In the film I Heart Huckabees the protagonist Albert Markovski find himself questioning the meaning of his life. Albert begins to wonder what “meaning” his life has, so he sets forth and hires two “existential detectives”, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe. During the film he meets Tommy who has also hired the detectives and when they find themselves dissatisfied with the “existential detectives”, they “go to the other side” and discuss their troubles with the “nihilist” philosopher Caterine Vauban. In the film you can witness two philosophies of these two groups that give some insight into the two pairs of opposed ideas. Throughout the progression of Albert and Tommy's characters in I Heart Huckabees, you can see the transition from the subject of desire to the subject of drive and the rejection of one's particular subjectivity in favor of universal subjectivity as necessary processes to creating the ideal political subject. I find that his film has relations and ideas from Philosophers such as Heidegger. I will explain how Heidegger’s philosophical ideas were relevant in the film.
I feel that in the film one of the most prominent ideas is that of Martin Heidegger’s Dasein, which means “Being-there". This is Heidegger’s method in which he uses this in reference to the experience of being that is commonly peculiar to human beings. This is a form of being that is made aware of paradox or dilemma of living relationships with other human beings and being alone with one’s self. This brings up the questions of “what does it mean to be human and to human beings themselves?” This can lead to defining a “thing” and waiting for the “thing” to reveal itself in its own time. Heidegger never refers to human beings as "man", but instead refers...
... middle of paper ...
...ing for a brief moment. This is where they find themselves in the state of “pure being”, this is where they have allowed themselves to simply exist. They cannot however stay in this state because of what she refers to as human drama. Albert and Tommy think they can stay in this state of “pure being” but realize they cannot because as Caterine tells them that it will forever be a cycle of going to human drama and “pure being.”
Heidegger’s idea of how we have to realize ourselves, by saying that we are in a state of falleness and that during this we are the slaves to the one or human drama. Heidegger explains that we are included in this creature and for that we are categorized. This leads us to being constricted to Daesin and this will not lead us to reach our full potential as beings. We are part of this public creature and we are categorized for being as such.
I Heart Huckabees is a film that discusses existential and philosophical themes throughout the movie. It is extremely rare for a movie to directly discuss existentialist themes in the manner that it is done in I Heart Huckabees. It is important to analyze these types of movies in order to achieve a greater understanding of the concepts they discuss. The premise of the movie is that Albert, played by Jason Schwartzman, enlists the help of two existential detectives in order to help him solve a set of coincidences involving an African refugee. These two detectives follow Albert around and document his life. Albert originally intended to hire the existential detectives only to investigate the coincidences however, as the movie progresses, we
Take a minute to relax. Enjoy the lightness, or surprising heaviness, of the paper, the crispness of the ink, and the regularity of the type. There are over four pages in this stack, brimming with the answer to some question, proposed about subjects that are necessarily personal in nature. All of philosophy is personal, but some philosophers may deny this. Discussed here are philosophers that would not be that silly. Two proto-existentialists, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, were keen observers of humanity, and yet their conclusions were different enough to seem contradictory. Discussed here will be Nietzsche’s “preparatory human being” and Kierkegaard’s “knight of faith”. Both are archetypal human beings that exist in accordance to their respective philosopher’s values, and as such, each serve different functions and have different qualities. Both serve the same purpose, though. The free spirit and the knight of faith are both human beings that brace themselves against the implosion of the god concept in western society.
...ferent from their peers has isolated Bernard, Helmholtz, and John, it has also deepened their individuality. This scenario, at a lesser level, often plays out in modern day. People possess a natural desire to fit in and often are willing to forego individuality in order to do so. Though one may gain a facade of happiness as a result of fitting in, being truthful to oneself and expressing one’s free will allows for honest expression of individuality, a concept much greater than such a facade. A society without unique individuals is a society without humanity, and, as demonstrated through these characters’ experience, does not function. Ultimately, people must realize that individuality, knowledge, and raw emotion is more important to society than superficial happiness.
I really enjoyed what philosopher Avital Ronell, from the film, Examined Life, said about our need for meaning. Humans tend to want and crave meaning. Ronell expressed that individuals need to see the arbitrary moment, and leave things open. She suggested people stop questioning why things are happening and see them for what they are. She reminded me to accept the moment, and don’t question why situations are happening. This has been helpful for my current situation because lately I have been overthinking and not accepting the moment. Ronnell’s view of meaning brings me peace and to focus on the here and
Heidegger qualifies Schelling's freedom in the following way. Heidegger believed freedom to not be a property of the human being, but instead, the human being to be a property of freedom. A human being can only be a person when he or she is anchored to freedom. The ontological disposition of man is therefore based upon individual freedom. Freedom is the manifestation of one's authentic Being. This transcends all human beings. Insofar as a human being is a human being, participating in this ontological determination is absolutely imperative. A human being must therefore invoke his or her own freedom . Dasein participates in in the chance of interdependence, or freedom, because Dasein has the capacity to be authentic at a fundamental level . Heidegger here describes Schelling’s concept of a human being; someone whose nature is free, whose constituents are made up by their severability, who features within themselves both the grounds for their existence and their actually existence itself. Schelling discusses the basis of God's existence, which additionally is present in the existence of human beings darkness. Such darkness is signified by self-will and can inspire a serration within individuals and their center. Heidegger defines this action in Dasein as 'falling'. In his Heidegger's notes on Schelling, Heidegger defines Schelling's possibility of evil in his own terms saying: The greatness of a Being is first demonstrated by the evaluation of whether it is really capable of finding and holding fast to the great resistance of its own nature' . Our capability to put up with 'great resistance', or the friction within us, a friction that allowed us to be created, and allowed us to enforce our will, is related to our Being. Schelling believes it to be the case that adopting this friction should be to keep equilibrium in our
Being a person, thinking and acting as a Human Being, showing qualities that make us, Human. But what does it mean to be Human? Symbolic cognition, the ability for one entity to show empathetic emotion towards another. ‘Blade Runner’ explores the philosophical themes of what it means to be human, emphasising the difficulties humans have appreciating what makes them human along with the emotional and social complexity necessary to identify a person. The question regarding our humanity, or ‘what it is to be human’ is one of the most important questions to be addressed in Blade Runner, and in today’s society. In this essay I will argue that researching into what it means to ‘be human’ is a quite complex task, because of the various philosophical and biblical concepts - where an individual is a spirt simply experiencing the world in a material form. In order to support my statement, I will give examples of how ‘Blade Runner’ relates to different theoretical frameworks I will discuss in this essay.
