________________________________________________________
Things that we do and document, like the philosophy in pubs and dropin, get posted and will appear below !
Philosophy in Pubs
Discussion about ~Aesthetics
Quote from Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Summing up comments:
I always though aesthetics was about some piece of art but now I think it is more about being human.
Aesthetics: a branch of philosophy concerned with sensory experience and the feelings it arouses. A reasonable definition.
It is about something transcendental, some feeling that has happened to me at the theatre or listening at concerts and shared with the audience. A feeling, not easy to describe, and although fleeting, very real.
I had thought it was a personal subjective feeling. But there is a possible that there is a formula or that it has a scientific aspect- more than just a feeling.
Perhaps it involves an implicit communication which intrigues and reflects a type of experience.
It is something to do with being human and the ability to understand and express how we are and how we function. However, it often occurs in groups even sitting around in groups singing or chanting om.
A ‘peak’ experience but I am not sure how it arises – it may be possible to be trained to be more receptive and appreciative. Are there key elements? Does it have historical boundaries?
Aesthetics has a lot to do with fashion but can be a deeply seated experience. It is not just about ‘art’ but can be achieved in the countryside. I find it in science and in discovering a formulation of a question or answer can be moving and beautiful; I get nothing quite like that from art.
It is like Om- a vibration from the viscera, a feeling from the gut, deep inside, indescribable otherwise.
Perhaps the aesthetic ideal can only be achieved when the imperfect compliments the perfect in some way.
Pan’s Labyrinth
“Pain should not be sought – but it should never be avoided”
Kierkegaard said, “The tyrant’s rule ends with his death. The martyr’s rule begins with it”
In Spanish: El Laberinto del Fauno, “The Labyrinth of the Faun”) is a 2006 Spanish language fantasy film. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films.
Pan’s Labyrinth takes place in Spain, in May and June, 1944, after the Spanish Civil War. Fascism is an example of the sleep of reason which brings forth monsters. Del Toro’s monsters are pretty extraordinary Also present is the main character Ofelia’s fantasy world which centres around an overgrown abandoned labyrinth. Ofelia’s stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, viciously hunts the Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fight against the Franco regime in the region, while Ofelia’s pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The film employs make-up, animatronics and CGI effects to create its creatures.
Del Toro stated that he considers the story to be a parable, influenced by fairy tale. Spanish title refers to the mythological fauns of Roman mythology, while the English title refers specifically to the faun-like Greek character Pan. However, del Toro has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan.
The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It was released in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2006. In the United States and Canada, the film was given a limited release on December 29, 2006, with a wide release on January 19, 2007.Pan’s Labyrinth has won numerous international awards, including three Academy Awards, the Ariel Award for Best Picture and the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. The movie was filmed in a Scots Pine forest situated in the Guadarrama mountain range, Central Spain.
Philosophical issues:
Myth and Reality
Del Toro says of the Labyrinth ‘A maze is a place where you get lost,’ he explains. ‘But a labyrinth is essentially a place of transit, an ethical, moral transit to one inevitable centre.’
‘I was also trying to uncover a common thread between the “real world” and the “imaginary world”through one of the seminal concerns of fairy tales: choice.
Existential Choice:
“The way your choices define you. And I thought it would be great to counterpoint an institutional lack of choice, which is fascism, with the chance to choose, which the girl takes in this movie.’ Choice is key in what we are. You choose to be destructive or you choose to be all encompassing and love-giving. Each choice defines who we are, no matter what the reason behind it is, because everybody values the reason behind the act, or the idea behind the act more than the reason. The idea behind the act, they value it more than the act these days.”
The problem of evil and death:
“Pain and beauty, brutality and innocence, the central duality of death and rebirth. ‘Those things are one and the same,’ he says. ‘It would be a cliche to say that, because I am a Mexican, I see death in a certain way. But I have seen more than my share of corpses, certainly more than the average. I worked for months next to a morgue that I had to go through to get to work. I’ve seen people being shot; I’ve had guns put to my head; I’ve seen people burnt alive, stabbed, decapitated … because Mexico is still a very violent place. So I do think that some of that element in my films comes from a Mexican sensibility.”
