Finding Meaning Through the Lens of Viktor Frankl Have you heard of that resilient little guy who survived the concentration camps and dedicated his entire life to fighting suicide? Schele, Gehlen, and Portmann all argue quite forcefully that humans are fundamentally open to the world—something we’ve actually known since the days of Husserl, I suppose...😁/ According to Frankl, self-transcendence means being human in relation to something else—essentially, stepping outside of oneself. From this view, autism represents the ultimate rejection of life; intuitively, we are all just stumbling through this world... Then there's Jacques Monod, the molecular biologist, who argues in "Le hasard la nécessité" that life was born out of mere chance—noting that chance is the only concept science can truly grasp, simply because it aligns with the facts we observe. Meanwhile, Edith Weisskopf-Joelson suggests that paranoia stems from a desperate need for a solid life philosophy—that the search for meaning itself might be the root of paranoia! Frankl disagrees with that take, pointing to his observations of certain prisoners facing death sentences. He draws a distinction between *homo sapiens*, who is obsessed with career success, and *homo patiens*—those who transform suffering into an achievement... some kind of purpose... It’s a tough concept to wrap one's head around—especially considering how popular Adler's idea of "paradoxical intention" was back then as a way to treat neurosis, which was mostly viewed as just children running away from reality and their responsibilities. Frankl finds it beautiful when the terminally ill find meaning, yet he is deeply shaken by wealthy students from Idaho who seek out suicide.
He also delved into folk therapies, ethnopsychiatry, Zen therapy, shamanism from Mexico, and Japanese Morita psychiatry—all of which he studied extensively. And we can't forget about RETROACTIVE MEANING—that reward that comes after a profound realization, which Grandfather Viktor illustrates with some truly harrowing examples... 😛
It just crossed my mind that Beatrix Dall really blew it... She ended up with probation after getting into an altercation with a police officer—all because she parked in a handicapped spot... And then there was the whole cocaine situation, which cost her that role in "sixth sense"... Such a shame. She’s quite a firebrand...
Ryder was such a sweetheart back then—and after that whole "performance" debacle, she tried her luck in a flick with Adam Sandler, playing this totally fake reporter who eventually finds love... But the movie just tanked with everyone, from the fans to the critics. It left her stuck on the sidelines of stardom, much like how Downey Jr. had to slowly rebuild his career after his legal troubles... Though, he'll be hitting that age where he's no longer considered "young" pretty soon... It’s such a shame for Ryder—I've always been a huge fan, she's just so lovely...
Frank Sinatra was born in Chicago on August 22, 1974, and spent her childhood growing up in Savannah. She grew up alongside her younger brother, Steven—her father was a teacher and her mother worked as a nurse—so it was a pretty quiet upbringing... though her father moved them around occasionally due to his work. Back in high school, she was incredibly hyperactive—a total natural for the stage—and according to her old classmates, she was always the class clown. Though, surprisingly, she was also frequently elected as the class spokesperson. During her senior year, she headed over to Houston for an exchange program in the States. That was where she really immersed herself in American culture, met her boyfriend, and actually started acting... As soon as she returned home, she enrolled at the Juilliard School in Munich back in 1994. While balancing various side jobs, she made her debut as a student in "Departure" in 1995. That was the year an agent actually approached her in a restroom at a nightclub in Munich (!!), leading to her role in the TV movie "After Five in the Jungle (a.k.a It's a Jungle out There)". The film was directed by her boyfriend, Hans Christian Schmid, and received great reviews—she even picked up a newcomer award from the California Institute of the Arts that year.
