Wings of Desire: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality
Film & Philosophy (Society for the Philosophic Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts) 13 (1):137-151 (2008)
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Abstract |
The question Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) forces us to answer is whether we too would be willing to renounce immortality? Or, to put it conversely, would we be wise to exchange our current mortal existence for immortality? If a state of senseless, inefficacious existence is undesirable, the question of the value of immortality becomes one of the conceivably of an alternative to the angels' form of existence. By contemplating the existence of the angels in Wings of Desire, we can see that they do not simply exemplify one possible eternal existence, but that the negative aspects of their being are perhaps essential features of the immortal. I begin by exploring another argument for the undesirableness of immortality that has taken center stage in the debate, then turn my attention to the film and present a novel argument against the value of immortality.
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Keywords | immortality Bernard Williams |
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References found in this work BETA
Philosophy in the Moving Image: Response to Bruce Russell.Noël Carroll - 2008 - Film and Philosophy:17-26.
Citations of this work BETA
Williams and the Desirability of Body‐Bound Immortality Revisited.A. G. Gorman - 2017 - European Journal of Philosophy:1062-1083.
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