Nietzsche and Cinema: Cinematography as an Expression of Unity between Apollonian and Dionysian Impulses

Radu, Cristian

doi:10.2478/saec-2023-0022

Abstract

The following article analyzes the process of filmmaking through the framework of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy. Specifically, it centers on cinema as an example of the interplay of both Apollonian and Dionysian impulses. The first half of the article provides a definition of Nietzsche’s dichotomy and two descriptions of Apollonian-Dionysian unities as cultural tendencies and artistic elements. The second half of the article examines how key aspects of the movie production process embody either Apollonian or Dionysian elements. Additionally, a case study of the film Pan’s Labyrinth is employed to exemplify these concepts in a movie experience.

References

Aumont, Jacques, A. Bergala, M. Marie, M. Vernet, eds. Aesthetics of Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bazin, André. What is Cinema? vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2005.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Blankier, Margot.“A Very Serious Problem with the People Taking Care of the Place’: Duality and the Dionysian Aspect in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.” The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies 13, (2014): 3-17
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2008.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Burch, Noel. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1981.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Burnham, Douglas. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy: a reader’s guide. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. 2010.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Carlevale, John. “The Dionysian Revival in American Fiction of the Sixties.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 12, no. 3 (2006): 364–391.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cavell, Stanley, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1979.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dankowska, Jagna, „The philosophy of music and tragedy. Nietzsche and Wagner.” Heksis. Accessed November 2, 2023. https://heksis.dezintegracja.pl/en/ the-philosophy-of-music-and-tragedy-nietzsche-and-wagner.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hendricks, Scotty, “What Nietzsche really meant: The Apollonian and Dionysian.” BigThink. Accessed November 5, 2023. https://bigthink.com/scotty-hen-dricks/what-nietzsche-really-meant-the-apollonian-anddionysian.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. New York: Meridian Books. 1956.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lukasiewicz, D. Tracie. “The Parallelism of the Fantastic and the Real: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth/El Laberinto del fauno and Neomagical Realism,” in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, edited by P. Greenhill, S. E. Matrix, 60-78. Colorado: University of Colorado Press. 2010.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Luyster, Robert, “Nietzsche/Dionysus: Ecstasy, Heroism, and the Monstrous.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 21 (2001): 1-26.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Markotic, Lorraine, “A Visual Dionysian: Nietzsche’s Aesthetics and Pan’s Labyrinth,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy 8, no. 2 (2016): 180-198.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and other writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Orme, Jennifer, “Narrative Desire and Disobedience in Pan’s Labyrinth”, Marvels & Tales 24, no. 2 (2010): 219-234.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Panofsky, Erwin. “Style and Medium in the Moving Pictures.” in Film, edited by Daniel Talbot, 15-32. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1959.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Posocco, Art. “Apollonian and Dionysian Artistic Impulses in The Lego Movie.” The Artifice, Accessed 28 November, 2023, https://the-artifice.com/thelego-movie-apollonian-dionysian/.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Raymond, Paul. Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Routledge. 2013.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Thormann, Janet, „Other Pasts: Family Romances of Pan’s Labyrinth,” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 2, no. 13 (2008): 175–187.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Nietzsche and Cinema: Cinematography as an Expression of Unity between Apollonian and Dionysian Impulses

Abstract

Paradigm

My account