Film schools seeking the ultimate test of aspiring filmmakers' abilities might consider asking students to make a biopic about a philosopher. Watching someone cogitate on abstract ideas (not, for instance, about heartbreak or acting on violent urges) has the potential to be about as exciting as two hours of unedited CSPAN footage. So any student capable of dramatizing the hours and times of a protagonist who thinks for a living will be well equipped to bring uncommon imagination and ingenuity to even the blandest rom-coms Hollywood can churn out.
Not surprisingly, philosophers have been treated like cinematic contraband. And even the most subversive filmmakers have steered clear of capturing their contributions to life as we know it. But that may be about to change. This week, avant-garde German director, Margarethe von Trotta's "Hannah Arendt" lands in theaters today, armed with a battery of rave reviews and a perfect score of 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Von Trotta's portrait of the controversial German-American political theorist — who began her career in big ideas as Martin Heidegger's student and lover – casts Arendt as a courageous defender of morally complex ideas about the relative virtues of freedom, democracy, totalitarianism and, above all, good and evil.
Arendt, a German-born Holocaust refugee, is best known for her incendiary coverage of the Nuremburg Trials in The New Yorker, where she coined the term "banality of evil" to describe Nazi operations commander, Adolf Eichmann. At the time, she drew fire from fellow Zionists when she criticized Jewish leaders for doing the Nazi's bidding and spent much of her career fighting off attacks from the left and the right. Arendt bravely weathered the attacks and dedicated herself to studying the architecture of freedom and how both communism nor fundamentalism erode its foundation.
Von Trotta braids these complex and sometimes contradictory ideals into a dynamic narrative highlighting the excitement and intensity of Jewish intellectual life in New York City of the 1960's. Arendt was forever debating her theories with fellow political firebrands, including her close friend, Mary McCarthy, the novelist and Vietnam War activist, and Rosa Luxemburg, an early champion of the working class who ultimately denounced Marxism.
Though "Hannah Arendt" represents a breakthrough for movies directly profiling specific philosophers; filmmakers have never shied away from using famous thinkers' ideas to animate a film's subtext. For instance, Andy and Lana Wachowski borrowed heavily from Plato's writings to create the complicated ideology behind "The Matrix." "A Clockwork Orange" lifted directly from B.F. Skinner's concept of "radical behaviorism," which posits that behavior can be controlled through rewards and punishments. "American Beauty" gives a nod to existentialism with its bleak portrait of a father figure questioning the meaning of life. And Immanual Kant's ideas about the golden rule turn up implicitly throughout "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
While it's exciting that "Hannah Arendt" has opened the door to future philosopher biopics. As you can see from this list, the best filmmakers have been drawing from the work of thought leaders for a long time. What are some of your favorite philosophically tinged movies?
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