SIEMEK - Philosophical coincidences

prof. emeritus Bronislaw Baczko, University of Geneva, 

previously Warsaw University
(Marek Siemek considered  Baczko his Teacher and Master) 

For the last year of so I have been working on a documentary about prof. Marek Siemek (1942-2011).  The film, with the working title "The Department of Historical Necessity", is half way through shooting.  In order to seek additional support (thanks to the institution and individuals who have already helped) I will share some of the aspects of the process on this blog.  Gathering the material I have been privileged to meet and talk with many amazing scholars and friends of Siemek. To start with I’ll try to signal their upcoming presence in the film.   

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A seasoned and perceptive Teacher sees an eager and brilliant Student.  

What does the Teacher know about the future of the Student who badly wants to write his MFA thesis about Hegel?

He knows nothing, aside perhaps from some psychological intuition that belongs to wise men, you say.  OK.  

The Teacher gently steers the Student to write about Fichte instead. 

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was emotional and passionate.  It killed him.  Which is just a footnote in the history of philosophy.  Or is it?

The Teacher explains to the Student  that “Fiche is simpler and more manageable, later you can approach such a vast subject like Hegel.”

The Student agrees.   The argument is solid.  

The Teacher, recalling this conversation focuses on the common sense aspect of their joined decision.  It’s all logical, emphatic, proper.  

Times passes.  Actually a lifetime does.  

The Student dies too early but lives long enough to imprint his mark on the world.  He turns out to be brilliant, accomplished, nurturing his environment.  In this respect very much following the footsteps of his (beloved) Teacher.  

The Student’s legacy reveals his great oratorial talent, like Fichte.  It also reveals him being painfully misunderstood by his contemporaries, again like Fichte.   And suffering from right wing zealots, which matches the Fichte’s story as well.  

According to some, the Student died because he miscalculated human reactions, because his impulses did not take under account the brutal jealousy of his opponents.  That to a large degree matched a certain drama in Fichte’s life.   

How much of that could be known to the Teacher when he was suggesting Fichte?

None, you say.   

And on a certain level you are right.  

However......

Obstacles

"I give it a year"

Since the flick is about the undoing of wrong choices within a time limit and essentially about the futility of a mismatched (marriage or a film?) it should be named “I give it two hours”.  But let’s not kick those who have fallen. “I give it a year” is amazingly lame and borderline painful to watch but there is one scene there that makes up for the discomfort of dealing with misguided intentions.  

At certain point the unspoken yearnings of the two of four main characters are cleverly challenged. He tries to express them staging an over the top romantic setting, she fights her attraction toward him.

Deliciously and slightly absurdly pigeons get in the way. Things are beginning to happen not only in the psychological but also in the physical sphere.  The mounting of these physical obstacles helps to go for laughs. The entire story lifts itself high, if only for one scene. 

Like never enough RAM in a computer, so never enough obstacles in a comedy.

Waterboarding: during or after?

Comparing the opening scene from “The Battle of Algiers” with the coercive interrogation scenes from ‘Zero Dark Thirty” one may wonder what’s the most effective in terms of inducing in the audience the true psychological complexity of such a situation.  

Pontecorvo most likely thought that presenting the torment after the fact gives more emotional layers to its representation.  In his scene we feel the tragic consciousness not only within the destroyed confessor but also witness ambiguity within the torturers.  

The Bigelow film on the other hand focuses on the battle of wills.  Even if initially the dread of the situation gets some reactions from the young and ambitious Mia, we mostly experience the scene through its emotional core, which is “yes, it’s extremely brutal but how will it end?”.  

Pontecorvo asks a different question: how can humans live with the brutality of their interactions?

And more broadly: are we able to get the emotional depth of events while they last?  Isn’t their completion the necessary step to reveal to us what they mean?  

What kind of narrators do we want to be: those who participate in the events told or those who try to understand the content of our tales?  Could be the question of temperament.   Or it could also be one of the necessary elements of a true talent: to see the true meaning in the story as it unfolds itself while we spin the tale.  

The edge

"Zero Dark Thirty" 

written by Mark Boal, directed by Katherine Bigelow

Among many ideas that “Zero Dark Thirty” plants in our minds some that jump out are: the personal conviction matters the most, intuition is often more important than experience, the hungriest one is many times the most successful, individuality is the primary force or progress, hunches make or break effectiveness of our actions 

Most of the above is disputed or flatly denied by some pros from the counter terrorism field yet the power of this film flies the ideas convincingly high.  The deniers want us to believe that romanticizing things is the Hollywood fluff and reality is different, more pedestrian and mundane.  Perhaps, perhaps.   

In the film everybody wants more, but those who want more more are the true winners.  Even the Seals study Tony Robbins!  

Mark Boal reveals this relentless pursuit of the edge in many ways.  One, particularly impressive is a short elevator exchange (its power undoubtedly comes also from the amazing screen presence of James Gandolfini playing the Director)

CIA DIRECTOR

They’re all cowed.  What do you think of the girl?

JEREMY

I think she’s fucking smart

CIA DIRECTOR

We’re all smart, Jeremy.

