Wittgenstein
Derek Jarman, GB 1993; Screenplay: Derek Jarman, Terry Eagleton, Ken Butler; Cinematography: James Welland; Editing: Budge Tremlett; Cast: Karl Johnson, Michael Gough, Tilda Swinton, Clancy Chassay, Sally Dexter. 35mm, color, 72 min. English with German subtitlesJarman conjures the inner life of the Vienna‑born philosophical colossus on a shoestring budget, turning financial and physical limitations – the project originated as part of a television series on great thinkers – into advantages. The results might even have delighted the eponymous Ludwig, a hardcore cinephile whose daily existence was defined by spartan asceticism. Episodes illustrating various epochs of Wittgenstein's life in Austria and England are economically but flamboyantly recreated on a near‑bare soundstage using simple costumes, props, and furnishings – an experimental approach which Jarman's muse/acolyte Tilda Swinton (approvingly) compared to a "school play." Swinton herself appears as bohemian grande dame Lady Ottoline Morrell, horror‑genre icon Michael Gough is a spry Bertrand Russell and, as the older Wittgenstein, Karl Johnson goes beyond performance into the realm of reincarnation. (N.Y.)
Courtesy Filmarchiv Austria