Wittgenstein (1993) is a biopic about philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that is heavy like a philosopher biopic is meant to be, but Derek Jarman loosens it up by peppering silly little costumes, characters, and sequences in between the unraveling of the most irate analytic philosopher we know. In a nutshell, Ludwig Wittgenstein was a nepo baby who challenged men like Plato, Descartes, and Hume by insisting that there are no genuine philosophical problems but rather that the discipline of philosophy has misused language to create systems and theories that have nothing to do from ordinary life. Wittgenstein didn’t see philosophy as a way to explain anything, but rather as a reminder that things are entangled in language games and that concepts lose subtleties when we put them through our language.
One of the things that really gets entangled in our language is colour. Colour is central to how we take in and understand the world. Wittgenstein insisted that our words for colour don’t really mean anything—think about trying to describe colour to someone who is unable to see it. Colour is also very personal—think about how red might be your favourite colour, while being a trigger to someone else. In the case of Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein, colour and playful imagery make misery and deep philosophical inquiry palatable for viewers. Neon green, for example, is associated with triviality, unimportance and artificial lighting. What are things that are usually neon green? Glowsticks, Mike Wazowski, LED lamps, and the green M&M—in other words, things that aren’t serious but playful and lighthearted. Yet, neon green is one of the colours Jarman chooses to have on screen when thinking about misery.
Case 1: The Existential Neon Green Martian
The film's insistence that philosophy’s biggest questions are better presented overtop playful imagery begins with a neon green martian. Wittgenstein and the martian start their dialogue by discussing forms. The martian tries to understand what a philosopher is and how that is different from a human, if at all. Then, the martian asks “how do I know that you are Ludwig Wittgenstein?”. If there was a pause in the film here, maybe a shot of a rainy landscape a la Tarkovsky’s Stalker, this line would encourage us to think more about a person's knowability. If we start at a person’s name, I guess we could know because that’s who they say they are, or based on their legal documents or based on their online presence, but all of these proofs can be forged. If we start at who a person really is, their personality, values, knowledge, and capabilities, I guess we could know that person for a long time and base our understanding on our experience with them, or on other peoples’ experiences of them. Thinking about how we know who someone is, is probably one of the top ten ways to induce an existential spiral, and yet in Wittgenstein, we don’t get this spiraling dread because as soon as the martian asks the question, he giggles, bites his finger, and a playful tune ensues. We’re able to move on and laugh. Misery looks better in neon colours.
Case 2: The Woman
Lady Ottoline Morrell’s costumes are a great source of whimsy as her outfits are loud in colour, material, and design. She and Wittgenstein have one exchange where they sit at either end of a long table, he in his characteristically drab suit and her in a frilly orange jacket. As the camera fixes on her in her stunning golden ensemble, Wittgenstein poses Leibniz’s great question to her: "Why is there anything at all rather than just nothing?" This could lead you to asking yourself troubling questions, like: Actually, why IS there anything rather than nothing? What are we here to do? Why should we do anything at all? But, before we can spiral, the misery is cut with the colorful Lady Ottoline snickering “Well how the bloody blue blazes should I know? I’m the woman, you’re the philosopher”? This line takes us from the initial disturbing idea of not knowing why we’re even in the world, to the second disturbing idea that women are never taken seriously. In response to the Martian’s earlier pondering about what a philosopher is, we are now sure that a philosopher cannot be a woman. Here again, the playful notion of “what the bloody blue blazes” softens the blow of the existential dread that ensues from the reminder of how little space women have in the history of philosophy. I am obsessed with this moment because it reminds me of my own time navigating academic philosophy. It helped to have a sense of humor about my place… while I continued, as Sara Ahmed asks of feminists, to make everything into something that is questionable. Lady Ottoline is such a feminist killjoy—a term coined by Ahmed describing a feminist who kills the mood by pointing out sexism—because she interrupts Wittgenstein’s philosophical pondering to point out how the weight of what he feels compares to the weight of women not even having room to express the same. It’s genius; imagine reading Either/ Or or something, and suddenly a woman dressed head to toe in orange feathers interjects to say that women aren’t even welcome in the conversation about the “human” condition.
Case 3: The Self-Loathing Caged Man
The combination of heavy philosophical inquiry and playful imagery is great for if you want to feel miserable but passively. It’s kind of like when you need to get a vaccine, and the nurse is complimenting your headband and promising you a lollipop despite the fact that you are the ripe age of 23. Sometimes you’re not in the mood for something like The Seventh Seal, but you would be if Bergman had dressed Death in a frilly sequin cape and a floor-length feather boa—the tagline would be something like “death gives a whole new meaning to dressing hellish”. One of the final scenes of the movie shows Wittgenstein locking himself up in a large bird cage so he can stop infecting young men with ideas, among other things. This is a very sad scene since Wittgenstein has realized that his ideas don’t offer any conclusions but rather beginnings for ideas that could drive someone mad, and yet it is visually presented in a playful way where Wittgenstein cages himself like a bird. By making misery and philosophical inquiry sweet and palatable, Wittgenstein solidifies playful imagery as a strategy to shift the tone of an inherently bleak idea into something still bleak but less weighty and serious. This imagery also undercuts the seriousness with which Wittgenstein considers himself, and is considered by academics. Shooting in a black box theater space—which is a large black room that can easily be shifted to any place with minimal props and lighting—then undercuts the seriousness of film as a medium. In a lot of ways this film brilliantly insists that sometimes weighty discussions can be quite effective when presented lightly.
