✍Eranda Mahagamage
BA (University of Colombo), MA ( Savitribai Phule Pune University), M.phil (Reading, University of Peradeniya)
Introduction
Historically, the God of Apollo showed us the orderly life, while the god Dionysus showed us an anti – systematic life. It is my suggestion that cinema is an art medium that combines these two. That is, the camera captures the image in a very sophisticated way, and the director breaks it down when he gets it. It is at this moment that cinema emerges. Thus, the cinema is organized by the camera, and the director's thoughts are non-linear. In this way, Nietzsche suggests that art should be oriented toward life. This is because life before and after the revolution changed. But even if the idea oflife after a revolution is not foreseen, the way in which Eisenstein incorporated life into cinema is experimental. That is what this article is about.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In order to understand Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of Art, it is of deep importance to contextualize his place in 19th century German Philosophy. Considered a forerunner of existentialism, deeply inspired by Kierkegaard but especially by Schopenhauer, it is extremely difficult to categorize his thought, as it eludes most classical divisions; nonetheless, Nietzsche’s background as a philologer and his profound insight into the origins of ancient Greek culture provided the foundation for his major critique of traditional philosophy. Considering Nietzsche's works, we can distinguish three periods of development. The first, from 1872 to 1876, is marked by The Birth of Tragedy, in which Nietzsche contends that tragic drama and early Greek philosophy resulted from the interplay of Dionysian and Apollonian forces. Unzeitgemdsse Betrachtungen (Untimely Meditations) advances Nietzsche's thesis that metaphysical reasoning is a symptom of decadence, especially with respect to the German culture of the 1870s. In the second period, from 1878 to 1882, Nietzsche began to use an aphoristic style of writing to accommodate his radically skeptical and experimental mode of thinking. In such works as Die Morgenrilte (The Dawn) and Die Frdhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science), Nietzsche began to probe psychological phenomena and to describe the functions of the unconscious. In this “Gay Science” Nietzsche examined his dictum "God is dead," which metaphorically expresses the meaning of nihilism.
In particular, his work on The Birth of Tragedy will be tested, in the light of his main thesis on Aesthetics, which is that of ‘Life-affirmation’. The main point here is to highlight the reasons behind the creation of this book, clearly related to his friend and prominent composer Richard Wagner's. Nietzsche basically addresses Wagner's music, criticizing it for representing Christian themes and values, while simultaneously going beyond his teacher’s limitations.
The central message of The Birth of Tragedy is that the affirmation of life requires ‘illusion [Illusion]’, which allows us to ‘forget’ the displeasure caused by ‘the weight and burden of existence’. Not every kind of illusion is equally capable of underwriting a true affirmation of existence,.[1]
It seems clear from this passage that Nietzsche was attempting by this time to go further than the Schopenhauerian view of arts and to develop an original idea of Aesthetics. Eventually, Nietzsche shifted aesthetics to an artistic approach. Whereas for Schopenhauer all fine arts are attempts at answering the question of human existence, along with Philosophy, what Nietzsche proposes here seems to be the opposite: that art is an aspect of life; in other words, to think art from the perspective of life.
Art and Affirmation
In essence, Nietzsche's idea of ‘Life’ art has to be understood. This idea has a great connection with his entire philosophy. Given that he is one of the forerunners of the philosophical tradition that is now called Existentialism, it would seem normal for his main focus to be on human existence, human life. Nietzsche goes one step beyond to add the important term of ‘Affirmation’ as part of his vocabulary. What is the meaning of Life affirmation? When interpreting Art nouveau, it appears that art is a matter of ensuring life. To explain this, he directs his thinking to the Ancient Greek civilization and further points out that Greek Mythologies can create this genuine Affirmation. He also raises concerns about the disturbances that burden of existence. These ‘Illusion’ can be divided into three, mainly. The first illusion is based on transcendental conditions of experience and virtue of their psychological inertia. Second, that’s never owed its effectiveness, whereas the third is the distinctive apollonian creation. According to Nietzsche these are artistic illusions too and called them “the pleasurable illusions” (BT4). It is remarkable that Nietzsche takes Aesthetics negatively, in a sense:
The Eternal Tensions of Apollo and Dionysius
Dionysus is the god of intoxication, orgies, the forces of nature and music, while Apollo is the god of individuation, illusion, form, order and the plastic arts. It is through a dialectical interplay of these two opposing - and at the same time complementary - esthetical elements that art owes its continuous evolution. Nietzsche sees in the harmonious unification of these two elements the genesis of the highest expression of art in history, the Greek Tragedy.
