GOD
IS DEAD |
|
Cinematic
Tribute |
to |
Nietzsche |
|
It
is one the greatest tragedies in literary history, that characters
as full of love and celebration as Nietzsche and his alter-ego
Zarathustra have come to be feared and associated with some
of the cruelest sentiments ever.
Zarathustra
himself laments:
| "My
teaching is in danger; weeds pose as wheat. My
enemies have grown powerful and have distorted my teaching
till those dearest to me must be ashamed of the gifts
I gave them... the hour has come to seek my lost ones." |
Nietzsche's
character is complex and multi-faceted - as is indeed the
case with all of us - and he doesn't shy away from portraying
his fiercest struggles, doubts, fears and
weaknesses. The most prevalent characteristics, however,
are those of joy, love and optimism, and are best summed up
in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
"This
crown of him who laughs, this rose-wreathe crown: I myself
have put on this crown.
"I
myself have pronounced my laughter holy. Nobody else have
I found strong enough for this today.
"Zarathustra
the dancer, Zarathustra the light, waves with his wings,
ready for flight, waving at all birds, ready and heady,
happily lightheaded; Zarathustra the sooth-sayer,
Zarathustra the sooth-laugher, not impatient, not
unconditional, one who loves, leaps and side-leaps: I
myself have put on this crown!" |
It
is only recently, a half century after the official defeat
of the Nazi Reich, that people are daring to peek into the
works of this great sage and find the gems of joy and beauty
which lay scattered there with reckless over-abundance; it
is only now that people are beginning to appreciate the atrocity
committed by those who have used Nietzsche and Zarathustra
as symbols of hatred, fascism and death.
But this process is slow, since few people read books like
Nietzsche's and even fewer people finish them. A filmed interpretation,
on the other hand, can easily make them accessible to an infinitely
larger audience and perhaps finally restore these artistic
treasures to their intended and deserved positions as sources
of joy and optimism for people of all cultures.
Please
be aware, however, that is not simply a desire for literary
justice that inspires us to make this film but rather the
nature of the works themselves which are so overwhelmingly
dramatic, picturesque and sensual, that they seem to be begging
for a cinematic adaptation. Nietzsche structured his writings
as a collection of hundreds of short vignettes in the forms
of fairytales, poems, riddles, dreams, songs, dances, short
stories and endless combinations thereof - resulting in
epic works of playful, intellectual beauty.
In
my opinion, to try to unify all these fragments into one coherent
whole, would minimize the level of articulation Nietzsche
achieved by expressing each detail in the form most suitable
to it. I believe that a cinematic interpretation would be
wise to follow this example and film each vignette in the
style and location most conducive to it. Thus, the various
speeches, poems and songs will be accompanied by Montages
which will be filmed in as many styles as necessary to effectively
capture their diverse characters. These will include Animation
(primarily the type pioneered by Jan Svankmajer's short films),
highly stylized Live-Action and Dance Sequences, as well as
Stock-Footage and Still Photography for historical references
and hard-to-find images.
MUSIC
The
musical score will also be a colorful mosaic of ancient and
contemporary musical styles that will be chosen to accompany
the film's diverse Montages and Dance Sequences. The mosaic
itself, however, will be strung together by several recurring
motifs which will be composed especially for this project.
Richard
Strauss wrote a beautiful orchestral homage to Thus Spake
Zarathustra but one which, in my opinion, puts too much
stress on Zarathustra's sinister side and only serves to perpetuate
the mistaken notion of Nietzsche as a violent German Nationalist.
There certainly are times when Nietzsche is filled with rage
and wrath towards those he believes have corrupted our world
to the point where we can no longer properly rejoice, and
during these moments the music will certainly be grave. But
these moments come and go and it is clear that Nietzsche's
main intent is to inspire love, joy and laughter in the minds
and hearts of his readers. It is this notion that will be
emphasized in the music - as well as in the film as a whole.
'ETERNITY'
The
logo of this film is a sketch of ´ETERNITY' - a creature
that will re-appear several times throughout the film and
which is meant to symbolize, or embody, Nietzsche's view of
Mother Nature.
As
´ETERNITY' hops & dances her way freely through
space, the surface of her ´never-ending' knot will constantly
be metamorphosing into as many natural substances, materials
and organisms as we can come up with. Her leg, too, will constantly
be changing into as many different types of legs as we can come up
with - animals, birds, humans, vegetation, other natural materials,
etc. These metamorphoses will be constant and as diverse as
our imaginations will allow, thereby creating the impression
that we are watching the essence of ever-changing, but never-dying,
Mother Nature.
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