维特根斯坦

似乎哲学家都在否定自己的研究成果,就如他的恩师罗素否定自己多年心血企图创立完整体系的中心一元论一样,鸟瞰他们的一生就像在画圈中前进,哲学没有实验基础,所以把各个学说合并之后，我们似乎又回到了这个平淡的世界。

我很少看把电影看第二遍……但这部传记片实在是太有趣了。

对于大众来说为什么牛逼：
成本低，概念高。演员也都选得好
而导演Jarman也是很下功夫。当时几近失明的他，把维老他的人和他的思想都读透了。改写剧本时Jarman大胆想象，写成了这么一部轻松诙谐加自我调侃的同志哲人传记片。我就喜欢这种先锋的自我解读，而不是循规蹈矩走传统传记路线。


对于我个人来说为什么牛逼：
感情呈现的起乘转折的节奏把握得特别好。不乏感人的台词，尤其是结尾凯恩斯的那段独白比喻，听得心都融化了。
我和片中偏执地寻找『私人语言』维老有同感。时常在个人的孤独感中纠结与人交流时所遇到的困难。
他认为 解决这种孤独 尤其是哲人的孤独（brooding over its private experience） 的方式就是寻找公共语言
而完善这种语言的方式就是让所有人的逻辑体系都是理性的、一致的。
当有人对他做侮辱手势的时候，他开始意识到，人类的语言不可能完美。
他执着而天真 聪明而钻牛角尖 不爱都不行。

好吧其实是为了贴作业的，调研贾曼的两部电影
中心论点在第一段。。关于电影中的同志题材和场景设置

Derek Jarman’s Personal Narrative—Exploring Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michelangelo Caravaggio’s Brilliance and Queer Identities


