Does Derrick Jarman’s film, Wittgenstein provide a useful insight into one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers and his theory of language games

Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered one of the greatest philosophers due to his work within philosophical language. Some of his most notable work was his belief in language games. Jarman’s film Wittgenstein touches upon both Wittgenstein and language games.

 

Jarman portrays Wittgenstein as a tortured genius. He is constantly tormented by his own brilliance and does yearn to have a relatively normal life; away from academia. In this way, Jarman does excellently showcase Wittgenstein’s sadness, in that he is always running away from his life; probably in a bid to forget the torment his work provides him with. Jarman also conveys excellently the ways in which Wittgenstein influences and affects others around him, especially the frustration and exasperation he causes Bertrand Russell. One of the biggest problems that Wittgenstein seems to possess in Jarman’s film is his idea of language games. He is shown not only to hate the fact that others did not understand language games, but also with the fact that whilst trying to understand language games himself, he started to believe that language had no real meaning. This started to drive him mad, and could be considered one of the reasons that he wanted to leave academia behind him.

 

Even though Jarman’s film does provide an excellent portrayal of Wittgenstein and his theory of language games in some ways, he can also be criticised for the way he portrays him in others. An example of this is the addition of the Martian and intermittence of the young Wittgenstein can be shown to undermine Wittgenstein’s work. A Martian can be seen as childish or fantastical, and may be viewed by some people as an odd thing to add to such a film. Another criticism of Wittgenstein is that it almost glazes over Wittgenstein’s work, and is more focused on his private life, so if you did not necessarily want to learn about Wittgenstein, but about his work as a philosopher, it could be misleading. Furthermore, the fact that the young Wittgenstein kept coming and going throughout the film could be considered to be confusing.

 

Overall, Jarman does provide a useful insight into Wittgenstein and his theory of language games. It shows that Wittgenstein as a tormented genius, who is able to understand hard philosophical concepts, yet he makes it so that ultimately, the audience feels sorry for him.

 

LL and SS