Wittgenstein (1993) is a biopic about philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that is heavy like a philosopher biopic is meant to be, but Derek Jarman loosens it up by peppering silly little costumes, characters, and sequences in between the unraveling of the most irate analytic philosopher we know. In a nutshell, Ludwig Wittgenstein was a nepo baby who challenged men like Plato, Descartes, and Hume by insisting that there are no genuine philosophical problems but rather that the discipline of philosophy has misused language to create systems and theories that have nothing to do from ordinary life. Wittgenstein didn’t see philosophy as a way to explain anything, but rather as a reminder that things are entangled in language games and that concepts lose subtleties when we put them through our language.
One of the things that really gets entangled in our language is colour. Colour is central to how we take in and understand the world. Wittgenstein insisted that our words for colour don’t really mean anything—think about trying to describe colour to someone who is unable to see it. Colour is also very personal—think about how red might be your favourite colour, while being a trigger to someone else. In the case of Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein, colour and playful imagery make misery and deep philosophical inquiry palatable for viewers. Neon green, for example, is associated with triviality, unimportance and artificial lighting. What are things that are usually neon green? Glowsticks, Mike Wazowski, LED lamps, and the green M&M—in other words, things that aren’t serious but playful and lighthearted. Yet, neon green is one of the colours Jarman chooses to have on screen when thinking about misery.
Case 1: The Existential Neon Green Martian
The film's insistence that philosophy’s biggest questions are better presented overtop playful imagery begins with a neon green martian. Wittgenstein and the martian start their dialogue by discussing forms. The martian tries to understand what a philosopher is and how that is different from a human, if at all. Then, the martian asks “how do I know that you are Ludwig Wittgenstein?”. If there was a pause in the film here, maybe a shot of a rainy landscape a la Tarkovsky’s Stalker, this line would encourage us to think more about a person's knowability. If we start at a person’s name, I guess we could know because that’s who they say they are, or based on their legal documents or based on their online presence, but all of these proofs can be forged. If we start at who a person really is, their personality, values, knowledge, and capabilities, I guess we could know that person for a long time and base our understanding on our experience with them, or on other peoples’ experiences of them. Thinking about how we know who someone is, is probably one of the top ten ways to induce an existential spiral, and yet in Wittgenstein, we don’t get this spiraling dread because as soon as the martian asks the question, he giggles, bites his finger, and a playful tune ensues. We’re able to move on and laugh. Misery looks better in neon colours.
Case 2: The Woman
Lady Ottoline Morrell’s costumes are a great source of whimsy as her outfits are loud in colour, material, and design. She and Wittgenstein have one exchange where they sit at either end of a long table, he in his characteristically drab suit and her in a frilly orange jacket. As the camera fixes on her in her stunning golden ensemble, Wittgenstein poses Leibniz’s great question to her: "Why is there anything at all rather than just nothing?" This could lead you to asking yourself troubling questions, like: Actually, why IS there anything rather than nothing? What are we here to do? Why should we do anything at all? But, before we can spiral, the misery is cut with the colorful Lady Ottoline snickering “Well how the bloody blue blazes should I know? I’m the woman, you’re the philosopher”? This line takes us from the initial disturbing idea of not knowing why we’re even in the world, to the second disturbing idea that women are never taken seriously. In response to the Martian’s earlier pondering about what a philosopher is, we are now sure that a philosopher cannot be a woman. Here again, the playful notion of “what the bloody blue blazes” softens the blow of the existential dread that ensues from the reminder of how little space women have in the history of philosophy. I am obsessed with this moment because it reminds me of my own time navigating academic philosophy. It helped to have a sense of humor about my place… while I continued, as Sara Ahmed asks of feminists, to make everything into something that is questionable. Lady Ottoline is such a feminist killjoy—a term coined by Ahmed describing a feminist who kills the mood by pointing out sexism—because she interrupts Wittgenstein’s philosophical pondering to point out how the weight of what he feels compares to the weight of women not even having room to express the same. It’s genius; imagine reading Either/ Or or something, and suddenly a woman dressed head to toe in orange feathers interjects to say that women aren’t even welcome in the conversation about the “human” condition.
Case 3: The Self-Loathing Caged Man
The combination of heavy philosophical inquiry and playful imagery is great for if you want to feel miserable but passively. It’s kind of like when you need to get a vaccine, and the nurse is complimenting your headband and promising you a lollipop despite the fact that you are the ripe age of 23. Sometimes you’re not in the mood for something like The Seventh Seal, but you would be if Bergman had dressed Death in a frilly sequin cape and a floor-length feather boa—the tagline would be something like “death gives a whole new meaning to dressing hellish”. One of the final scenes of the movie shows Wittgenstein locking himself up in a large bird cage so he can stop infecting young men with ideas, among other things. This is a very sad scene since Wittgenstein has realized that his ideas don’t offer any conclusions but rather beginnings for ideas that could drive someone mad, and yet it is visually presented in a playful way where Wittgenstein cages himself like a bird. By making misery and philosophical inquiry sweet and palatable, Wittgenstein solidifies playful imagery as a strategy to shift the tone of an inherently bleak idea into something still bleak but less weighty and serious. This imagery also undercuts the seriousness with which Wittgenstein considers himself, and is considered by academics. Shooting in a black box theater space—which is a large black room that can easily be shifted to any place with minimal props and lighting—then undercuts the seriousness of film as a medium. In a lot of ways this film brilliantly insists that sometimes weighty discussions can be quite effective when presented lightly.