As one of the best-known British queer directors, Derek Jarman produced several unique biopics of talented men tortured by their repressed homosexuality. Notably, Jarman started his career in feature film by working with Ken Russell, a director who reinvented the artist biopic by “introducing startling fantasy sequences and ostentatious camera movements.” Jarman continued Russell’s revolt against conventional realist representation of historical figures. Also using biopics as a form of documentation, Jarman has sought to reenact experience and thereby reconstruct affective relations. He identifies with brilliant queer men who are often too radical for their times. By portraying queer figures, Jarman interprets art and philosophy as well as repressed emotions and loneliness of queer men. Even during the conservative periods, Jarman’s nuanced films carried many provocative themes that were not only political but also highly personal. Caravaggio (1986) and Wittgenstein (1993) exemplify these aspects of Jarman’s individualistic, subjective approach. Jarman admits to strongly identifying with Wittgenstein: “I have much of Ludwig in me. Not in my work, but in my life.” Jarman has also stated in interviews that his artistic dilemmas are similar to those experienced by Caravaggio. This research paper attempts to capture the richness of Jarman's personal relationship with these two figures by discussing both films’ use of mise-en-scene and their thematic concern with queer identity.
Jarman engages with the lives of Wittgenstein and Caravaggio by referencing and paying homage to their work on a theoretical level. A painter and former set designer, Jarman emphasizes the use of mise-en-scene as substitute for literal narrative. In Jarman's films, staging and visual imagery are the most important qualities, while “narrative takes second place". While the lack of emphasis on logical narrative granted him more space to experiment, viewers with little knowledge of the characters are often confused. Jarman concentrates on constructing the plot around Caravaggio's paintings rather than his life and times. Critics have pointed out the absence of a clear narrative in Caravaggio. The characters and their relations to Caravaggio are unclear and sometimes misleading. Many supporting characters do not have presence in the plot that was fully distinct from their respective paintings. Yet Jarman believed he had to establish a unique perspective in order to capture Caravaggio’s dramatic “Hollywood template” life in a 90-minute film without resorting to clichés. Narrative ambiguity allows Jarman to “recreate many details of [his] life and, bridging the gap of centuries and cultures, to exchange a camera with a brush.” He interweaves the paintings with the plot with a painstakingly reworked script that involved 16 rewrites, as well as magnificent tableaux vivant production sets. Jarman focuses on Caravaggio’s emotions, sexuality, dreams and events surrounding the creation of his paintings, redefining the genre of the artist biopic. The paintings drive the narrative, and the consciousness depicted is not that of independently conceived characters but that of the artist himself, Jarman-Caravaggio.
As a lifelong painter, Jarman appreciates the narrative power of mise-en-scene and highlights it in the set designs for both films. Jarman is fascinated by Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro to create the illusion of depth. He praised Caravaggio for inventing cinematic light and the noir style shadowed backgrounds. Jarman pays homage to this technique through tightly controlled lighting effects. The tone and shade of the walls and skin color convey more about the scene than the script. In most scenes, Jarman meticulously replicates Caravaggio’s light sources, which usually come from the left and therefore elicits stronger responses from the viewers. Jarman attempts to show that the chiaroscuro is effective to capture intense emotions not only on canvas but also in film. He pays homage to Caravaggio by employing light and emphasizes the timelessness of classic art techniques.
While Jarman painted cinema like the artist Caravaggio, he also philosophized it, as expressed in the mise-en-scene of Wittgenstein. Jarman portrays Wittgenstein’s general estrangement from a painfully foreign world as a result of both his abstract philosophy and his difficulties accepting his sexuality. Jarman shows a world that appears absurd from Wittgenstein’s perspective: the highly stylized acting and flamboyant costumes of other characters contrast with Wittgenstein’s naturalistic acting and gray tweed jacket. Wittgenstein questions himself throughout the film: “How can I be a logician before I am a human being? The most important thing is to settle accounts with myself!” He travels across Europe, fighting in the Great War, teaching in a rural school, and escaping to Ireland or Norway to familiarize himself with the strange world, yet its meaning is still “problematic.” Wittgenstein, troubled by his sexuality, also wished to live an ethical life guided by strict logic. Yet this longing for perfection is disrupted by the messiness of life and the fickleness of passions.
Jarman places symbolic visuals in the biopic, which remind sophisticated audiences of “Wittgenstein’s epigrammatic style” of writing. Lady Ottoline paints Bertrand Russell on canvas as a red monochrome. When he wrote the script, Jarman also tried to understand Wittgenstein’s personal life by reading his books. Remarks on Colour provided him with cinematic context to relate to Wittgenstein’s ideas: “Remarks on Colour was a path for me back to the Tractatus [Logico-Philosophicus].” Furthermore, Jarman’s schematic use of color contrasts between the repression of private feelings and the expression of straightforward colors. "The black annihilates the decorative and concentrates so my characters shine in it like red dwarfs—and green giants. Yellow lines and blue stars”, Jarman references the schematic use of colors in Wittgenstein poetically. Jarman later wrote an entire book—Chroma— to show how colors are solely products of human interaction. In Wittgenstein’s words: “I think that it is worthless and of no use whatsoever for the understanding of painting to speak of the characteristics of the individual colours.” Through referencing Wittgenstein’s ideas on colors in the mise-en-scene as well as script text, Jarman pays homage to the philosopher. Jarman also successfully uses film medium to explore abstract theories and overcomes limitations of language.
