Philosophy Club Movie Night

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Lauren von Aspen, Journalist

On Saturday, May 25, the CdM Philosophy Club held one of their monthly movie nights at a member’s house. Club members attended this movie night to watch the 2001 animated film Waking Life. In this independent artsy movie, an unnamed main character explores several philosophical ideas through a series of disjointed, unconnected conversations with strangers, philosophers, chemists, screenwriters, and old friends. About halfway through the movie, the main character, played by Wiley Wiggins, realizes he is dreaming, and spends a lot of the time in the second half of the movie attempting to break free of this dream. Waking Life discusses free will, existentialism, evolution, anarchy, control, the nature of dreams and of reality itself through a unique style of animation known as rotoscoping. Rotoscoping involves taking a live-action recording and tracing over it to give the animation a realistic-but-not-quite sort of feel. The director, Richard Linklater, most likely chose this style of animation in order to make Waking Lifefeel more dream-like. The movie night was a fun and informative experience for all those who attended. The next philosophy club meeting, held twice a month in Mr. Breslin’s room, will be a discussion of the movies and the ideas central to it. To learn more about philosophy club, follow @cdmphilosophy on Instagram.