Unscripted expands a scene

The Men Who Wasn't there

by the Cohen Brothers

Early on in “The Man Who Wasn’t There” script there is a scene with Doris and Ed “entertaining” Dave and his wife Ann (the picture above).  After the set up it continues in the following way: 

DAVE 

Japs had us pinned down in Buna for something like six weeks. Well, I gotta tell ya, I thought *we* had it tough, but, Jesus, we had supply. *They* were eating grubs, nuts, thistles. When we finally up and bust off the beach we found Arnie Bragg, kid missing on recon; the Japs had *eaten* the sonofabitch, if you'll pardon the, uh... And this was a scrawny, pimply kid too, nothin' to write home about. I mean, I never would've, ya know, so what do I say, honey? When I don't like dinner, what do I say?

Ann smiles wanly.

DAVE 

...I say, Jesus, honey, Arnie 

Bragg--*again*?! 

He roars with laughter.

Ed gives an acknowledging smile.

DAVE 

...Arnie Bragg--*again*?!

He dries his eyes with the corner of a napkin.

In the film, as directed, it is Doris’ scene.  On the screen it is her who with laud laughter approvingly comments Dave’s jokes.  There is no question she is for him.  In this moment and most likely in every other way possible. Clearly they must be lovers.  Moreover through her reactions (and the way they are framed, shot and timed of course) the scene becomes the Doris’s scene. 

It is a great example how the unscripted reaction can significantly expand a scene. 

Barbers

The Man Who Wasn't There, 

by the Coen Brothers. 

By some strange turn of events I saw that truly brilliant film only a few nights ago.   As  a clever allegory for modernity and the storytelling itself it made a huge impression on me:

  

The elegy for a broken civilization 

camouflaged in a stylish and fancy package.  

Inertia.  It comes from laziness.  

The man who wasn't there.  

Many men weren’t there. 

Many aren’t.

Many won’t.   

All of them absent. 

Broken.  

Withdrawn.

If they are not weak, they are fools.  

If they are specially gifted, they are very rare and almost freaks. 

Everything hurts with its lack of satisfaction, 

passion and fulfillment. 

The only fleeting moment of relief 

is delivered by a long dead music genius 

or a fresh young girl unaware of brutal future 

waiting for everyone.  

The future that the barber already knows. 

The future of loss, laziness, fear and paralysis. 

UFOs and their pathetic attempts to make sense.

Please!

How idiotic.  Or could it be true?

All brainwashed.  Alcohol.  Booze.   Daily drudgery.    

“Throughout all that 

we cut the hair”. 

Futility.   Despair.  

“There is not “what happened”.  Looking at something changes it.”  The Heisenberg Principle in life.

“Science, perception, reality, doubt.  Reasonable doubt.  The more you look, the less you really know.  

That’s a fact.  The only fact that is.”  

Freddie delivers the big speech.  As if an Alien bathed in light.  

Could that mean that all (true) answers are absurd?  Not from this world?

“The more we know the less we know.”

The style tries to catch up with the story and by design fails to do so.  

It happens that way because the film is also about the inability

to contain the truth within a genre.  

The Heisenberg Principle in storytelling.  

The characters as the prisoners of style.  

Ed is seemingly cool.  

In reality he is miserable and scared shitless.  

He wants out of his style.  That’s why he extends himself toward Birdy. 

But Ed Crane can’t escape to be a barber.  

When he waits for Birdy to finish her audition 

he does not see young boys waiting against the opposite wall.  

He only sees their hairdos.  

Then he learns that the girl does not have a soul to be a pianist.  

Does he have a soul?

Just before he is executed his perception is again only that of a barber. 

(Even though earlier he saw a UFO!)

Just like a filmmaker, he can’t escape his tools. 

A man who finally learns to accept 

that his identity is his job.  

That’s the best he can do.  

Ironic.  

Sad. 

Modern. 

Reincarnation is hard

Cloud Atlas 

directed by the Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer

Having suffered through two movies that deal with the subject of reincarnation ( “Cloud Atlas” directly, “The Master” through one of its characters) I can’t restrain myself any longer. The hubris of some storytellers!

If there is something complex and mysterious going on in our world most of us flatten and vulgarize it by subscribing to a reductionist, comic view of the migration of consciousness. The reductionist reincarnation theory (a soul gets plopped into a body after body) becomes particularly ridiculous when portrayed in a film like “Cloud Atlas”.

Due to the limitations of the film medium the concept of the migration has to be illustrated either by the same actor playing various host-bodies or by displaying telling, particular mannerisms with different actors playing the same soul. While the latter seems more sophisticated, the former is just painful to watch, regardless of the quality of acting.

The meaning of life, universe and it all most of the time kicks hard in their butts those who dare to uncover it on film. Even very good filmmakers like Terrence Malick (“The Three of Life”) or Darren Aranofsky (“The Fountain”) got strong bruises from the encounters with the number 44. Both however have under their belts other films that I consider perfect.

The same goes for Paul Thomas Anderson who on my best films ever list has two (“Magnolia”, “There will be blood”.) Not so with “The Master”. Although PTA does not talk about reincarnation there and only uses it as a suspicious obsession of the titled hero I suspect that the mess that the film is in could be the revenge of the number 44.   The revenge of reincarnation called in vein, if you will.

Who does it right than?  For sure Kubrick in “2001”, Kieslowski in “Red” and perhaps in “Double life of Veronique”.