Art and Philosophy

When you want to reach the greatest number of people possible
with a philosophical message, wrap the message in popular art. Existentialism
is associated closely with literature, theatre, music, and film. Creative writers are indisputably among the influential thinkers classified as “existential” by critics and scholars.

Existential figures include Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and John
Barth. Poets from John Milton to Charles Bukowski are also considered influential within existential philosophy. Could we describe existentialism as an artistic and literary movement?

Because of its dramatic conception of existence, its widespread use of
powerful images in its arguments, and its appeal to personal response in
its communications, existentialism has always been closely associated with
the fine arts. In fact, both Camus and Sartre were offered the Nobel Prize
for Literature (which Sartre declined). Kierkegaard was a kind of poet
who used pseudonyms, parables, and other forms of ‘indirect communication’
to enlist our personal involvement in the matter at hand. Nietzsche was
one of the great prose artists of the German language and his allegory
of a religious prophet, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, like Sartre’s Nausea, is a model of philosophical dramatization. The novels of Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86), too, are expressions of her philosophical insights. Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) wrote philosophy in a meditative manner that he once said was perhaps better exhibited in his 30 published plays. […] So strong is the influence ofexistentialist ideas in the fine arts that, as we have seen, some would prefer to describe existentialism as a literary movement. Certainly, authors like Dostoevsky and Kafka, playwrights like Beckett and Ionesco, and artists like Giacometti and Picasso exemplify many of the defining characteristics of existentialist thought.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Thomas R. Flynn, p. 16

As a writer, I know the power of creative writing, especially
when you want to explore how an individual reacts to situations. Academic
writing tends to be not only dry but, bluntly, much of it is horrible. By
mastering other literary forms, the existentialists became more effective
writers in general. Few other philosophical schools of thought have had the
reach of existentialism outside academia, in no small part because these
thinkers were interesting authors.

On the Screen and Stage

Many movies and plays are character-driven. The famous
formula in dramatic writing is the “heroic journey” narrative following
a character through stages of personal growth. Stories of personal discovery
and self-definition can seem “existential” even when they lack depth. I
suggest an existential story should go beyond mere personal growth by asking,
“What would this character die for and why?” This is more than a heroic
journey: it carries with it an element of martyrdom. One model of this
story formula depicts the main character…

Born into the elite class.
Banished for a mistake in judgment (real or perceived).
Wandering, seeking a sense of purpose.
Embracing a cause, complete with a mission.
Sacrificing and taking a risk to complete the mission.
Discovering the “authentic” self.

There are endless variations of this formula. We never
seem to tire of the brave hero willing to sacrifice everything for a nobel
cause. But, what of the person born to an average existence, destined for
an unremarkable life, and a potentially absurd ending? How does that individual
choose a purpose and strive to be authentic? How does the unsung character
in a middling life rise to define his or her existence?

Theatre has addressed questions of free will, choice,
and self from the earliest days of drama. Early Greek, Chinese, and African
theatre each began as social instruction — “good” theatre taught the audience
how to live through example. But soon early theatre was asking bigger questions:
Are we free to be something other than what society expects? Are we free
at all, or amusement for the gods?

Freedom, true freedom, leads to existential anxiety and
responsibility. That makes for great theatre and classic cinema.

I’ve had students suggest Disney’s The
Lion King is “existential.” This confuses the “coming of age” narrative for existentialism. The animated feature hints at the possibility its hero, Simba, could choose a different path — only to insist that his path in life is predetermined based on his birthright. Nice story, but not one of true choice and authenticity. The brave knight returns is not existential, but a classic story nonetheless.

Silver Screen Struggles

Many of the feature films associated with existentialism
deal with issues of mortality. That death would be a primary concern should
not surprise readers of Camus, Heidegger, Kafka, or Sartre. Each of these writers suggested that confronting our mortality can lead us to create meaning during life. Any list of existential cinema naturally includes films in which the protagonist confronts death and makes a choice to define his or her self.

The films discussed in this section are listed in
order of year released.

The text Existentialism for Dummies (Panza and Gale, 2008) includes a chapter dedicated to “ten great existential movies” and another dedicated to existential literature. There are also numerous lists of “existential films” scattered about the World Wide Web. One of the great things about trying to define existentialism is that everyone seems to have a slightly different view of what does or does not qualify for the label — especially in the creative arts. The following are merely my recommendations, not a definitive list of films with existential themes.

Ikiru (1952)

Directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa [IMDB
entry]

When Mr. Watanabe, a middle-aged bureaucrat, is diagnosed
with terminal cancer, he finds himself on a quest for meaning. So begins
the film masterpiece Ikiru. After more than two decades in a government job, to which he has dedicated his daily life, Watanabe starts to question if his role in the world has been meaningful. If not, he has “wasted” two decades during which he could have been pursuing a purpose.

Bureaucrats and the rules they enforce appear in several
existential films, implying that systems are inherently dehumanizing. Civil
service duties seem pointless, though thousands of men and women toil away
at government jobs on behalf of “society.” A mid-level corporate job would
be as dehumanizing and at least as pointless in some settings. In 1952
Japan the audience could relate to a government worker because the government
was central to the reconstruction of post-war Japanese society.