Philosophy Discussion Forums

Posted: **October 11th, 2012, 9:42 pm**

Labyrinth....."Sometimes the way forward, is the way back". "One door tells the truth, the other tells lies...'I tell the truth, he lies'...No I don't..such a liar!" A remarkable film, and one not to forget.

Posted: **October 12th, 2012, 5:19 pm**

It's a tad difficult to be both homicidal and a pacifist non?

Posted: **October 12th, 2012, 7:50 pm**

PiloteXYZ -

It's extremely difficult to persevere towards goodness
when you are often inclined to be cruel.

Any thoughts on the film?

Posted: **October 13th, 2012, 4:05 am**

Mr Nobody.

It covers several topics but ultimately it's about multiple universes and the effects of the main characters differing choices in each. It's free on You Tube so if you want a look, go see.

Posted: **December 11th, 2012, 12:31 pm**

"The Holy Mountain" by Alejandro Jodorowsky is a masterpiece.

Posted: **December 11th, 2012, 7:17 pm**

I really liked the movie Matrix. My understanding is the film was based on Buddhist metaphysics. So far as I can tell it did an excellent job presenting that area and tradition of thought.

Grotto19 wrote: Dogma- Kevin smith,1999. Excellent and interesting perspective on the state of world religions.

About as excellent as the American classic A birth of a nation. But I'll give it its due as a triumphant effort at propaganda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UPOkIpR0A But I like how bigotry and caricature pose as high minded philosophizing on film. You might as well put that moronic and bigoted film Stigmata up there too.

From a stand point of sociology a "group" is several people that know each other while the sociological locution of "category" demotes people that share a common characteristic. Examples of a category of people would be: Whites, blacks, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Catholics, Republicans...

I'm mulatto racially but ethnically Black-American. I also fall under the categories of American and Catholic and male. Of the latter three American and male have probably proved the most violent over the last century. But more importantly between whites and Catholicism (a religion) arguably whites have been the most violent, territorial, and the ones that established racial caste systems across the earth. Ought the Nation of Islam (a neo-Islamic Black-American organization and religion) caricature white people? Well... they do. And they take their bigoted views of whites to be very intellectual and solid truth.

Posted: **January 8th, 2013, 9:15 pm**

Bergman's Persona, Tarkovskiy's Stalker, and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey are films I recommend from already mentioned directors. However to save from repetition, I'll digress a bit and mention the French director Jean-Luc Godard. It would seem odd not to discus Godard (or any other directors of the Nouvelle Vague movement) when discussing philosophy in and of film. His standing influence and relentless manipulation of the medium's aesthetic conventions alone are remarkable from a purely artistic standpoint. What is more is Godard did all this to further examine various philosophical inquires. True, he was using cinema to convey his philosophy, yet one could argue the true aim of his projects was to use cinema to express the medium's philosophy and the extent at which it (as an art form) could be used as philosophical and artistic merit--namely what does film, being a composition of all the arts, have to say? I believe he succeeded at his goal. However, he is not a better filmmaker than Bergman, Tarkovskiy, or Kubrick. Nor is he a better or worse artist, but a different kind of artist.

This can be said between them all. To me, Godard is best compared to Bob Dylan. Some of his films I would consider watching are Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, Vivre sa vie, Contempt, Pierrot Le Feu, Week End, Made in U.S.A. Of these, Pierrot Le Feu is arguably the most philosophical and for what it is worth, my favorite Godard film.

Posted: **January 9th, 2013, 1:50 am**

My list:

- Lost Highway
- Tideland
- City of God
- The Killing Fields
- Schindler's List
- Pan's Labyrinth
- Amores Peros
- Pink Floyd: The Wall
- Priest
- One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
- A Clockwork Orange
- Equilibrium
- Cube
- The Holy Mountain
- Full Metal Jacket
- Paprika
- Forrest Gump
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- No Direction Home
- We Were Warriors
- The Royal Tennenbaums
- Naked Lunch
- Brazil
- Big Fish
- Donnie Darko
- The Matrix series
- Casablanca
- Pulp Fiction
- Logan's Run
- Blade Runner
- Seven Days in May
- Up
- Inland Empire
- City of Lost Children
- Existenz
- A.I.
- Galipoli
- The Island
- Zardoz
- The Confederate States of America

Posted: **January 13th, 2013, 10:10 pm**

If anyone has the time and inclination to watch a movie now on the Internet that inspires meaningful thought, try "Mindwalk."

It is available on youtube. Here are the basics:

http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/mindwalk.htm

Posted: **January 19th, 2013, 2:36 am**

Nick_A wrote:If anyone has the time and inclination to watch a movie now on the Internet that inspires meaningful thought, try "Mindwalk."

Ugh!! I saw that on DVD. Horrible.

The people ramble on without ever coming to a point. It's worse than watching "The Power of Myth" with Bill Moyers.

