Wittgenstein

If people did not sometimes...

...do silly things,

nothing...

...intelligent would ever get done.

If people did not sometimes do silly things,

nothing intelligent would ever get done.

Hello.

My name is Ludwig Wittgenstein.

I'm a prodigy.

I'm going to tell you my story.

I was born in 1889

to a filthy-rich family in Vienna.

I would like to introduce them to you.

(Fanfare)

- This is my mother, Leopoldine.

She was crazy about music.

In fact, she was so busy

entertaining Brahms and Mahler

that we were left with the 26 tutors

and seven grand pianos.

Hermine, my oldest sister,

was an amateur painter.

Gretyl married an American

and was psychoanalysed by Freud.

Of Helene, we will remain silent.

Three of my brothers died young.

Hans ran away to America to escape dad,

and disappeared off a boat in Chesapeake Bay.

Kurt's troops rebelled in the First World War

and the shame drove him to suicide.

Rudolf, who was bent,

spent most of his time in Berlin.

When he wasn't being theatrical, he hung out

at the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.

He topped himself drinking a glass of cyanide

in his favourite bar.

That leaves Paul. He was a concert pianist,

but lost an arm in the war.

Ravel composed the

Concerto for the Left Hand especially for him.

And as for Dad, he was always in the office

investing in American bonds.

That's how we escaped inflation

and stayed rich -

mega-rich - like the Rockefellers.

(Gentle music)

In art, it is hard to say anything

as good as saying nothing.

Even to have expressed false thought boldly

and clearly is to have gained a great deal.

Of time.

The horrors of hell

can be experienced in a single day.

That's plenty of time.

(Murmurs)

(Babble of muttering)

I was to spend a lifetime

disentangling myself from my education.

"Quite the best to be had in Vienna," Mum said.

I shared a history teacher with Adolf Hitler.

What a scream.

(Babble of voices intensifies)

(Cacophony of voices)

(Faint muttering)

(Gunshot reverberates)

(Mimics gunshots)

(Faint ticking)

If someone is merely ahead of time,

it will catch him up one day.

I am in England.

Everything around me tells me so.

MALE VOICE:
Tell me how you're searching,

and I'll tell you what you're searching for.

Who's that?

Hail, earthling.

Earthling?

I'm a philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Who are you?

You could call me Mr Green.

May I ask you a question?

How many toes do philosophers have?

Ten.

Fascinating.

That's how many humans have.

Mr Green, philosophers are humans

and know how many toes they have.

Oh dear.

Does that mean

Martians can't be philosophers?

- Oh, God.

- (Xylophone)

LUDWIG AS AN ADULT: I escaped the family

by going to Manchester University.

Manchester,

an industrial town in the English north.

(Laughs) I remember my father saying,

"Where there's muck, there's brass."

Well, my aim was to be

a pioneer in aeronautics.

But my experiments

ended in a teenage failure and I gave up.

I abandoned my unsuccessful attempt

to design an engine,

and, like the English hero, Dick Whittington,

went south to Cambridge

to study philosophy with Bertrand Russell.

Why won't you just admit

there's no rhinoceros in this room?

Because, Professor Russell,

the world is made up of facts, not things.

Look for yourself.

I tell you for a fact,

there is no rhinoceros in this room!

The issue is metaphysical, not empirical.

I thought the next big step in philosophy

would be yours.

Now I am not so sure.

(Grunting)

Professor Russell.

Professor Russell.

(Crickets chirping)

Shh!

"Dear Ottoline,

Herr Schwinckel-Winkel,

hard at it on universals and particulars.

He has the pure intellectual passion in the

highest degree, and it makes me love him.

He says every morning

he begins his work with hope,

and every evening he ends in despair."

"We both have the same feeling

that one must understand or die.

He is the young man one hopes for.

His disposition is that of the artist,

intuitive and moody.

He affects me, just as I affect you.

I get to know every turn and twist of the ways

in which I irritate and depress you

- from watching how..."

RUSSELL:
"...he irritates and depresses me.

And at the same time I love and admire him.

His boiling passion may drive him anywhere. "

GILBERT & SULLIVAN:

I Am Alone And Unobserved

In short, my medievalism's affectation

Born of a morbid love of admiration

God, the English are a queer bunch.

Lady Ottoline Morrell was the queerest.

She was f***ing the gardener and Russell.

All the fun was in the country houses.

Everyone else was miserable.

Cambridge was miserable.

There was no oxygen there.

(Breathes hoarsely)

Can you imagine spending your evenings

with those pretentious apostles?

I was no fun at parties.

The drunken chit-chat of British intellectuals

bored me.

So, in desperation, I fled to Norway and built

a small house on a fjord at the end of the world.

I started to write Notes On Logic.

How can I be a logician

before I'm a human being?

The most important thing

is to settle accounts with myself.

It's much easier here in Norway.

The solitude is bliss.

I can do more work here in a day

than I can in a month around people.

Cambridge was absolutely unbearable!

A brothel.

Impossible to concentrate.

Here at last,

I feel... I'm solving things.

I've heard Herr Wittgenstein

has gone to Norway.

I told him it would be dark.

He said he hated daylight.

I told him it would be Lonely.

He said he prostituted his mind

talking to intelligent people.

I said he was mad.

He said God preserve him from sanity.

God certainly will.

Its shocking that he's never read Aristotle.

(Ticking)

LUDWIG:
I don't merely have

the visual impression of a pillar box.

I know this is a pillar box.

I know this is a hand.

And what is a hand?

This, for example.

It's a certain certainty.

I'm familiar with certainty.

I know this film studio is in Waterloo.

But how do I know

that you are Ludwig Wittgenstein?

(Gentle piano music)

Ludwig, Ludwig!

I've just heard from Mother

that you're going to join up.

Now, look, I understand wanting to do your bit

in this terrible war,

but why do you want to die in the trenches?

Why not get a clerical job in Vienna?

Because I want to go to the front.

Why put yourself at risk like this, Ludwig?

You've been exempted, for Christ's sake.

Standing eye to eye with death will give me

the chance to be a decent human being.

I'll be doing something.

(Stab of piano chords)

I'm going as well.

We've got to do our duty.

(Dramatic piano music)

(Gunfire and artillery fire)

Where two principles meet

which cannot be reconciled with one another,

then each calls the other a fool or a heretic.

(Gunfire and artillery fire)

I'm hated because I'm a volunteer!

I'm surrounded by people who hate me.

The nearness of death

will bring me the light of life.

God, enlighten me.

God, enlighten me!

I am a worm.

Pray God that I become a man.

God be with me.

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