The teacher and teaching assistant for the film appreciation course have hinted several times that there will be an essay question on the exam. Considering that the teacher has also said more than once that the questions will be fairly open-ended, it probably won’t come to a point where they specify a particular film for us to write about. Still, the teaching assistant also hinted that we should prepare from among the films we watched in class this semester. After much choosing, I still decided to prepare this one; if the exam question turns out to be maliciously tricky (for instance, if it only allows us to write a critique of Chinese cinema), then I can only sigh at my bad luck.
《Run Lola Run》 is a typical postmodern film—anti-tradition, anti-depth, subversive and deconstructive, rock-and-roll, surreal, and so on. Its editing, shooting, and use of computer technology for compositing and special effects are likewise representative of the new era of filmmaking.
This film seems to contain quite a bit of philosophical implication—one could go on endlessly about time, contingency, possibility, and the like. But in fact, like ordinary postmodern films, it is anti-depth; at least as far as its creators’ intentions go, they probably did not hope to use this film to trigger much philosophical discussion. Postmodern film has already completely stepped outside the mode of thought of book culture and wholly embraced the so-called “visual culture”—it no longer asks readers to close the book and think, or shut their eyes and contemplate; instead, it wants viewers to widen their eyes and surge with emotion.
Of course, many people criticize this visual culture for wearing down human rationality, for being a cultural and intellectual decadence; in fact, I am one of those critics myself. But this criticism is made with regard to the influence of film and television on people’s lives and thinking. In any case, maintaining a sober, reflective awareness is necessary. Yet if film and television are viewed merely as “art,” then this kind of “visualization” is beyond reproach; or rather, it is precisely this surrender to the visual that makes the artistry of film even more fully manifest.
The word “art,” etymologically speaking, means “craft” or “technique.” But it is a particular kind of technique—its purpose is not to increase productive capacity or facilitate life, but to “move people.” Art is thus a technique that uses sensory impact to move the viewer. And among human senses, the most important is unquestionably sight (it is said that vision occupies 90 percent of the brain’s perception). Film, as an art, makes visual impact its main business, and that is only natural. Those who complain that film lacks depth or thought probably place too high an expectation on film; in their minds, they are likely comparing it with literature. But in fact, literature itself is not really the most典型的 art form; it may be the intersection of philosophy and art. And for more typical arts—painting, sculpture, music, dance, and so on—who would accuse them of “lacking thought”?
Art is not philosophy, much less science; they cannot replace one another. One cannot, because one is immersed in art, throw away philosophical thinking; but even less can one hope for art to replace philosophy. Art, in the final analysis, is sensory stimulation; its mission is to stir the human heart, not the brain cells.
《Run Lola Run》 is just such a work of art, farther removed from literature and philosophy, and more purely artistic (note: I once said that Super Girl is also art, but art does not equal beauty, just as science does not equal truth; I never said that I admired 《Run Lola Run》).
Of course, although the film itself is not devoted to expressing ideas, it still makes sense to interpret its ideas, because although an artwork may not necessarily be an expression of thought, it is certainly a “revelation” of thought. In particular, every work of art is influenced by its age, its culture, and the thinking of its creator. So below I will talk about the era and culture embodied in 《Run Lola Run》.
“After the game is before the game.” — This is the sentence quoted in the opening title cards of 《Run Lola Run》, and it also sums up the film’s theme: “playing the world.”
Then the camera moves to the pendulum and the clock, and, passing through the clock, arrives at a chaotic crossroads full of people—time, people, confusion…
A voice-over begins, “Humanity”… “Who are we? Where do we come from? And where should we go? …” This series of weighty philosophical questions would seem to suggest that the film is attempting a profound philosophical inquiry? But in fact not; this is a kind of irony. In the end, the security guard comes on with a soccer ball: “The ball is round. The game must last ninety minutes. That is all we know. The rest is theory. Let’s begin! (kicks the ball into the air)”
This passage by the guard is quite meaningful—“The game must last ninety minutes” on the surface refers to the film, but at the same time it is precisely an answer to the pile of philosophical questions above! — What is human? Where from, where to? The answer is: all we know is “this game,” and those profound “theories” (the rest), we don’t know. Since that is the case, then enjoy the game of life to the fullest—let’s begin!
We see that the director, with a worldly, nonchalant, unrestrained manner, “a soccer ball” ultimately “solves” those serious, profound philosophical questions—we don’t know the answers of theory, but we know that “the ball is round”; what need have we of anything else? Kick it, start playing! This is the attitude toward life of the “game era.”