Jarman engages with Wittgenstein and Caravaggio not only on a theoretical level but also reads into their personal struggles with homosexuality. Similar to abstract theories, Jarman’s Wittgenstein believed that homosexuality is an area that restricts language as a mode of expression. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” Wittgenstein once wrote. In Jarman’s dialogue and cinematography, Wittgenstein's struggles to come to terms with his own philosophical ideas were inseparable from his attitude towards his sexuality. In one scene, three cyclists dressed in anachronistic jumpsuits abuse him with homophobic slurs and the insulting V-sign. Wittgenstein is flabbergasted and realizes there is no “logical structure” in the V-sign – the main argument of his first book. He plans to commit suicide but then rethinks his entire philosophy of language, completing his magnum opus Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein is confused by the logic of a curse, but Jarman sets the scene to suggest that Wittgenstein is confounded by homophobia. Jarman explains that Wittgenstein found a black hole in the logic, “for [the picture of Queer] there was no language.” Later, Bertrand Russell is infuriated after Wittgenstein convinces his student Johnny to work and drives him away from philosophy. Russell criticizes Wittgenstein for idealizing the common folk and “infecting too many young men” with his thought experiments. Jarman hints at Wittgenstein’s homosexual relationships with students through these double entendres. Wittgenstein's euphemisms, too, reflect his embarrassment concerning these relationships: He has “known” Johnny three times. Following this scene, Jarman places the mentally tormented Wittgenstein in a suspended cage. Wittgenstein ponders upon his relationships with his university and exclaims painfully: “Philosophy is the sickness of the mind. I mustn’t infect too many young men… living in a world where such a love is illegal and trying to live openly and honestly is a complete contradiction.” John Maynard Keynes, also clearly homosexual in the film, consoles Wittgenstein: “If you’d just allow yourself to be a little more sinful, you’d stand a chance of salvation.” Both Wittgenstein’s sexuality and philosophy alienates him from the real world. Jarman portrays a Wittgenstein who finds it difficult to distinguish between his philosophy and sexual passions.
Similarly, Jarman regards Caravaggio as the most homosexual of painters, based on his paintings rather than his biography. Jarman notes that Caravaggio paints his own face staring from the back of the crowd in The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew. He hypothesizes that “[Caravaggio] gazes wistfully at the hero slaying the saint. It is a look no one can understand unless he has stood till 5 a.m. in a gay bar hoping to be fucked by that hero. The gaze of the passive homosexual at the object of his desire, he waits to be chosen, he cannot make the choice”. Jarman reads Caravaggio's paintings for insights into his psychology and romantic relationships, and places these readings into his film. Caravaggio suffers creative drought while painting The Martyrdom. He encounters the attractive, masculine yet poor Ranuccio and selects him as a model. Ranuccio, the object of desire, inspires Caravaggio to finish the painting. Caravaggio showers him with gold coins in a suggestive fashion and also delivers one of the coins mouth to mouth. At the final stage, Caravaggio gazes intensely at Ranuccio still posed as the Martyr, forming a tableau vivant of the painting. His role as the artist desiring for Caravaggio and man yearning for St. Matthew in the painting is blurred. Caravaggio says in a voiceover, “I will seek him, whom my soul loves. I sought him, but found him not.” Jarman depicts Caravaggio as having romantic yet passive sentiments for the undesirable and shows this through ingenious mise-en-scene.
Elsewhere, Jarman portrays Caravaggio’s passivity as a product of the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic establishment’s homophobia. He reads in the same painting “pernicious self-hatred [homosexuals] fostered among themselves… which is the key to Caravaggio’s life and destruction—it’s written all over the painting.” Jarman also identifies many of Caravaggio’s paintings as claustrophobic. Believing that there is a connection between Caravaggio’s style and his state of mind, Jarman films all of the scenes in studio with claustrophobic environments to suggest Caravaggio’s suffocation in a homophobic society. There is only one exterior scene in Caravaggio, in which Ranuccio and Lena are engaging in heterosexual foreplay. The restriction of space is emphasized as Caravaggio recounts the open spaces of the ocean or grasslands on his deathbed, yet the film includes not a single shot of the sky.
In Wittgenstein, Jarman further restricts the mise-en-scene space and uses nothing but a black background. Yet Wittgenstein does not experience the engulfing black as simply a form of claustrophobia. By using the black drape, Jarman was not only able to film the documentary on a minimal budget, but could also suggest that “the historicising attitude to biopic is totally irrelevant.” Jarman, who sought to make a philosophical film, said that “to redefine film, like language, needs a leap—in this case, the black drapes [defy] the narrative without junking it”. Time, space, and color are happening, juxtaposing an eternal and persistent void. Wittgenstein’s biographer Ray Monk lauded this approach in a review, saying that the black background embodies Wittgenstein’s “ahistorical, existential style of philosophizing and creates the entirely apposite impression that this is a story that is happening, not in any particular place, but rather in somebody’s—Wittgenstein’s—mind.” Eventually, on his deathbed, as Wittgenstein accepts his queer desires in an imperfect world, the child version of him rises out of the black drapes and flies up to the sky (a backdrop) on aeronautic wings. Wittgenstein leaves the alienating world that has been portrayed thus far in the film.
Jarmanesque props are also an important mise-en-scene element. Jarman references Leonardo da Vinci’s engineering drawings by giving Wittgenstein kite wings and having him hold lawn sprinklers in his hands. The sprinklers' jets of water resemble the spinning propellers of a plane. Jarman’s anachronistic choice of props was inspired by the props in Caravaggio’s paintings. In Penitent Magdelane, only the pearls and bottle of perfume indicate that the subject is Mary Magdalene. Her identity is otherwise unclear because the model is a prostitute dressed in 16th century clothing. Caravaggio’s mix of historical and contemporary objects suggests a connection between the historical subject and the viewer. Like the props in Caravaggio’s paintings, those in Jarman’s films suggest that history exists within the present and is embodied by contemporary models and objects. In one scene of Caravaggio, the aristocratic banker pompously fiddles with an electronic calculator that shows the timeless relationship between art and commerce. The vicious art critic attacks Caravaggio’s paintings and sexuality using a typewriter, perhaps referring to contemporary Tories that attacked Jarman personally in Sunday Times. The pope jeers at Caravaggio with a modern term “you little bugger” when he claims that art only helps the status quo. Through anachronistic props, Jarman shows the timelessness of artists’ tension with the establishment.
Jarman engages with Caravaggio and Wittgenstein’s theoretical ideas as well as personal dilemmas to show that they are not only brilliant but also troubled by their queer sexuality. Equipped with mise-en-scene elements such as lighting techniques, schematic colors and anachronistic props incorporated in his meticulously written script, Jarman directed nuanced films such as Wittegenstein and Caravaggio that explore many provocative themes during conservative eras. As an artist, Jarman feels responsible to show those details and nuances that cannot yet be fitted into a theoretically coherent framework, where the “attrition between private and public worlds” is felt strongest. Jarman used cinema “to express his beliefs, his dreams, his emotions, his ideologies, his needs. That is the difference between the artist and the technician who both make films.” Combining extraordinary vision, intellect and effort, he effectively conveyed his personal and theoretical readings of the two figures’ queer identities in Caravaggio and Wittgenstein.
 