Kraus, Peter. "Heidegger on nothingness and the meaning of Being." Death and Philosophy. Ed. Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon. New York: Routledge, 1998.
I do not have a strong background in philosophy and found the film difficult to parse as a result. Although religion is not explicitly discussed in I Heart Huckabees, outside of a brief encounter, many of the existential questions that various forms of religion attempt to answer are posed by the main characters throughout the film. Specifically, the film opens with an angry monologue delivered internally by the film’s protagonist, Albert Markovski, “What am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing the best that I can. I know that’s all I can ask of myself. Is that good enough? Is my work doing any good? Is anybody paying attention? Is it hopeless to try and change things?” Albert’s existential crisis leads him to exploring two opposing
Maya Angelou once said, “you may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” Jean Paul Sartre devotes his second chapter in Being and Nothingness on ‘The Body,’ demonstrating his historical knowledge, following an influence embedded in Hegel’s theory. In the film, Cleo From 5 To 7 , director Agnès Varda demonstrates a reflective perspective on freeing oneself from the bias of what others view as the ideal vision of beauty. Sartre shows that the being-for-itself, or the human being starts to become more aware of his or her own moral existence, only when he or she sees themselves being perceived by another being for-itself. Sartre says that we become more aware of ourselves in the hands or comparison
Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru Follows the story of an elderly government worker, Mr. Watanabe, who discovers he has a terminal stomach cancer and must figure out what to do with the time he has left to live. While trying to decide on how to live out the rest of his day, Mr. Watanabe discovers he really hasn’t been living his life the way he would have liked all these years, yet he struggles to determine exactly how he would like to live it. In this film Kurosawa seem’s to be taking Heidegger’s ideas presented within Being and Time, about the they-self and authentic-self and how death can enhance one’s awareness of those selves, and applies them to an actual human being; demonstrating how an actual person passes through both forms of being and the danger one faces when living too long as only a they-self without realizing the potential for an authentic-self.
Finally, Husserl stated that as people, we are subjects living in a world of objects. However, Heidegger changes this subject-object theory and instead states “Being-in is not a ‘property’ which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could just be just as well as it could be with it.” This is due to the fact that, as Sartre distinguishes, objects have both being-in-itself and being-for-itself. Through being-in-itself, humans, via their
Heidegger quoted that he wanted to “call us back to the remembrance of Being.” (Page 306) This meant that we as the human race should worry about the fact of our existence, not about the abstract way of thinking about being. Back in the pre-Socratic days, people were fascinated with the existence of themselves and weren’t clouded by the abstract idealization, and Heidegger said that returning to this “astonishment in its presence” (page 306) was how to come home to being. Intellectualizing being was not the way that Heidegger thought was effective in progressing humanity forward. Instead he stressed that we must “stand in its presence and establish a harmonic concordance with it.” (page 306)
Deep in the minds of human beings lies a vast ocean of emotions and experiences. The human mind is often misconstrued and simplified by those who possess one, but delving deeper into the mind and it’s processes you see a whole other world that is veiled beneath the surface. One of the most famous examples of the human mind is the image of an iceberg, what is on the surface is so minimal compared to the immense body that lies underneath. Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and believed in the idea of the unconscious and subconscious that help power who we are. Through psychoanalysis Freud began to reclaim the self as an individual and stressed the importance of the external world and it’s direct role with the internal realm of an individual. Although it was originally found to be a sort of therapy for those with mental illnesses, it has an interesting and analytical and philosophical view of the self, and through this spawned new beliefs in philosophy. Through the establishment of the id, superego, and ego, and the past’s affect on the shaping the present state of the self, psychoanalysis reclaims the self for an individual and is successful in doing so.
It is apparent that we are personified entities, but also, that we embrace “more” than just our bodies. “Human persons are physical, embodied beings and an important feature of God’s intended design for human life” (Cortez, 70). But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human mental life such as human dignity and personal identity.
... intensely inhuman, Freud shows us that these things are all one. This continuum of thought collapses into one inescapable fact: we are the primitive, and he is us.