In the Age of Reason, Revisiting Existence If the madness or death of philosophers allows people to glimpse the human condition of an era, then astronauts are the philosophers of the 21st century. In the post-Kantian era, we have reached the stars, but have we reached existence? In "Interstellar", Roy and Roy's father embark on two separate paths of existentialism. One is Nietzsche's, the other is Heidegger's. Roy's father was the head of the Lima plan, during which his crew mutinied. But that's not the reason Roy's father oversteps his responsibilities, exercising the power of life and death, it's part of the action itself. The object of his rebellion is what needs to be truly recognized - this is the driving force of his actions. During Roy's flight to the moon, there are two vignettes. One is a pillow and blanket costing $125, and the other is a display of kitsch tourism projects on the moon. This may seem like an unintentional satire on consumerism, but to Roy's father, it's a twist on unfinished business and a maddening spread of banality; Souvenir shirt vendors smashed. Instead of smashing the peddler, Roy's father killed all of his crew—because their willingness to be mediocre and "the world" hindered the realization of his ideals. This is the moment when Raskolnikov's ghost reappears. They use their reason to see through the evil diseases of society and eliminate them. But Raskolnikov was swallowed by the will to power in an instant, and he could only find salvation in religion. Unlike Roy's father, he has something like modern technology to support him without moral judgment, and he also knows very well that this is an era of "God is dead" and he doesn't want and can't be like Raskolnico He fled into religion like a husband, so he turned to Nietzsche and became superman. It was this hope of becoming Superman that drove him to do terrible things, and it was this hope that destroyed him. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, there is a dwarf who tried to prevent Zarathustra from going to a higher place while he was climbing. Not giving in to this dwarf was Zarathustra's failure, Nietzsche's failure, and Roy's father's failure. This dwarf is the mediocrity of human nature, and they refuse to admit it. Roy's father even abandoned his wife and son to escape the dwarf, but he did not escape the failure of the Lima plan. Eventually Nietzsche went mad and Roy's father banished himself into space. At the end of the film, Roy wears similar clothes as at the beginning, and the camera uses a similar camera position. Why can't this be regarded as a dialectical rebirth? Roy has to face deeper than mediocrity, it is the cornerstone of Western civilization , but also the culprit that obscures existence—rationality. Since Plato, reason has ruled the spiritual world of the West. In Aquinas, even God is understood by reason. However, Roy's struggle against rationality is not just a simple regression. This kind of struggle is built on the basis of modern civilization, reflecting on the rationality that alienates us, allowing human beings to return to the field of existence and return to a state of "uncoveredness" (Aletheia); human beings at this time will Will have the stars and each other. If Roy's father's "interstellar exploration" is to fight against mediocrity, then Roy's "interstellar exploration" is to find existence. From the very beginning of the film, Roy's character throughout the first half of his life is clearly explained. He was determined, ruthless, put his career first, and was even indifferent to his wife's departure. The moment of greater clarity was when the general said in the conference room that his pulse never exceeded 80, not even in the most recent accident. Clearly, in Roy's mind, the possibility of death was diluted, overshadowed by his father's glow. Heidegger said that death is a possibility that human beings have to face, only "to live to death" (Sein zum Tode) will force humanity back to its eigentlich existence. Before Roy began to question his father after seeing the secret video the colonel gave him, he mentioned admiring his father and re-watching the video his father sent him. But he has only reverence for his father, no love. The father at this time was like a god to Roy. Here, even some sonata rhythms are revealed. Birth-departure-home, reminiscent of Bergman's Autumn Sonata. But "Autumn Sonata" gave mother and daughter a chance to reconcile, but Roy thought that his father had died, which directly cut off the possibility of emotional reconciliation between father and son. Losing the possibility of reconciliation, Roy had to use rational reverence (not faith) to forge a God-like image of a father and convince himself to believe in it. This seems to have reached the level of religion that Kierkegaard called existence. But the religion Krishna said was a "leap" of faith that rejected reason. Roy's "God" here is clearly a false rational God. This meant that the veil Roy used to cover death was very fragile. Roy witnesses death three times in the film. After witnessing the captain being killed by an orangutan, he expresses his doubts about his father's image in a psychological evaluation; after Roy kills the members of the Cepheus, he first Lonely, both mentally and physically - and without the protection of her father. He was drifting alone in space—often the most iconic expression of nothingness, feeling the loneliness of being left behind in the world, the unknown universe and the possibility of death simultaneously opening up to him. At a moment like this, Roy is forced to think about his own existence by the possibility of death. At the same time, there is a consistent key word in Gray's work at play here - emotion. Gray has created seven feature films, most of them in the guise of genre films. I thought the difference in the period was that Gray was good at driving the story with emotion and always kept it at the heart of the film. In "We Own the Night," it was father and son that drove Bobby's mutiny; in "Immigration," it was love that made Bruno give himself. In the first half of "Interstellar," however, emotion is often absent. Descartes said "I think therefore I am", Heidegger replaced "I think" with "I have emotions". Roy had been almost emotionless before, but cracks appeared in the grim mask as the father figure faltered. First, after watching the secret video, Roy said a lot before passing the psychological evaluation; then it was Roy's confession to a human father instead of a divine father on Mars, after which the psychological evaluation was directly unqualified. The irony is that the machine, as the crystallization of reason, has a
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