convenient to leave us and then forgot us, which is as it should be.

Click, let's call it.

When I was done traveling, I returned convinced of one thing: we're nothing.

That's not even half of what I found.

…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.

Personas we call them.

And I thought: History is like a horror story.

And then [eventually] we blow ourselves up.

Which is to say, boys, that I saw our struggles and dreams all tangled up in the same failure, and that failure was called joy.

No, really, spill the beans. How does that work "for all practical purposes"?

No body, no crime?

The plot is diabolical. But only two of them know why. Or [maybe] three.

The husband could hardly be more despicable but the wife was brought up to believe that divorce is a deadly sin.

But maybe not murder?

Here the wife and the mistress not only know of each other but interact from day to day to day. How does that work? Let’s start with agendas. Then with what each thinks the other’s is.

It’s nothing short of ingenious really.

And you can’t help but wonder: Just how far back in human history does this sort of plotting go? All the way back to the caves? Are we hardwired to seek all advantages in our lives? Then the rest is nurture?

The ending? Perfectly ambiguous.

When director Henri-Georges Clouzot bought the film rights to the original novel, he reportedly beat Alfred Hitchcock by only a matter of hours. IMDb

Still, I can’t imagine even Hitchcock topping this.


Diabolique [Les Diaboliques]

M. Drain: I may be reactionary, but this is absolutely astounding --- the legal wife consoling the mistress! No, no, and no!

On the other hand, it is diabolical, right?

Christina: Don’t you believe in Hell?
Nicole: Not since I was seven.
Christina: I do.

Little does she know the Hell on Earth they have planned for her.

Christina: You can wish someone’s death, but to actually kill him…You must have wished my death, didn’t you?
Nicole: I didn’t. But he did. He would say to me, “Don’t worry. With her heart condition it won’t take long. After she dies, we’ll share the school.”

The plot...revealed?

Nicole: As you wish. But I must warn you. If you miss your chance he won’t miss his. Not after your phone call demanding a divorce.

As they wish in other words.

Plantiveau: Watch out, ma’am. That’s the deep part where you are.
Christina: There is no danger. I can swim.
Plantiveau: That don’t mean a thing. It’s always the ones who know how that get drowned. The ones who can’t, don’t go near the pool.

Hint, hint.

Nicole: He was really dead, wasn’t he?
Christina: You’re the one who should know.
Nicole: Why are you saying that?
Christina: You killed him, didn’t you?
Nicole: Me?!
Christina: You are the one who planned the whole thing!
Nicole: No, we planned the whole thing.

Spin, spin, spin.

Christina: So it’s a coincidence?
Nicole: A coincidence, yes.
Christina: And Fichet. Was his being at the morgue a coincidence? And the suit. And the hotel. And now the children! Is it a coincidence that it’s getting closer and closer?!

Plotted, let's say.

Fichet: I found him. He’ll be here very shortly.
Christina: It’s wrong and you know it. You know he can’t come back.
Fichet: Why?
Christina: Because I killed him!

And that's the beauty of diabolical plots...one merely needs to believe that something is true and that makes it true. In the interim say.

Michel: We’re rich. Just by selling the school we’ll get…
Fichet: …between 15 and 20 years in jail. It depends on the judge.

On the other hand, wasn't this a cold-blooded murder? That it unfolded diabolically doesn't change that.

God

“God seemed to have become a brand, a packaging, and people purchase this trusted brand with such faith and devotion that they no longer care who the vendor is.” Justin Villanueva

Saved is saved?

“Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle”. Werner Herzog

A memoir let's call it.

“The destiny of your soul is not predicated upon acceptance of a specific dogma that happens to be 'correct.' A loving God does not dole out eternal condemnation because one has selected the wrong doctrine or misinterpreted scripture. On the contrary, your endeavor to understand God and the nature of the universe is a testament to your devotion.” Mark Ireland

A loophole?!

“Sooner or later I will be faced with the fact that the world is helpless to meet my needs. And at that point, I will be left with two conclusions; that life is cruel or God is real.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

Or that God is cruel?