“Lola” is also a famous game character, and the film’s director Tom Tykwer is himself a fanatical computer-game addict, as well as a somewhat famous game expert. It is said that he is unimpressed when others praise his films, but if you compliment him on being good at computer games, he will be delighted. And 《Run Lola Run》 is precisely a depiction of “Lola’s quest through levels.”
Many people especially like to interpret Lola’s three runs in terms of the contingency and possibility of life, and so on; these people must certainly not be veterans of video games. If one were a gamer, after watching the film one would immediately think of video games—“Damn! Game over! What a drag! Restart from scratch!”—that is the theme the director, as a seasoned gamer, wants to vent.
Life is like a game: rich, exciting, “fun.” And the endless diversity and possibility of life go beyond what games can offer. But the one regrettable thing is that life only happens once; unlike playing a video game, where if it’s Game Over you can restart, and if you’re dissatisfied you can reload a save—when you see Lola at the casino winning 100,000 wildly in the final sequence, gamers will surely think of the famous “SL method” (that is, endlessly “Save-Load,” “save-load,” which can make any extremely low-probability event possible, the most shameless sure-win cheat in video games). Yet real life does not allow “SL”; everything happens only once. This is also perhaps one of the inner contradictions of the players who “play the world.”
In short, 《Run Lola Run》 presents the game life and worldly nonchalance of “the generation raised on video games,” revealing their desire for excitement and fun and their longing for infinite possibilities, while also implicitly containing the inner contradiction that life is after all not a game. It does not seek to express some philosophical truth; it is meant to vent a passion.
December 28, 2006, 1:06 a.m.
Yangrou Paoju
Latest Comments
unic
2006-12-28 23:33:13 [Reply]
A life like this…
M.S. is ultimately negative.
This is a question of worldview. Could it lead to entertainment to death?
>Recently I’ve been thinking that perhaps the universe is: disorder—order—disorder in a cycle; for example, before we are born, we are scattered elements; after they form us, there is order; after death, they become disorder again; and then we return to nature’s cycle.
Is there an endpoint?
Pure sensation, abandoning thought—would that lead people into an unordered society?
…I still have questions; let me think some more…
Gu
2006-12-29 10:18:14 [Reply]
I mentioned: “I have never said that I admire 《Run Lola Run》,” and with regard to a worldview of gaming oneself to death, I have always taken a critical stance.
But as for the idea of “game” itself, I greatly admire it; the spirit of play is indispensable for life to become complete. Schiller said, “Man is only fully human when he plays; and he is only wholly human when he plays.” There is some truth to that. What is the admirable “Greek spirit”? Aside from philosophy, science, and democracy, I think it crucially also includes a spirit of play—what is the Olympics? In Chinese it is translated as “sports meet,” but it is actually “Game,” isn’t it? And this “Game,” which was the basic way of life for the Greeks (even the Greek system of dating says things like “someone was born in the second year of the XXth Olympiad”), was the soil from which Greek art, philosophy, science, and democracy sprang. Without the free, unrestrained, passionate, non-utilitarian, curious, and other such elements under the spirit of “play,” I don’t think ancient Greece would ultimately have produced such magnificent philosophy.
unic
2006-12-29 20:08:29 [Reply]
Hehe, I learned something. Thanks!
But you still didn’t answer my question in full.
Still busy, huh?
Gu
2006-12-30 12:03:44 [Reply]
Your “disorder—order—disorder” is a kind of dissipative-structure way of thinking, isn’t it? It sees life as a reverse current of entropy, as a “vortex.” That way of speaking is right, but the key is what it means: the meaning and value of life still require further questioning.
In any case, human beings seek order; death is disorder, and social disorder is social death. On the one hand, so long as humanity exists, society will always exist; so should society develop toward order or toward disorder? I think one should still pursue order, but such order cannot be something imposed forcibly, such as caste systems or aristocratic systems that artificially create inequality. Rather, one hopes for some kind of “self-organization,” a natural harmony that neither creates inequality nor smears it flat, while also requiring a constant influx of force to maintain some stable structure of social mobility. How exactly to do it, I don’t know; I’m just talking nonsense here…
If one merely releases the senses while abandoning thought, then of course society will be decadent, because such people would be no different from animals; and if there is any difference, it would only be a technical one (rather than a scientific one). When a group of animals is ruling powerful technology—or rather, when they are being ruled by that powerful technology—the consequences will be terrifying. I have always felt that human sensibility is important, but “sensibility” must be sublimated from the senses through the transcendence of reason; reason does not create sensibility, but human beings must rely on reason to conceal their animal nature. Only after the senses have shed animality do they rise up into sensibility.