Nietzsche names each of these principles after an ancient Greek deity (Apollo, Dionysus) who can be thought of as imaginatively representing the drive in question in an especially intense and pure way. ‘Apollo’ embodies the drive toward distinction, discreteness, and individuality, toward the drawing and respecting of boundaries and limits, he teaches an ethic of moderation and self-control. [2]
By virtue of the Dionysiac element in art, Man is rendered the possibility of transcending the limits of individual existence and establishing communion with the human and the natural worlds: only does the bond between man and man came to be forged once more by the magic of the Dionysiac rite but nature itself, long alienated or subjugated, rises again to celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. Through art, Man transcends the confines of his own ego and secures oneness with the universe. Clearly, it is established: the role of art as a means of self-transcendence.
He begins by associating Apollo with the visual arts, and speak of sculptural images, Poetic manifestation, and Homeric epics. Homer describes individuals, beauty, power, and resistance to death. ‘Homer….is related to that Apollonian folk culture as the individual dream artist is related to the dream faculties of the complete triumph of Apollonian illusion’(BT,3). According to Nietzsche, Apollonian arts must have had some access to the truth they triumph over. Greek culture moves beyond this predominantly Apollonian stage, they provided comfort, but comfort no longer avails.
Dionysius incites mankind towards madness, savagery and even lust for blood, he was the confident and the companion of the spirit of the dead. Yet far above all of these blessings in the natural world stood the gift of a vine. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god. His presence awakens a sense of urgency. Ecstasy, and terror in the heart of all within his vicinity. The esoteric and mystic cults of the Greeks, many of which were dedicated to Dionysus, offer an alternative to the rationalism of the Apollonian and were noted for their “sexual licentiousness.” Nietzsche suggests that folk music is especially Dionysian and that “it might also be historically demonstrable that every period rich in folk songs has been most violently stirred by Dionysian currents.” This explains a lot about the 1960s.
‘Nietzsche employs Dionysus as an interpretive principle in The Birth of Tragedy. He names himself a disciple of Dionysus in Beyond Good and Evil and finally identifies himself as Dionysus in his last communications. Given Dionysus' classical association with masks, both theatrical and ritual, there are clear connections between Nietzsche's constant use of mask imagery, his adoption of multiple literary personae, and the ancient Greek’ deity. For the Greeks, Dionysus clearly represented alterity- but of what sort? And what kind of otherness is implied by Nietzsche's connection to an ancient, enigmatic’
So we understand that this is a nonlinear, confused state for the art. Especially for modern art, we need this confusion. In its deepest sense, affirmation of life requires illusion which allows us to discover the joy beyond the displeasures caused by the weight and burden of existence. But even Nietzsche eventually comes to doubt the idea that beautiful illusions can underwrite a genuine affirmation. For a genuine affirmation, it is necessary to confront and affirm the terrifying and questionable aspects of existence. Nietzsche tries to resolve this issue through his concept of the will to power as the overcoming of resistance, one that makes suffering a constituent feature of happiness. Nietzsche's revolutionary style of thinking and writing influenced a wide variety of twentieth-century disciplines, including psychoanalysis, existentialism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics, and of course, cinema.
Jacques Rancière – Fredrick Nietzsche
Jacques Rancière is a French philosopher interested in cinema. Instead of reading a cinema from another theory, he is interested in reading cinema in its own existence. He adds Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian concepts to the cinema. There he is directed to Soviet Russian cinema. His idea was that this model had become the foundation of Russia at that time. His basic idea is to exchange between sensual and pathetic, and then identify in the dialect. One of the results of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet world is rational calculations, as well as the unconscious collections of stage dramas and literature. Eisenstein (Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage) is doing this radicalization. This was intended to propagate the Communist idea to the mournful thing. His ‘Montage’ led cinema to a new dimension. montage. the art or process of making a composite picture by bringing together into a single composition a number of different pictures or parts of pictures and arranging these, as by superimposing one on another, so that they form a blended whole while remaining distinct. a picture so made.
