In the early spring of Shanghai, after sitting for a long time, the night wind is still a little cold. In the atrium of the Blackstone Apartments, a friend and I recommended this film. Although I wasn't very interested in philosophy, I paid a special visit to the courthouse when I went to Nuremberg. So it took two nights to finish watching this two-hour biopic. The tone of the whole film is a little dull, some plots are slow in rhythm, some memories are abrupt, and if you lack some background knowledge, you will be confused. The highlight is the black and white documentary of the actual Nuremberg trials interspersed with Hannah's public speech.
The main line of the film is the background of the trial of former Nazi officer Eichmann. Hannah went to Nuremberg as a special correspondent for The New Yorker to listen, and wrote a book after returning. The book fell like a boulder and caused an uproar in the academic world. Friends around her broke off with her because of this. Her best friend turned around and ignored her. The college where she taught asked her to suspend classes. Abusive letter. Many readers have sent letters, most of which are slander and even personal attacks.
Ultimately, she agreed to speak publicly. In the lecture hall, she was smoking a cigarette, her face was lonely but her tone was flat. She said, starting from Plato and Aristotle, thinking is the silent dialogue I begin with myself. The inability to think creates a possibility for many ordinary people, such as committing a big crime. Eichmann was only executing the order mechanically, and he had given up thinking before executing it. This kind of wrong execution without thinking in the brain is a kind of "sin of banality". Different from "extreme evil". She's not defending Eichmann or hurting Jews, she's just sticking to her philosophical views. Although she is Jewish and has experience in French isolation camps, she can objectively, neutrally and without emotion conduct a purely rational philosophical analysis of the trial.
At that moment, I suddenly realized that, in fact, cyber violence and moral kidnapping are also a kind of refusal to think, lazy to think, and a mediocre evil that echoes what others say. Mr. Lu Xun has long said that the iron house has no windows and can hardly be destroyed. There are many sleeping people in it, and they will soon suffocate to death. So, do you want to be the one who yells, or the more awake one who is startled, or choose to stay asleep?
Of course, because of the female director, this film also shows another side of Hannah. She is not only an intellectual who is cold and focused on debate, but also a woman who is eager to love and value appearance. She wears pearl necklaces, folded gold bracelets, and well-fitting suits; she also goesssips with her girlfriends; has a warm relationship with her husband, never forgets to ask for a kiss when she goes out; . Reunited with his teacher Heidegger and took a walk in the birch forest. She is already middle-aged, and the feelings of those years may have been deeply embedded in her heart, but Heidegger used Augustine's words to make fun of "To win the love of others, first of all To love others."
Perhaps her teacher knew her well. When he saw her for the first time, he said, "You said that you want me to teach you how to think. Thinking is a lonely act." And she just stood there straight, youthful, wanton and bright eyes. red lips. Just like a bright red rose, the whole room is fragrant. It is true that thinking does not bring knowledge, thinking does not produce practical wisdom, and thinking does not empower us to act, but independent thinking makes us more and more aware, even if the process is lonely.
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