“It is quite natural and inevitable that, if we spend sixteen hours daily of our waking lives in thinking about the affairs of the world and five minutes in thinking about God and our souls, this world will seem two hundred times more real to us than God.” William Ralph Inge

Next up: What God?

“...it's okay to be addicted to beauty," Mom says, all dreamy. "Emerson said 'beauty is God's handwriting.” Jandy Nelson

All dreamy indeed.

The film that explores the infamous Leopold-Loeb case. So, at the very least, it encompasses Nietzsche and free will. And what could the relationship possibly be between them? Or, perhaps, what it must be?

There are arguments that go back and forth over behavior of this sort. The mind of one who rationalizes doing anything simply because it wants to. A mind that measures the consequences only in terms of not getting caught. In my view, only the existence of God resolves it.

But, with or without God, if we do only what we must do than morality is a bit of a sham.

It’s always entertaining though to watch two “super-intellects” tear into each other once the jig is up and the mere mortals have them on trial for capital murder.

Of course, at the end of the trial [in the film] any semblance of delving into this “philosophically” devolved into the exploration of “abnormal psychology” instead.

In my view though, the film’s title is somewhat of a misnomer. The idea that through a combination of nature and nurture we are compelled to behave as we do was hardly stressed at all in Wilk/Darrow’s argument to the judge.

And the ending. Back to God? Well, this film is from the 1950s.


Compulsion

Judd: To the perfect crime!
Arthur: Crime? Oh, my wealthy fraternity brothers. 67 dollars, and a second-hand typewriter.

With or without God?

Judd: It would have been murder.
Arthur: Uh huh. And you know why I tried it, Juddsie? Because I damn well felt like it. That’s why.

On the other hand, how are Übermensch themselves any less compelled to do only what they are, well, compelled to do?

Judd: Please, Artie - I’ll do anything you say.
Arthur: Anything?

Never, ever say [to anyone] "I'll do anthing you say". Unless, of course, you're compelled to.

Arthur: I want to do something that is really dangerous. I want to do something that will have everybody talking.

Especially the judge and the jury.

Judd: An experiment. Detached, with no emotional involvement. And no reason for it, except to show that we can do it.

You know, like posting here.

Judd: Professor, I must agree with Nietzsche. Tribal codes and such do not necessarily apply to the leaders of society.
Professor: All men are bound by law, Mr. Steiner. And had Nietzsche been a lawyer instead of a German philosopher, he would have known that too.

Too close to call?

Compulsion

Professor: Perhaps my thinking is outmoded. But I still cling to the theory that if we were all super-intellects, we would nevertheless, evolve our own code of laws.

Survival of the fittest!

Arthur: Stop worrying. It’s not that easy to trace an ordinary pair of glasses.
Judd: But suppose they do?
Arthur: So what? They’re not my glasses.

A crack in the facade.

Arthur: You want me to order you to, Judd?

After his brain orders him to...or not to.

Judd: Sad? That’s a sentimental term. There is no such thing as sadness. Only the reality of things happening.
Ruth: You don’t really believe that.

Of course, that's the reaction I often get myself. And not just here.

Judd: What’s one life more or less? There were nine million people killed in the war. What does one little Chicago boy matter?
Ruth: Judd! You’re not that cruel.
Judd: No? Murder’s nothing. It’s just a simple experience. Murder and rape? Do you know what beauty there is in evil?!
Ruth: Is there?
Judd: Yes! Why don’t you run?
Ruth: Is that what you want me to do?
Judd: Yes!
Ruth: Do you have to attack me, Judd?
Judd: I don’t have to do anything! If I attack you, it’s because I choose to!
[he pushes her to the ground and starts ripping at her clothes]
Judd: Are you afraid of me?!
Ruth: I’m afreaid for you, Judd. I’m afraid for you!
[he stops and rolls off her]
Judd: I’m so ashamed!

His brain shifting gears?