Instinct contra intellect:
“Instinct will guide you more than intellect towards what’s right for you and actually more naturally right. Disobedience is one of the strongest signals of your conscience of what is right and what is wrong. When you disobey in an intelligent way, you disobey in a natural way, it turns out to be more beneficial than blind obedience. Blind obedience castrates, negates, hides, and destroys what makes us human. On the other hand, instinct and disobedience will always point you in a direction that should be natural, should be organic to the world. So I think that disobedience is a virtue and blind obedience is a sin.”
The Allure of Ideology:
“One of the dangers of fascism and one of the dangers of true evil in our world—which I believe exists—is that it’s very attractive. That it is incredibly attractive in a way that most people negate. Most people make their villains ugly and nasty and I think, no, fascism has a whole concept of design, and a whole concept of uniforms and set design that made it attractive to the weak-willed.”
References:
http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2006/12/pans-labyrinththe-evening-class.html
Philosophy in Pubs – The Ship 8/12/2009
Work
Andy gave an introduction to the concept: from the Calvinist protestant work ethic; its development and varied effects explored by Marx and Weber to the more general social and philosophical approaches prevalent today.
Different work ethics were discussed. Many societies in the world regard work as a means to an end, when that end is achieved they have no need to work.
Some historical ideas were explored. From the biblical curse of work and its relegation as suitable only for slaves etc to the modern western idea of work as a psychological necessity for well-being.
The discussion often became political and various Utopian themes were brought up.
Summing up comments:
Work should engage everybody to the benefit of society and not result in profit for a few.
It can be ‘real or unreal’. So much work is alienating and is becoming feminised to the detriment of blokes. Office work is constraining without any real freedom of expression. Work and male identity is the issue for me.
People need a creative outlet and more help is required for them to achieve this. This does not happen in out culture. Organizations become like things in their own right so that the individual is dominated and has too much to bear.
Debate, discussion, argument is important in itself. It raises passions and new ways of thinking. People often think narrowly of politics instead of pursuing a quest for understanding and wisdom.
The labourer is worthy of his hire. Work is usually denigrating: whereas it could be dignified and rewarding.
What is work? Different things to different people. Artists splodge paint around and call it work. Most, however, think work is unpleasant and degrading.
It is an artifact of the human mind. A strange phenomena, but it is so prevalent and accepted we see it as normal.
What will happen if we didn’t have work? We are privileged to live in settled peaceful times.
Work is an important part of our society- it can’t be divorced from politics. Governments should strive to benefit the whole of society not just the elite.
I would like work to provide dignity and permit creativity. It should include the moral quality of integrity not just money making.
I think I worked harder when not physically earing a living. When working I got more money for doing less.
NEWSFLASH: The meeting on Tuesday 8th December will be in The Ship – just the other side of the Ouseburn, next to the Cluny.
We expect to return to our normal home for future meetings.
Peter McTigue and Roy Sturgess present an impression of the man who still provokes strong feelings in contemporary Newcastle.
Venue : Quaker Meeting House (QMH)
Time : Saturday 12th December at 2:00 pm
“What if you could make a film about this: that you just walk up in a realistic way and open a door, and then you walk into your childhood, and then you open another door and come back to reality, and then you make a turn around a street corner and arrive in some other period of your existence, and everything goes on, lives.” (Bergman)
Wild Strawberries
Released: (Sweden) 1959 (USA)
Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Written by: Ingmar Bergman
Cast includes: Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Anderson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand
Location: Sweden
Language: Swedish, Latin
Summary:
The film is about an old man recalling his past. The chief protagonist, Isak Borg (played by Victor Sjostrom in his final screen performance) goes on a journey through Sweden to receive an honorary doctorate, meeting various people on the way. The trip becomes a voyage of self-discovery as he is forced by events and by his fears and dreams to re-evaluate his life.
The film opens with a famous dream sequence in which Borg arrives at a house with boarded-up windows, and sees a clock with no hands (a clear message that the film will play around with time) and a hearse out of which stretches the hand of a corpse (no prizes for guessing what this is pointing to).
About Wild Strawberries
Wild Strawberries has won several awards, including Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, and it was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Screenplay. It is on the Vatican’s Best Films List, cited for its portrayal of a man’s “interior journey from pangs of regret and anxiety to a refreshing sense of peace and reconciliation”. The film has been much copied and quoted by other film-makers, which may make some of its techniques, such as the dream sequences, appear self-conscious and stylised today.
