Wittgenstein
Screening on Film
Directed by Derek Jarman.
With Karl Johnson, Clancy Chassy.
UK, 1993, 76 min.
With Karl Johnson, Clancy Chassy.
UK, 1993, 76 min.
Made by Derek Jarman when he was dying of AIDS, this marvelous gift is a minimalist, home-movie biography of the logical positivist philosopher. The same as Jarman, Wittgenstein was London-based and homosexual and movie-mad (he loved Westerns and Carmen Miranda), and he died desperately frustrated. in the middle of his work. But this movie is rarely self-pitying. In fact. Jarman’s elegy (to Wittgenstein, to himself) is sprightly, inventive, an entertaining string of sketches, piano interludes, and blackouts.