Wittgenstein (1993, Derek Jarman) (Patreon)

49/100

Lands in the 99th percentile for biopic unconventionality—and that doesn't help much! There's still precious little about Ludwig Wittgenstein that lends itself to cinematic treatment, so we're stuck with lengthy, turgid scenes in which he hashes out philosophical ideas for students and fellow thinkers. That Jarman stages these (and everything else) in a theatrical black-box void doesn't automatically confer compelling artistry upon them, though I did appreciate the film's more playful abstractions, e.g. representing Wittgenstein's education by having adults stand around his boyhood avatar in a circle and shout books aloud at him (simultaneously). Less emphasis on queerness than I'd expected from Jarman, and he doesn't really find anything for Tilda Swinton to do as Lady Ottoline Morrell (a real-life aristocrat who's somehow made no impression upon me despite repeatedly showing up in films like Tom & Viv, Carrington and Benediction)—she's on hand simply because Bertrand Russell is, which is the sort of trap that a biopic this ostensibly radical really ought to avoid. Should note that my familiarity with Jarman's work is sadly limited—I'd previously seen only Blue (which I quite liked, to my surprise, though I wonder how much to credit the visual variety provided by the beat-up print I saw) and Jubilee—so it's entirely possible that autobiographical resonance and/or valedictory connections to his earlier work escaped my notice. If we're meant to engage with this as portraiture, however, I must conclude that no amount of formal experimentation can make an intellectual's life story palatable onscreen. Needs to be somebody like Glenn Gould, whose work lends itself to the medium.