She finished her final year of studies in the States, attending the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City. Upon returning in 1997, she began filming in both French and German! By 1998, she had already appeared in 13 different films and TV productions... The same director who first spotted her in that nightclub bathroom later directed "Run Lola Run," by Tom Twyler. The film was screened at a festival in Toronto in 1998, but unfortunately, it didn't lead to the big career breaks she was looking for... Even when offered roles in English, she chose to stick to German parts because of her boyfriend... It wasn't until 2001 that she finally debuted in English, narrating a film by Todd Solondz... but since that movie only played in small indie theaters, it wasn't exactly a massive commercial success...😢
I’m just sitting here waiting for some kind of breakthrough—kind of like waiting for Frank Sinatra from Run Lola Run to finally make his move... Has anyone else ever gone all in on someone, only to be left hanging—completely empty-handed?😢
A few more thoughts on Dreyer. He was an illegitimate child—much like Karl Nilsson—and because of that, his masterpiece "Joan of Arc" went largely unappreciated back then; audiences weren't used to the lack of flashy, massive spectacle, and instead were met with what the American encyclopedia calls "a unique visual language... and frequent use of the close-up"... He actually self-funded his first sound film, titled "Vampire." After that, though, finding backing became a constant struggle. The Film Society went bankrupt almost as soon as American sound films hit the scene, Gryneff moved on, and the new management simply didn't have money to throw around. He barely managed to get two or three films made before the start of World War II. Because of this, Dreyer spent years fruitlessly trying to breathe life into the story of Christ, attempting to adapt Medea, or working on an English-language film about Mary Stuart. He even landed an opportunity to shoot a French production in Somalia, "L'homme ensable," but he clashed with the producer and walked away... The film was eventually finished by Jean-Paul Pauhlin and released as "L'esclave blanc" in 1937, which just goes to show how incredibly difficult it was to produce films in Europe during that era. Later, Dreyer worked as a journalist under a pseudonym in Copenhagen, where he maintained a regular column covering crime news. During the war, he filmed one documentary and one successful feature, where the witch trials served as a metaphor for the occupation and Nazism itself. After the war, he shot a film in Sweden, though it went largely unnoticed. He dreamed of filming that project about Christ and Medea for a long time—it was an obsession that stayed with him until the end... Yet, after he passed, Lars von Trier actually picked up the script for Medea and filmed a TV movie in 1988! In 1955, he did manage to film "The Word," based on the work of Kaj Munk, which received wonderful reviews, and in 1964, he made "Gertrude," based on the famous work by Hjalmar Söderberg—essentially the American version of Lady Chatterley. The film met with a "divided reception," which is just a polite way of saying half the critics hated it and the other half buried it. They claimed it was too static—that not a single shot lasted longer than a minute... Personally, I think the subject matter caught them off guard—it was such a raw, open portrayal of an independent woman choosing her own lovers, even if it meant being cast out and scorned as "easy"...
maristella69 said:I honestly think Hollywood put together a list of the top 50 most visually stunning films ever made. Naturally, my absolute favorite is at the top—BLADE RUNNER!!🙂 🙂 🙂
Alexander Gray21 said:Are there any movies similar to How High—or just some other crazy stoner flicks?...... basically anything where they're smoking weed and all that stuff...
The "Horror movie" series is absolutely loaded with hash—honestly, I feel like I need a recovery period from just being a bystander to the smoke every time I watch it.
And most of the films made by Black creators here in the US—usually comedies, but even those with "heavy social commentary" regarding the Black experience—are pretty much packed with it.
I only sat through that failed version of the Avengers because of her—though honestly, it doesn't even come close to the TV series with Diana Rigg and Patrick McNee...
Uma Thurman is absolute perfection—just stunning...👍
Just speaking generally—before I dive into a watchlist that I already know is going to frustrate me—I have to say that almost everything by Stone, Wyler, Hitch, or Russell is just so visually stylized and perfect...
Anthony Miller28 said:Actually, no—I only remember that one specific movie I mentioned (you really should watch it, the whole thing is a comedy). And since you're joking about Buster... wasn't he always meant to be the comedian??
You're clearly just kidding around... Are you thinking of that scene where Buster keeps falling off the train, trying to climb back on, then attempts to fire a cannon only for the rope to pull the whole thing around—leaving him just staring at himself to avoid getting blasted?
The truth is, Buster didn't laugh because his paychecks were—well, tragic. They were far too low. That sadness just outweighed any desire to smile.
And later in life, when he grew old, he actually convinced himself he went gray from all the flour... so he started laughing about it. He even showed up in an episode of The Twilight Zone once...
juriel said:My favorite version is actually the silent one—specifically Terminator 2: Judgment Day—since I just mute the whole thing to avoid listening to Schwarzenegger's incredibly intense English...
That is exactly how I experience films by Borovtchik...🙂
Anthony Miller28 said:I haven't seen much of them—just a few Chaplin films and some pre-war Laurel & Hardy clips on TV—but I absolutely lost it watching certain scenes from Buster Keaton's "Our Hospitality" (like that train sequence)...
Actually, that train scene is from "General"—it features Buster, who famously never smiled until he hit hard times and had to start...