Bergman is recognised as one of the best and most influential modern film-makers. He directed 62 films, as well as over 170 plays. Woody Allen has decribed him as “probably the greatest film artist…. since the invention of the motion picture camera”. His main themes were death, illness and betrayal, and he tends to be associated with gloom and despair. Wild Strawberries is one of his more cheerful films, however. The film critic Derek Malcolm said of it: “While scarcely a bag of laughs, (it) has a compassionate view of life that best illustrates the more optimistic side of Bergman’s puzzled humanity”.
Themes & issues
In Wild Strawberries, Borg is forced to undertake a “journey of self-recognition” (Derek Malcolm). He revisits the possibilities of his earlier life, and asks questions about how he has become what he is now. We are reminded, however, of the limitations of memory and the difficulties of interpretation. Whilst some critics have seen this as one of the best ever films on the subject of ageing, there are no easy conclusions as to what constitutes success or failure in life or how you would evaluate this.
The film also deals with issues of personal relationships, love and forgiveness. One of its themes is the relationship between generations. And for the psychologists among us, there is plenty to get our teeth into with the Freudian dream sequences.
Contrary to the image of Bergman as a gloomy pessimist, the film’s most important message is its “insistence on the possibility of reconciliation and redemption” (Derek Malcolm).
Source: Wikipedia and various reviews
Philosophy in Pubs 27/10/2009
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” Jean Paul Sartre.
This was our philosophical quote. Some groups discussed –‘We are condemned to choose.’ Others ‘We are condemned to be free.’
The discussion started from this but generalised to the almost inevitable perennial questions of: What is freedom? What is freedom from? What is freedom for?
Joel gave a list:
Freedom from superego.
Entitlement to be different
The right not to be subject to authority
Freedom to transcend all categories.
Summary:
We have only just begun – we need to spend more time discussing this.
This is difficult to analyse and to apply logic. When it gets too theoretical it doesn’t mean anything to me.
It’s easy to forget the seedy nature of the mind- especially when in the grip of strong emotion.
The discussion became too abstract- freedom needs to viewed from the point of view of people living in the real as opposed to ideal world.
There is a clear distinction between scientific determinism and the continental viewpoint. What is wrong with the concept of freedom? Is there anything wrong with it?
The juxtaposition of the words condemnation and choice was seemingly
contradictory and confusing. However, the discussion was very interesting.
I agree with Sartre: we are condemned. Experience is propositional- from perception into thought. This informs our actual choices and offers an appalling challenge.
Yes. We are condemned to the absurd in an absurd universe. The only certainty in the end being death.
Society gives us a perverse sense of freedom. We conceive freedom in what we think of a free. But this is a construct and is in fact tying us up!
In agreeing with Sartre I feel sad. I feel that I have different views from other people: in that I also think having choice is also wonderful and full of possibilities.
The universe is a beautiful elegant machine- totally determined. Feeling that you have free will is an emotion: a psychological feature.
This was excellent but we need to work from the abstract to the real. We need to clarify our concepts and link them to real life experience.
People here hold onto their positions too much. It would be better to argue from other positions on some occasions.
What is wrong with freedom? If we are condemned to choose, then the choice could result in a dangerous exploration of ideas and unpredictable future action.
“You really like rain”
(American director John Ford’s comment on first meeting Kurosawa)
Rashomon
Released: 1950 (Japan) 1951 (USA)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Written by: Akira Kurosawa and others
Cast includes: Toshiro Mifune (Tajomaru the bandit), Takashi Shimura (the woodcutter), Minoru Chiaki (the priest), Masayuki Mori (the samurai), Machiko Kyo (wife of samurai)
Location: Japan
Language: Japanese
Summary:
The film is about the events of one afternoon in a grove involving the rape of a woman and the apparent murder of her husband. The story is told in flashbacks, through the different and inconsistent accounts of four witnesses (the bandit Tajomaru, the murdered samurai, the samurai’s wife, and the woodcutter). Another layer of uncertainty is added by the fact that what we hear is the re-telling of the four accounts by two characters to a third person newly arrived at the gatehouse (the symbolic point of entry to the story).
