CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/17/2020

Metrograph presents a live screening of Derek Jarman's 'Wittgenstein,' introduced by artist and Badlands Unlimited 'Word Book' publisher Paul Chan

Tuesday, November 17 at 8PM EST, Metrograph presents a live screening of Derek Jarman's 1993 film, Wittgenstein. The screening will be introduced by artist and Badlands Unlimited publisher Paul Chan, who will be launching the English edition of Wittgenstein’s Word Book—a dictionary for children—available now through Mast Books. To attend the screening, please join Metrograph here.

To know a philosopher strictly through their philosophical works is to misread both the philosopher and the works. The more majestic the thinking is, the greater the spell it casts over us, and the harder it is to grasp the true stakes of how or why those thoughts matter at all. A concept that transcends the moment never appears ex nihilo: it arises out of experience. Living is what gives thinking power and value. Wittgenstein knew as much, but Wittgenstein showed it to us as never before. He lived an extreme life, filled with radical ideas, terrible stretches of suffering, and unbearable desires. He could be cruel. But also tender. And very funny. When he abandoned Cambridge in 1920 to teach poor kids in rural Austria, he said it was because he was “sick of prostituting his mind for smart people.” Contradictions typically saddle people with sadness, anxiety or rage. Wittgenstein constructed a citadel for the mind with his. How did he do it? What does it take to reconcile the contradictions with the concepts, in Wittgenstein, or anyone for that matter? It takes genuine art, of course, like this singular film by Derek Jarman.

To attend the screening, please join Metrograph here.

Word Book is available from Mast Books.