Oliveira and Wittgenstein

This is a comment I left on Danny's post on O Quinto Império - Ontem Como Hoje. Read my previous, more in-depth post on this film here.

"I wonder how much of Oliveira’s project is Wittgensteinian… I’m thinking not so much of the Investigations, but of his earlier work (esp the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), which asserts that the analysis of language is the only way to meaningfully discuss the facts that make up the world [”Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”]. That is the last sentence of the Tractatus, which to me means that Wittgenstein sees other things as important but they are, literally, unspeakable. Does the weighty absence of these things in Wittgenstein’s work connect to those moments in Oliveira’s work when things are not spoken (the Jesus in the tapestry, for instance)?"

The above is in need of an expansion, but not now; I'm off to see O Lucky Man! now, and If... a bit later on. Here's your bonus Wittgenstein content of the day: three clips from Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein (via the new Wittgenstein blog The Wittgenstein Forum):