Philosophy at the Movies

Slaughterhouse Five

How does this 1972 film, based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel, play with the notion of involuntary and random time travel, and force us to consider what impact such a life would have on one’s attitudes toward pain, suffering and tragedy? What do the Tralfamadorians think about death, and how does Billy Pilgrim’s attitude mirror it after he has been abducted and held by this alien race? How does the film represent time as a fourth dimension, on par with the three spatial dimensions, all parts of time, all periods in history, already existing? How does this film compare to the film Arrival, which also toys with this view of space/time? How does the novel and film reflect Vonnegut’s own experiences as a POW during the bombing of Dresden Germany in the last months of WWII? How does it reflect attitudes toward the then contemporaneous Vietnam war? Why does Vonnegut claim Dresden had been declared an open city when it was not so declared, and why does he believe that hundreds of thousands were killed during those raids when ten to twenty thousand was the actual number?

The Missiles of October

What does this 1973 made for TV docudrama tell us about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the events that led to Soviet introduction of intermediate range nuclear armed ballistic missiles into that island nation? What were the justifications cited by Khrushchev? Why is Cuban leadership not portrayed in the film? How did the history of Cuban U.S. relations lead to the crisis? How does the film use ambassador Adlai Stevenson’s presentation of this case to show Kennedy’s style of decision making? What role did the failed Bay of Pigs invasion play in bringing about the crisis? What role did attempted assassinations of Castro play? How does this film portray the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert? Did John Kennedy’s desire to appear tough, in light of his treatment by Khrushchev at earlier summit meetings, motivate him to carry out the invasion? How does the film show Kennedy’s team using a strategy of ‘gradual escalation’ to deal with the crisis? What impact did its success in this case have upon Johnson Administration strategy in Vietnam? What does the film teach us about the unique and awesome responsibilities of the office of President of the United States?

A Ghost Story

How does this 2017 film explore grief, and how does it make use of the ghost, C’s, being almost unmoored in time to express grief? Why is the ghost tied tightly to the house and its location, even as he jumps around in time? Who or what is the neighboring house’s ghost waiting for? Why does the film use an aspect ratio that is reminiscent of home movies or early silent film? How does the film’s implicit metaphysics contrast with and contest the nihilistic or absurdist message of the ‘hipster’ man at the party, who argues that attempts at leaving legacies are ultimately pointless, due to the fate of planet Earth, and ultimately, the universe as a whole? What was the content of the note that C’s wife, M, leaves tucked away in the house as she moves out, that seems to allow C to move on? Does the fact that, before he died, he wrote a song expressing his concern that M will forget about him show that he, at some level, knew he would die in the near term? Does her note address this concern of his?

The Contestant

What does this 2023 documentary about a man who takes part in a Japanese reality television show, Susunu! Denpa Shōnen. in the late 1990’s, show us about the morality of such shows? How does the show work to isolate the man from human contact, and why? Why is he stripped of his clothes and confined to a room for over a year? How do the live audiences respond as they watch him? How does he respond? What parallel shows exist in American television, and why are these sorts of shows popular? How does the scenario resemble the fictional world of the film The Truman Show? How does the man respond when released? How does he tap into his experience when it comes to aiding his home town of Fukushima and the nation of Nepal after they suffer disasters? Would he have undertaken these projects if he had not been subject to the degrading experience on Susunu! Denpa Shōnen? Why is it that older generations typically are repulsed by reality TV and similar social media sensations, while younger people are not? Is there a process of maturation that accounts for this, or is it merely cultural? How has the reality TV phenomenon, and commercial sponsorship, morphed and decentralized with the advent of social media? Is this a good or bad thing?

The Invention of Lying

What does this 2009 comedy tell us about lying? Is the world presented, a world where lying does not exist until the main character, Mark Bellison, ‘invents’ it, a world that is worth living in? Why? What assumptions are made, in this film, about how people would treat each other in a world where lying does not exist? How does the premise of the film reflect thought experiments that Immanuel Kant relies upon when explaining his notion of ‘the categorical imperative’? How does the film treat Mark’s invention of religion, and claims of an afterlife? Does it reflect producer/writer Ricky Gervais’s cynicism with regard to religion, or does he portray his sympathy with its conciliatory power, through the story of Mark and his mother at her death-bed? Does the film also ‘argue’ for the conciliatory power of lying, more generally? How does he deal with white lies? What is the connection between lying, having capacity for imagination and conceiving of ‘what is not’ (as it is put in the film)? Would science be possible in a world like this?