Apollonian language of images that gives discourse its plastic form and Dionysian language of sensations: Nietzsche’s model of the tragedy had been, especially in Russia, at the basis of symbolist theories about poetry and theatre, and it is easily recognizable in the “dialectical” couple of the organic and the pathetic. And the outcome of the Revaluation had been the coupling of Dionysus’s drunken unconscious with the rational calculations of the builders of the Soviet world and of the biomechanic athletes of the new theatre.[3]
I'm trying, I’m taken His movie call General Line to explain these concepts and make my research more intense. He presents us with some kind of image. Common agrarian cultivation, he also shows processed procession - milk from Technology. That is what he tries to show us is that the power of the communist idea and the cinematic idea is the same.
Ranciere’s idea is to break the gap between artistic objectives and Rational Knowledge. According to him, the cinema will be turned into an inertial throne and mechanical. According to him, Eisenstein attempts to physically present the ‘idea’. Ex: Suicide Bomber. In this film, we have to understand the complexity of the cow's skull, the young communist carder, demons, and images. Here I am trying to establish what Eisenstein is trying to show. According to Ranciere's view, his work is to show us a ‘new life’(after-revolution).
Eisenstein’s Cinema and Life after the Revolution
Many people who are interested in cinema and who are serious about cinema know that these films are Propaganda. It's a popular opinion. I can say radically; they are not Propaganda movies. If this film's purpose is Propaganda, then why is the water? buffalo? Why're the scenes of milk? So he had to shoot only the Communist carder. But Eisenstein takes these idols, buffalo, and peasants into Images. This problem is placed not in ideology but in aesthetics. In one sense he's filmed the most beautiful Images. The movie requires that collectivization is something we love. He does so for the purpose of projecting it on a body that moves the signals of the craving we desire. Marfa, a single woman, only loves Communism. But this is the contradiction. The director connects Marfa with the tractor, not with the driver. She helps to fix the tractor that is turning off due to industrial failure. She opens her skirt. The driver tears into it. She seizes the red flag. This picture shows public property - share farmers and angry farmers.
Now in the aesthetics of the film, the film was attacked two times. One is that the Soviet propagandists described it as a Structural cinema. On the other hand, this cinema was noticed only by the Soviet regime. However, Bertolt Brecht has become a social reality. It led to the ideology of (Dadaism) and the (Neo-Realism Tradition). They named this Art with the artistic modernity. This did not end with the political defeat of Communism. This came later as a performance art critic. Marxist art criticism. Eisenstein did not receive this support. Eisenstein worked on more than The idea of communism rather than Communism. Bertolt Brecht did not want to distance the viewer away. Bertolt Brecht wanted to prevent the visitor from identifying with the image. Eisenstein wanted to identify the visitor with the most image. Eisenstein, Instead, wanted to capture all of them and multiply their power. Rather than saying that he put the young art of cinema at the service of communism, it would be more accurate to say that he put communism through the test of cinema. He reminds us of that idea of artistic modernity to which the cinema once thought it could identify its technique: the anti – representative art that was going to replace the stories and characters of yours with a language of ideas/ sensations and with the direct communication of effects.
I summarize. Nietzsche has understood art in the Apollonian and Dionysian sense. But Rancière's idea was that it was directly influenced by this Apollonian and Dionysius world and that the basis of the Soviet culture. The mechanics of this film represent Apollo, and Dionysius reminds us of the censuses, customs, and rituals. But Rancière points out that modern art inherently exists in cinema. The combination of rationality and irrationalism. Eisenstein then turns to life after the revolution. It can be taken as Nietzsche's art affirmation in a way. He put communism through the test of cinema rather showing communism by using cinema.
Finally, I would like to Mention Rancier’s quote here, it also asks us what century we ourselves live in to derive so much pleasure, from the love affair upon a sinking ship between a young woman in first class and a young man in third.
Bibliography
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.
Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche. Vol. 1: The Will to Power as Art. Chicago Publications, 1961.
Came, Daniel, Nietzsche on Art and Life. Oxford, 2014
Ranciere,Jaques, Film fables. Oxford International, 2006
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