In the opening scene, the woodcutter and the priest start to tell their stories to the third person while they shelter from the heavy rainstorm. As the story unfolds, the incompatibilities between the various versions oblige the tellers to alter their accounts until, by the end of the film, an apparently agreed version of the truth becomes evident – or not?
About Rashomon
Rashomon is considered one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces. It won many awards including Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and an Academy award. The film is based on two stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa – Rashomon which provides the setting and In a Grove which provides the plot and characters.
Although not especially highly rated in Japan at the time, Rashomon introduced western audiences to Kurosawa’s techniques and ideas, and has been very influential. In addition to the 1964 film The Outrage (a western starring Paul Newman, Claire Bloom and Edward G Robinson) which was a re-make of Rashomon, its influence has been seen in such disparate works as Star Trek, The Usual Suspects, and The Simpsons.
The film’s cast includes Takashi Shimura, star of several other Kurosawa films including Ikiru and The Seven Samurai.
There are three settings in the film – the woods (which are real) and Rashomon gate and the courtyard which are low budget constructions. As in Kurosawa’s other films, the weather plays a major role both visually and symbolically. Reportedly Kurosawa used up the entire local water supply to create the rainstorm in Rashomon..
Visually the film makes use of techniques such as contrasting close-ups, shooting directly into the sun, re-editing of multiple short shots of a scene filmed with several cameras. Light is used symbolically, for example, to indicate evil and sin versus good and reason.
Kurosawa wanted to use natural light, using mirrors to reflect it back and strengthen it. The “rain” was tinted with black ink so that it could be clearly captured by the cameras.
Philosophical themes & issues
At one level, Rashomon can be seen as a precursor of postmodernism, with its denial of a grand narrative.
One of the film’s themes is the subjectivity of truth and the problems of ascertaining “facts”. The story is told from multiple viewpoints, each giving a different answer and thus denying the possibility of an absolute truth. The filming of the sun through the leaves can be seen as a visual metaphor for the obscuring of the truth.
The film also raises profound moral questions about human motivations and values. The priest finds his faith in humanity severely shaken by the events, but then restored to some extent towards the end. The point is underlined visually by the end of the rain and the emergence of the sun.
The idea of absolute morality is disputed in the film. In this respect, Rashomon has much in common with Ikiru, but it is arguably much bleaker. Like Ikiru it starts nihilist but becomes existential. Different characters represent more or less nihilist/existentialist positions, with the woodcutter apparently representing the more positive end, creating his own existential purpose in taking care of the baby ( although it becomes more complex when the flexible nature of truth is taken into account).
Philosophers who have been influenced by Rashomon have included Heidegger (1959). Graham Allison, a political scientist, claims the film as his starting point for his book describing the Cuban Missile Crisis in three very contrasting ways from three different perspectives.
Other critics have seen Rashomon as an allegory for recent Japanese history and experience – such as its defeat in the Second World War (JF Davidson) and specifically the atomic bomb (DM Desser).
About Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa, 1910-1998.
During a 50 year career, Kurosawa directed 30 films. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential film-makers in cinema history. His films are influenced by a wide range of authors and film-makers, notably Shakespeare (Throne of Blood is based on Macbeth, and The Bad Sleep Well on Hamlet). His films are listed below.
1943 Sanshiro Sugata
1944 The Most Beautiful
1945 The Men who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail Sanshiro Sugata Pt 2
1946 No Regrets for Our Youth
1947 One Wonderful Sunday
1948 Drunken Angel
1949 The Quiet Duel Stray Dog
1950 Scandal Rashomon
1951 The Idiot
1952 Ikiru
1954 Seven Samurai (re-made as The Magnificent Seven in 1960)
1955 I live in fear
1957 Throne of Blood The Lower Depths
1958 The Hidden Fortress (re-made an The Last Princess in 2008 and also a key influence on Star Wars)
1960 The Bad Sleep Well
1961 Yojimbo (re-made as A Fistful of Dollars in 1964 and Last Man Standing in 1966)
1962 Sanjuro
1963 High and Low
1965 Red Beard
1970 Dodesukaden
1975 Dersu Uzala
1980 Kagemusha
1985 Ran
1990 Dreams
1991 Rhapsody in August
1993 Madadayo
source: Wikipedia and other sources