Bibliography
Beristain, Gabriel. Caravaggio (DVD audio commentary). Dir. Derek Jarman. Cinevista, 1986. DVD. Zeitgeist Films. 2008.
Clark, James. "Jarman's Wittgenstein." Jim's Reviews. http://jclarkmedia.com/jarman/jarman10.html (accessed December 5, 2010).
Ellis, Jim. Derek Jarman's Angelic Conversations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Fox, Sharon. A perceptual basis for the lighting of Caravaggio's faces. Journal of Vision. August 1, 2004 vol. 4 no. 8 article 215. <http://www.journalofvision.org/content/4/8/215.abstract>
Jarman, Derek. Caravaggio. Thames and Hudson, London, 1986. 44.
Jarman, Derek. Dancing Ledge. Quartet Books, London, 1984.
Jarman, Derek. "This is Not a Film of Ludwig Wittgenstein." In Wittgenstein: the Terry Eagleton script, the Derek Jarman film. London: British Film Institute, 1993. 63-67.
Jarman, Derek, and Roger Wollen. Derek Jarman: a portrait. London: Thames And Hudson, 1996.
Monk, Ray. ‘Between Earth and Ice: Derek Jarman’s Film of the life of Wittgenstein’. In The Times Literary Supplement, 19 March 1993.
Nash, Mark. 'Innocence and of Experience,' Afterimage 12, Autumn 1985. 30.
Pencak, William. “Caravaggio and the Italian Renaissance” and “Wittgenstein: The Grey Flame and the Early Twentieth Century.” In The films of Derek Jarman. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2002. 70-84, 108-119.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on Colour. Oxford: Blackwell, 1977.
Wymer, Rowland. Derek Jarman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
 
