Abstract

This paper outlines the effectiveness of films as a pedagogical tool for teaching philosophy. For the author, a film skillfully explores philosophical issues, capturing students’ attention and providing a setting for discussion. The author focuses on the use of Lars von Trier's Zentropa as a beneficial tool for discussion of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. The film adequately illustrates the two positions of the aesthete and the judge, and demonstrates the adverse affects of avoiding choice in one's life. The film can also be useful in an introductory course and a class on existentialism because it attends to the larger philosophical questions of how one should live their life.