Wittgenstein

Derek Jarman´s latest film premiered in London´s Institute of Contemporary Arts in March this year to widespread critical acclaim for both director and actor KARL JOHNSON who plays the central character. A visually stylish and humorous exploration of the life of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, it was conceived as the first of a series of films on philosophers for Channel 4´s Education Department, (which will be shown at intervals over the next year), and filmed in just two weeks. Born in Vienna in 1889 of wealthy parents Ludwig Wittgenstein declared himself a prodigy at an early age and went on to be one of the twentieth century´s greatest philosophers with an abiding preoccupation with language. One of nine children, of his four brothers, three committed suicide, whilst the other, Paul achieved fame as a concert pianist. The film follows Wittgenstein´s life from youthful protege with young Ludwig (Clancy Chassy) engaging in some remarkable philosophical debates with a Martian. The older Wittgenstein (Karl Johnson) journeys to England and Cambridge where his intellectual nurturing under Betrand Russell (Michael Gough) and the flamboyant Lady Ottoline Morrell (Tilda Swinton), mark him as a man of extraordinary intellectual capability. The film tracks his early written work, his relationships with his family and his eventual acceptance of a teaching post arranged for him through Professor John Maynard Keynes (John Quentin). His ideas are not readily accepted by his students. Wittgenstein travels to Soviet Russia to try to work as a volunteer manual labourer and is disillusioned when instead, the authorities offer him a university post. Wittgenstein retreats to Ireland, finally dying of cancer in Cambridge in 19521, where, at his death bed, he is attended by Maynard Keynes and the Martian of his youth.