UNIC
2006-12-31 23:35:47 [Reply]
“…but ‘sensibility’ must be sublimated from the senses through the transcendence of reason…”
What is “transcendence”?
Could you talk a little more about the relation between reason and sensibility?
And one more question: what do you think “maturity” is?
Thank you!!
Gu
2007-01-04 13:15:19 [Reply]
As for the word “transcendence,” in my usage, first of all, it is similar to “transcending,” but it is also different.
I once saw a book called 《Transcendence and Transcendence-Upward》, which treated transcendence and transcendence-upward as the differing temperaments of Western religion and Eastern religion respectively. The author’s explanation was: “Transcendence means continuously choosing external goals, fighting and conquering them, transcending and passing beyond them, and thereby developing objectifying science and an intellectual philosophy; transcendence-upward means continuously excavating the inner humanity, cultivating and nourishing it, transcending and uplifting it, and thereby developing subjectifying ethics and a rational philosophy.”
According to my understanding, transcendence-upward is an inward transcendence, self-transcendence; it is not crossing over another obstacle, boundary, or something like that, but rather raising one’s own level of being.
Let’s talk about the issue of reason and sensibility slowly later.
As for “maturity,” in the case of a certain thought or theory, maturity means a kind of perfection—being able to make sense of itself, and to stand on its own footing, is maturity.
For a person, it is harder to say. I think that one day, when you feel that you no longer need to be troubled at all by the question of whether you yourself are mature or not, then you are truly mature~
unic
2007-01-06 15:40:23 [Reply]
When a peasant no longer wonders whether he is cultured, that is to say, he no longer cares about this question, can you then say that he is cultured? Perhaps not.
Nowadays many middle-aged people have long since given up discussing the issue of “maturity”; can you then say they are mature?
Is maturity plural? It seems so.
The kind of person you want to become determines the concept of “maturity” in your heart.
“On the day when you feel that you no longer need to be troubled at all by the question of whether you yourself are mature or not, then you are truly mature~”
That seems like a necessary but not sufficient condition.
However, maybe it’s neither necessary nor sufficient.
unic
2007-01-06 15:53:24 [Reply]
By the way, the other day I happened to see Russell’s explanation of reason and sensibility. It was in the preface to his book on human ethics and politics (I think it was the preface).
He said: reason provides an effective (I think he used the word “effective”) choice of the means to achieve an established goal, while the goal itself cannot be decided by reason; the power of decision belongs to our sensibility (he did not actually use the word “sensibility,” but later in the text he quoted the famous line “We can only be the slaves of passion”).
This is just like your question “why run?”—in the end, it still cannot be explained by reason.
You probably understood this long ago and have read it too, but I’m just saying it casually here.
Can one then conclude that sensibility must necessarily be higher than reason?
Our Chinese teacher said he firmly believes that “emotion is a spiritual activity higher than reason.”
I also wonder whether the two are like parallel lines…
Gu
2007-01-06 16:10:16 [Reply]
Do you think “maturity” is a good thing? I’m not sure.
Are we talking about the feeling of maturity in a subjective sense, or the standard of maturity in an objective sense? Are we talking about the maturity of personality and individuality, or the maturity of thought and position? These are not quite the same. But there are similarities too.
When I say that a certain idea is mature, I probably mean that it is a formed and definite idea. When I say that a personality is mature, I probably mean that his personality is basically determined and formed, rather than immature: uncertain, unformed, and still in the process of growth and change.
What you seem to be talking about is a “mature person,” that is, the maturity of character, namely mental adulthood. I believe that in this respect, everyone is destined to mature; there is no escaping it. When one realizes that the arrival of maturity and the departure of innocence and naivety are unstoppable, then even longing for youth is useless—but maturity is not necessarily a good thing. Maturity means the end of growth; it means completion and fixation of form. When a person’s individuality and personality are basically set and no longer growing, that is maturity. So I say that those middle-aged people who have given up thinking about the issue of maturity are undoubtedly mature, because their growth has already been completed. And you are undoubtedly immature, because your mind is still growing.
Why are you so concerned with seeking a judgment on what counts as maturity? That is precisely the sign that you are not mature.
Youth happens only once; immaturity is precisely the hallmark of youth. Maturity will come sooner or later, so there is no need to pursue it deliberately. Treasure the immaturity before your eyes.
unic
2007-01-06 20:04:49 [Reply]
There was a time when I very much wanted to be mature, but that time has long since passed.
Now I seem to be considering the question of how to understand the adults around me. That is, the question of the direction one should take in life. Or, to put it another way, it is also a question of values.
You may have seen my piece
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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