Judd: What is it?
Athur: A Judas goat. Didn’t you ever see one?
Judd: No. What does it do?
Arthur: Watch and you’ll find out. See, when they get to the slaughterhouse, he ducks to one side and the silly sheep go in to get their throats cut—and that black devil knows it!

Next up: goats and determinism.

Arthur: Hey, come on—let’s go watch them slaughter the sheep.

Hint, hint.

Ruth: I can’t help feeling sorry for Judd and for Artie.
Sid: Sorry for them? Ruth, they plotted a cold blooded killing and went through with it like an experiment in chemistry.

And -- click -- had those glasses not been found?

Ruth: It wasn’t the way you think at all. He made an attempt at it. He couldn’t go through with it, Sid. He was like a child–a sick, frightened child.
Sid: I don’t understand you, Ruth. He tries to rape you and you defend him.
Ruth: I know. It’s difficult to understand but, see, you weren’t there, you didn’t see him like I did. If you did, you’d have some compassion or sympathy for him, believe me.
Sid: Sympathy? Ruth, you sound as though you’re sorry he didn’t go through with it.
[Ruth slaps him across the face]
Sid: I hope they hang him. I hope he hangs till the rope rots.

And then [wholly determined or not] Loeb's ghastly demise. And a very different fate for Leopold.

“…and you don’t mess around with Jim.”

Or Don. Watching these guys up on the screen is one thing, meeting up with them in “real life” something else altogether. I never did. I never want to either.

Start’s out with the classic shot of the boulder flying over Gal’s head into the pool.

The thing about being in “the business” though is that sometimes you don’t have a whole lot to say regarding exactly what that means. All the more so when you decide to get out of it. Having power in this world almost always means that someone has even more than you. And it’s a world way, way, way beyond good and evil. And even a bit further than that at times.

This is the guy for whom someone invented the expression, “he doesn’t have a decent bone in his body”.

He’s like a hand grenade. Only there is no pin. Just him [barely] holding himself in check. And we are never really clued in on the backstory. We can only guess why he evokes such fear in others. And we don’t know about back up: how dangerous is it to cross him? There’s Ted for example.

Bottom line: It’s a love story.

Ben Kingsley claims the character of Don Logan is largely based on his grandmother.

Reportedly the other actors were so stunned by the ferocity of Ben Kingsley’s performance that they occasionally forgot their lines and much of the fear in their performances wasn’t difficult to act. IMDb

I believe that. And so will you.


Sexy Beast

Dee: What’s that?
Gal: A boulder! A fucking boulder! I was that close to gettin’ killed!

You tell me: https://youtu.be/I9zMF-5tfEA?si=aV0LJdZt83E1qskw

Jackie: Are you definitely retired?
Gal: Yeah, I’m retired. Why?
Jackie: Definitely?
Gal: I’m definitely retired. What’s this about.

Take a wild guess.

Gal: They don’t want no one else? They want me? Well, you’ve asked me and I said no. I’m retired. That’s it. So, why are we still talking? Jack?
Jackie: It was Don Logan.
Dee: Oh, Christ.

And she means it.

Gal: I’d be useless.
Don: Useless?
Gal: I would be.
Don: In what way?
Gal: In every fucking way.
Don: Why are you swearing? I’m not swearing.

Oh, that will change.

Don: Listen, Gal, I’m gonna tell you a little story…

Not unlike this one, say: https://youtu.be/B5offaJujB0?si=HaAifOg00AgEwDNK

Ted: Where there’s a will - and there is a fucking will - there’s a way - and there is a fucking way. There’s always a fucking way.

Of course: OR FUCKING ELSE!

Werner Herzog

What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark?

Steer clear of Solaris then.

Academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.

Next up: Academia is the death of philosophy. Well, not counting Walt Fuchs, Jo Ann Robinson and Rene deBrabander.

Do you not then hear this horrible scream all around you that people usually call silence.

Loud and clear.

Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity.

So, it's okay to eat them.

Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read...if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.

Sure, posts here might count.

Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.

Send in the clouds?