Appendix
Appendix 1: Michelangelo Caravaggio’s The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.
 
Appendix 2: Wittgenstein, the da Vinci design, and sprinklers. Wittgenstein

Appendix 3: Caravaggio’s Penitent Magdelane

豆瓣Appendix 4：写着两部片儿的起因

最近又有新的电影paper要写 8-10p 随便什么topic都行
我苦思冥想数日 从伍迪艾伦到wes anderson，从青年文化想到记者类电影，都因为各种原因被我自己一一否决。（太平庸 太日常 被说烂了 我已经知道太多有偏见的，etc）（选research电影难度在于，又要喜欢研究对象，又不能太喜欢——否则你没办法置身于高处去评判！！比如wes anderson……）

昨天随意浏览豆瓣电影的时候看到以前打5星的《维特根斯坦因》 正好里面很多我没理解的概念 同时觉得很牛逼 于是come up with the rough thesis：When Jarman narrates Ludwig Wittgenstein's life in the film, how does is the director incorporating the philosopher’s ideas on language?

随后让季先生帮我借了N本关于维叔叔和他理论的书……爽～～


今天去找老师的时候 他听到我选择这部电影时就笑出来了
“我为什么笑啊，其实我应该为你高兴才对嘛，只不过我是太久以前看的了（刚出的时候老师就看了……），所以觉得又惊又喜！”持续表达自己的惊讶，“What a surprising choice！You have an interest in philosophy？” 他没想到我对哲学还有兴趣

我解释了一番thesis，老师又问我为什么想处这个的 我说 因为一直觉得哲人的思想与他们的真实生活之间的联系很微妙。老师质问，什么是‘真实’？我说，想法与生活态度毕竟还是两回事。 他说，嗯确实，随即开始自言自语“电影能体现出image's immediacy”什么的，我也顺手记下来了

建议：1 don't try to become a master on wittgenstein's ideas. 很多人花一辈子都没整明白
2 focus on the text itself, don't be too absorbed with w's thoughts
说不定要拿这个作为主体，与《蓝》、《Jubilee》的风格做一些联系（“Jubilee is a very accessible film。你对朋克文化感兴趣吗？里面有所涉及”“嗯，有的”）（我居然说得这么淡定）
他也非常喜欢Jarman，把他与queer vision联系起来，因为同性恋男导们其实都一种独特的表达方式，虽然往往与同性恋这个主题不是很相关

“You are such an unusual student！在我看来，你对抽象的想法这么感兴趣，你以后应该很喜欢电影理论的。可惜啊～你不在我下学期的queer vision课上～我们要讨论帕索里尼啊～以及他对天主教的各种奇怪见解”
“帕索里尼，是拍索多玛的对吧？”
“对”
“嗯。。确实会很有意思呢。话说你看戏剧作品《马拉/萨德》了吗？”
“没有！我本应该去看的！悔恨啊！我消息太闭塞了；以后一定要找到获取这些信息的渠道！”
 

总之跟电影老师每次谈话都很欢乐很活跃～～虽然我们两个人都有点shy～

     听朋友说起人大教授余虹自杀的事，看到媒体象侦探似的反复追寻为何“一个学识渊博，正值学术研究壮年的人就以死了却一生”，终究没有找到确切的解释，有人甚至觉得于国家社会“这是一种不负责任的做法”。
 
     自杀，我以为除了生活极度压迫和科学家认为导致忧郁症的某种化学物质外，有些很难解释，象王国维、海明威...。自杀象埋在心里的一个种子，会发芽长大，直到把你笼罩湮灭。我想起刚看的电影《维特根斯坦》里最后说的一个故事（原文）：
     曾经有个年轻人，他想把世界简化到纯粹的逻辑里。因为他非常聪明，也确实做到了。他在完成时，回首看着、欣赏着。一个非常美丽，摒除了不完美和不确定的新世界，象闪耀的冰面无边无际的延伸到天边。那个聪明的年轻人环视他所创造的世界，决定探索它。可是当他向前迈出第一步，立即摔倒了。你看，他忘了摩擦力。冰面平坦光滑，洁净无瑕，但是人无法在上面行走。聪明的年轻人坐在那里不禁流下心碎的眼泪。
     当他成长为一个智慧的老人时，他开始理解粗糙和混沌并不是缺陷，世界就是因此而运转。他想奔跑舞蹈，顿时语言失去光泽，模糊不清；世界支离破碎，散落一地。智慧的老人知道这就是事物的本来面目。但在他的内心依然怀念着那纯净的世界，那里的一切闪耀着纯粹的光芒。虽然他甚至已经日渐喜欢那坑坑洼洼的地面，但无法让自己在那里安顿下来。现在他在地面和冰面之间徘徊，哪里都不是他的归宿。这是他所有悲痛的来由。
 
     我想余教授大概是厌倦了这种旅人的疲惫。英国历史家艾伦－布劳克在《西方人文主义传统》中写道：“要想超乎人的状态是一种危险的诱惑。人若能学会接受自己的实际面目，就会快活一些，好过一些。”维特根斯坦说：“我真的很想写一本完全由笑话组成的哲学书，可惜的是我缺乏幽默感。”
 
     我骨子里也没有什么幽默感，不过刚收到一个礼物：一条织了两年的围巾，可以抵御些许冰的冷吧。