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I was educated in France, where studying Philosophy is mandatory in high school. In doing so, I learnt the basics about thinkers whose ideas have clearly impacted specific filmmakers. This was confirmed to me when I studied Film & Television at Warwick, as I saw familiar names pop up in film theory. One has to be careful as not to read too much into a filmmaker’s intentions, but some of these frameworks can help identify their influences. To be clear, I am not a philosophy major - nor is this an exhaustive list!
Plato: the Ancient Greek philosopher was a pupil of Socrates himself, his path also connecting with Aristotle who was his student (below); in filmmaking terms, Plato’s idea of beauty being not only a pleasurable sensation, but an ideal in itself that embodies divinity, perfection, infinity and is therefore difficult to attain, but must be pursued, is probably the most fundamental artistic principle. Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) is a great movie depicting this endless search for God and perfection. Aristotle: a student of Plato, Aristotle also wrote on beauty - but more specifically as it relates to the context of Greek theatre. His ideas around three-act structure, with a beginning, middle and end, as well as the key concept of catharsis (the emotional release or "purification" one experiences when contemplating good drama) is the foundation for almost all of modern scriptwriting, as well as, in his view - the key to a healthy society. Aristotle also pioneered the idea that characters in themselves must have arcs that demonstrate a kind of moral ideal, manifested by their fate in the story. Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs (2015) uses this framework to great effect. GWF Hegel: the German scholar was part of a wider movement often characterised as idealism, closely linked to Romanticism in art and music, as well as the then-recent political revolutions in Europe (most notably, the French Revolution). Unfortunately, Hegel's own writings can be incredibly complex and confusing to someone who isn't so familiar. In terms of storytelling, his main thesis that free will and self-determination, based on ideas and convictions themselves, can drive societal change is key to understanding the reasoning behind later writers like Karl Marx. Hegel also used the concept of dialectic, both individual and historical, as a way of explaining conflicts between social bodies: the idea that two contradictory actions and/or ideas will create a third outcome that supersedes their original intent. These concepts are so influential they can be found almost everywhere, such as Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022). Carl Jung: the Swiss psychotherapist was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, and together they defined much of modern thought. Jung specifically innovated in the field of archetypes, arguing that much of the human subconscious relies on universal "characters" onto whom we project specific roles, such as the mentor, the villain, the ally, etc. This schema heavily influenced Joseph Campbell's book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which in turn was a heavy motivator behind Hollywood script doctors like Christopher Vogler. Disney's The Lion King (1994) is the perfect example of archetypal scriptwriting and a "hero's journey"-type structure. Today, however, this thinking has had the opposite effect of creating formulaic, rather than original, stories. Sigmund Freud: the Austrian psychanalyst's legacy is more contested than Jung's, insofar as some of Freud's ideas around gender roles and sexuality now seem incredibly outdated and rather offensive. However, one cannot deny his influence on filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Jordan Peele, and many more. His ideas around the subconscious as well as hidden desires, neurosis and id/ego are still seen today in films such as David Robert Mitchell's Under The Silver Lake (2019). The towering concept that the self can be one's worst enemy is foundational in many films and TV series, such as Matt Weiner's Mad Men (2007-2015). Henri Bergson: many academics would go as far as saying that Bergson is the greatest French philosopher. His ideas around morality, time and duration were deemed to be almost a "reset" after the increasingly scientifically-inclined thinking brought about by theorists like Charles Darwin. Bergson's idea that the universal and mathematical units of time differ from the concept of duration itself, which is subjective and more dynamic, extended to ethics as well - defining morality more as a lived, continually-evolving dialectic rather than a set of absolutes. Filmmakers like Christopher Nolan as well as more modern academics like Gilles Deleuze have extensively explored these themes, with Nolan's Dunkirk (2017) standing out as a particular example. |