Posted: **January 20th, 2013, 3:11 am**

Do you think that movies and photography made traditional artforms, such as painting and drawing, pointless in the current time and, as a result, artists were forced to move away from the physical and into the area of art as idea? We need something to blame : )

Movies don't don't do much for me philosophically, they just waste my brain energy while I watch colored light move on a wall or pictels on a screen. The things that happen, as a result, are self-accepted delusion by and in my brain. None of it is real and any philosophical thoughts are mine.

Posted: **March 18th, 2013, 7:42 pm**

Terrence Malick's Badlands deserves mention here. It shows the gap between the way we can think, use words, and create symbols, and the way we actually live our lives. It is not pretentious, following Pascal's idea that to make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. I've never seen a movie that made me so conscious of how inadequate our words are to convey what we are trying to do with our lives. Beyond all that, it has a beautiful score and is quite funny.

Posted: **April 23rd, 2013, 12:13 pm**

Vojos wrote:Hello there!

As far as i know there aren't any similar topics on this site regarding this subject.

I think it would be nice to have a thread where you could post different movies you have watched and enjoyed, that takes upon some specific philosophical subject(s).

I can begin with one example:

The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman;

Philosophical issues: Religious philosophy.

It's set in Sweden during the plague in the 14th century. It's about a knights search for answers regarding life and death and the existence of God, during a dark era in human history. It highlights some of religions shortcomings in a great way.

A lot of you have probably seen this film already, but if you would be so kind to post any films you find relevant from a philosophical point of view, and you believe is really worth seeing, that would be great!

Moi just lovey-doveys Bergman's TSS. I'd really dig dubbing it into English. YIKES! I'm a-gonna go & google to see if anyone's done did that.

Methinks one of the most atheistic films is "The Song of Bernadette," starring Vincent Price.

I found it in English. Thank you, Vojos.

Posted: **May 7th, 2013, 8:15 pm**

I watched The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson this weekend...3 times. First I would like to confess that I now have a man crush on PTA. This movie is truly a work of art. The color palette always evokes the emotional nature of the scene. Some of the shot are so beautiful that I almost felt like I was watching a collection of paintings that could move. Brilliant! The movie is also philosophical provocative. The first 20 minutes of the movie is very visceral. The main character Freddie played by Joaquin Phoenix is very primitive in nature and almost completely dominated by a desire for pleasure. By chance or destiny he drunkenly hides on a ship and passes out. The ship sets sails in his slumber and he is stuck. The boat is occupied by a cult run by Lancaster Dodd who is played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Dodd represents the next stage of human evolution. One no longer dominated by desire but who uses logic to master his environment. These two men form an unlikely partnership. This movie is an exploration of human nature and our motivations. I recommend it and any other PTA film.

Posted: **May 15th, 2013, 2:36 pm**

Supine wrote:I really liked the movie Matrix. My understanding is the film was based on Buddhist metaphysics. So far as I can tell it did an excellent job presenting that area and tradition of thought.

(Nested quote removed.)

About as excellent as the American classic A birth of a nation. But I'll give it its due as a triumphant effort at propaganda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UPOkIpR0A But I like how bigotry and caricature pose as high minded philosophizing on film. You might as well put that moronic and bigoted film Stigmata up there too.

From a stand point of sociology a "group" is several people that know each other while the sociological locution of "category" demotes people that share a common characteristic. Examples of a category of people would be: Whites, blacks, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Catholics, Republicans...

I'm mulatto racially but ethnically Black-American. I also fall under the categories of American and Catholic and male. Of the latter three American and male have probably proved the most violent over the last century. But more importantly between whites and Catholicism (a religion) arguably whites have been the most violent, territorial, and the ones that established racial caste systems across the earth. Ought the Nation of Islam (a neo-Islamic Black-American organization and religion) caricature white people? Well... they do. And they take their bigoted views of whites to be very intellectual and solid truth.

I am not sure how you connected Dogma from a satire displaying the folly of the aggression between world religions into a serious piece of propaganda (particularly since there is a series of disclaimers at the beginning of the film saying otherwise). Moreover you have somehow also connected it heavily to racism, which is remarkable since the movie makes several points against racism particularly relating to religion.

I realize that most of the films listed in this thread regard metaphysics, and in that regard are quite complex and interesting (very highbrow at times). However for all that they are also largely useless as they have no application in the real world. I enjoy depth as much as the next person; however a great lesson comes not from its complexity but from its meaning and value.

Dogma is self professed as a work of fiction and silly but has a philosophical point which is actually quite relevant in a world filled with tens of thousands of people actually killing each other over religious disagreement. If we are going to rely on fiction for our philosophical entertainment than I fail to see how the Matrix (fictional, entertaining, and irrelevant) is vastly superior to Dogma (fictional, entertaining, and relevant).

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