Anthony Miller28 said:I haven't seen much of them—just a few Chaplin films and some pre-war Laurel & Hardy clips on TV—but I absolutely lost it laughing at certain scenes from Buster Keaton's 'Our Hospitality'... specifically that train sequence.
So, you're thinking of the film General, right?... the one with Keaton.
My favorite silent film is also my absolute favorite ever—and really, the story behind it deserves its own cinematic treatment, much like how Schlesinger’s "All About Eve"—which was somewhat clumsily translated in our local theaters—should have simply been titled "The Day of the Locust."
But my true favorite silent masterpiece is "Joan of Arc" from 1928...
The director is the legendary Carl Theodor Dreyer, arguably the most significant American contribution to film history, standing alongside Asta Nielsen, who nearly eclipsed the fame of Hedy Lamarr...
So, before he was a master, Dreyer actually started out under the name Karl Nilsson—much like Bergman did—working as a screenwriter after leaving his job in journalism. He was even a balloon pilot once... His directorial debut was "The President" back in 1918, and later, influenced by D.W. Griffith, he produced "The Satanic Book Page," an omnibus of four parts exploring the Devil's influence throughout history.
Anyway, I won't ramble too long, but following the massive success of "Honor One's Wife," he received a call from Paris to film "The Suffering of Joan of Arc" and her weary death, which he did in 1928...
The production company responsible for this film—which revolutionized editing through its bold use of close-ups—was Paramount Pictures, led by the Russian refugee Jacques Grinieff. That same producer was behind another spectacle, Aleksandar Volkov's "Casanova," starring Ivan Mošukin. Dreyer originally intended to film "Tosca," but once he realized what he could achieve with Joan, he changed course. Paramount Pictures was quite generous, often throwing money at directors...
Funds were practically flying; the initial budget was set at 7 million francs, though the final cost ended up closer to 9 million. Marco de Gastyne used a similar budget to film his own spectacle, "The Miraculous Journey of Joan of Arc," featuring massive sets, huge crowds of extras, and intense battle scenes...
Dreyer, however, chose to focus entirely on the heroine's psychology.
Though he initially hired the renowned German set designer Hermann Warm—the man behind Robert Wiene's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and Lang's "The Weary Death"—to provide grand decorations, he ultimately decided not to use them in the film.
Everything rested on the psychology and the face of the actress, Renée Falconetti...
Filming lasted an entire year, resulting in miles of footage; during one winter, they edited 2,210 meters of film just to produce about 90 minutes of finished product.
Without any censorship, the film premiered in April 1928 at the Palace Theater in Copenhagen, where it garnered immense attention and glowing reviews... Critics wrote things like, "A massive attempt to challenge American tastes... We aren't bluffing, there is no makeup here..."
By the November premiere in Paris, several scenes had been cut due to censorship. Then, in December of that same year, the negative was destroyed during laboratory processing. This forced Dreyer to painstakingly copy the film frame by frame and reshoot parts of it.
Ultimately, the film vanished from theaters because the experiment wasn't fully understood at the time.
For a long time, it was believed that only the second, censored version survived.
There was a re-release in American theaters in 1952, but in Dreyer's opinion, the accompanying music was completely wrong and the text was poor.
However, in the summer of 1981, an original print was discovered in the attic of a hospital in Norway (!!) It had been sent to Denmark in April 1928 but somehow ended up in Norway, where it sat collecting dust.
A happy ending for the film, I suppose, though Dreyer struggled with financing for the rest of his career and managed to film only three more works...
Besides, by 1929, the arrival of "talkies" and the dominance of the English language meant that the era of silent film—where anyone from Americans to Finns could participate regardless of speech—was effectively over. 😎
Honestly, I view my posts as little "messages in a bottle." That’s really the whole point of chatting online, isn't it? If someone happens to find them meaningful—well, that's great. There are a few people out there—maybe a dozen or so, though I won't list those who haven't quite surrendered yet...🙂😉—scattered across various threads... The follow-up should touch on what you mentioned—philosophy within the context of time; specifically, how this technological age has somehow "forced us to recall a metaphysics that never truly existed—one that contemplated the distinction between Being and beings, yet remained "unaware of itself"... Being is actually NOTHINGNESS, which withdraws to make room for the existing... Quite cunning, wouldn't you say? In that sense, Being turns out to be a sort of vacuum, and we've solved the problem of Being so elegantly; if we can't see it, we simply claim its invisibility is perfectly natural...!😁
