Tragic philosophy and pedagogy of choice: cinematography imaginaries on life affirmation

Abstract

The relationship between tragic philosophy (nothing, chance and convention) and the affirmation of life (amor fati), as established by Friedrich Nietzsche and Clément Rosset, is studied in this article under the method of hermeneutic perspectivism and in dialogue with the films Lucky (2017), directed by John Carroll Lynch, Paterson (2016), by Jim Jarmush, and The Wild Pear Tree (2018), by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The imaginaries of these three cinematographic works reflect a process of reflection on life that culminates in approving tragical, revealed from the trajectory of the protagonists and the formative character of their experiences, whose knowledge (páthei mathos) converges with the pedagogy of choice in their three movements: the suspension of belief, through which the aesthetic game that allows seeing the world from another perspective is established; the aesthetics of experience, which values the knowledge exercised by works of fiction; and, finally, the constitution of (self)formation itineraries, which organize the formative experiences and enable the choice of the tragic statement. The conclusions reveals that, in line with the continuity of life of the protagonists of the studied films, the unconditional affirmation of life is not the result, the final step of a choice, but a continuous process of approval.