Wednesday, August 8, 2007

hopelessness of not being able to die

before the storm:





(fade to red)



it is early in the morning and i am in pain










(cinematography by sven nykvist)

i was asked to look for some frames from ingmar bergman's cries and whispers (1972) that illustrate kierkegaard's hopelessness of not even being able to die* for a ghostly observer of the art of memory (zeyno dagli) who is writing her phd-thesis on death, dying and suffering.
here are a few...

*'when death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life. but when one learns to know the even more horrifying danger, one hopes for death. when the danger is so great that death has become the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die.'
s. kierkegaard from 'sickness unto death,' london; penguin books, p.48

(on a side note, michael haneke must have watched this over and over before he did the piano teacher)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

red walls and liv's blue blue eyes, it brings back the joys and terrors of the first-run-movie-theater-experience -- exiting afterward, grinning with pleasure, and one of the friends-along saying, "Ghoul!"

the art of memory said...

the master of "joys and terrors", such lush horror, beautiful, yet impossible to watch.
reminded me of the haneke piano teacher. on the one side; schubert and on the other; masochism and brutality.