Episode 6 of renowned filmmaker Chris Marker's mythical masterpiece about…
The Owl's Legacy: Logomachy, or the Dialect of the Tribe
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
“The adventures of language may be the most meaningful thing in world history.” -- Nikos Svoronos
The word “logos” stands at the start of Greek philosophy. A word that defies simple translation, it lies at the root of terms including logic, dialogue, and dialectic. The Greek word for literature is “logotechnia” -- the technique of logos.
LOGOMACHY explores logos in its many forms, from Socratic dialogue and its implications when it comes to both education and power, to the five different forms the Greek language, to language as a battle in search for truth. The episode includes a discussion of Plato's Cratylus dialogue on the relationship between words and objects, and points to the next installment in the series, on a space beyond language: the realm of music.
“We should raze the Sorbonne and put Chris Marker in its place.” —Henri Michaux
“The primary pleasure of the series, which is incredibly inspiring, is linked to this great banquet of participants, the sum of knowledge they invoke, but above all to the playful flows the editing establishes between their ideas, constructing a formidable network of meanings, historical and cultural perspectives - a veritable encyclopedia of development." —Le Monde
“Why did we have to wait so long for this electrifyingly intelligent film?” —Le Point
“Thirteen words to uncover an entire civilization and reestablish its considerable influence on our modern societies.” —Les Inrockuptibles
“With erudition, Chris Marker questions in each episode what remains Greek within us.” —Philosophie Magazine
Citation
Main credits
Marker, Chris (film director)
Peck, Bob (narrator)
Other credits
Music, Eleni Karaindrou [and 5 others]; camerapersons, Andreas Sinanos, Jimmy Glasberg, Peter Chappell; editing team, Khadicha Bariha, Nedjma Scialom.
Distributor subjects
Historical Anthropology; Ancient Greece; Chris Marker; France; PhilosophyKeywords
"The Owl's Legacy"; Icarus Films; France; Chris Marker; Ancient Greece; culture; ,doc,art; history; shod
WEBVTT
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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A road we have followed over
3,415 miles down to the Cape
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Verde islands.
00:01:39.395 --> 00:02:22.400 align:middle line:90%
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On the wall of Baltasar
Lopes, photographs
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from the Sao Nicolau seminary,
when the Cape Verde islands
00:02:28.940 --> 00:02:30.320 align:middle line:90%
were still a Portuguese colony.
00:02:30.320 --> 00:02:52.030 align:middle line:90%
00:02:52.030 --> 00:02:54.460 align:middle line:84%
Logically, the Portuguese
or Latin people
00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:56.596 align:middle line:90%
were Greece\'s true heirs.
00:02:56.596 --> 00:02:57.970 align:middle line:84%
But after their
fight for freedom
00:02:57.970 --> 00:03:01.120 align:middle line:84%
alongside Amilcar
Cabral, Cape Verdeans
00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:02.890 align:middle line:90%
can now claim that heritage.
00:03:02.890 --> 00:16:33.605 align:middle line:90%
00:16:33.605 --> 00:16:39.100 align:middle line:84%
The education that one receives
in the humanities in certainly
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Western Europe and
the United States is,
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by and large, founded
by the Sophists
00:16:45.490 --> 00:16:47.290 align:middle line:90%
and continued by Socrates.
00:16:47.290 --> 00:16:51.190 align:middle line:84%
It\'s the education
in thinking, arguing,
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whether orally or now usually
in the writing of papers,
00:16:53.610 --> 00:16:56.936 align:middle line:84%
the digesting of material
and arguing intelligently
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about subject matter that quite
often is incapable of proof one
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way or the other.
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And one\'s skill
in argumentation,
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one\'s demonstrated ability
to outshine, again,
00:17:08.140 --> 00:17:10.960 align:middle line:84%
other students or other
members of your company
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in writing reports and
supplying material,
00:17:12.970 --> 00:17:14.530 align:middle line:90%
is what gets you ahead in life.
00:17:14.530 --> 00:17:20.710 align:middle line:84%
And the humanistic education
in its negative dimensions,
00:17:20.710 --> 00:17:25.599 align:middle line:84%
insofar as it is providing a
service to corporate America,
00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:28.240 align:middle line:84%
if you like, is training people
to do those kinds of things
00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:30.460 align:middle line:84%
in just the same way
that Socrates\' education
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or the education of
Protagoras and Gorgias
00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:35.650 align:middle line:84%
in the late fifth century
was training people
00:17:35.650 --> 00:17:38.200 align:middle line:84%
to be good citizens, successful
citizens, to be better
00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:39.190 align:middle line:90%
than their peers.
00:17:39.190 --> 00:17:41.040 align:middle line:84%
The enormous problem
in the United States,
00:17:41.040 --> 00:17:42.790 align:middle line:84%
and probably in Western
Europe as a whole,
00:17:42.790 --> 00:17:45.400 align:middle line:84%
is that when you
leave the university
00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:48.910 align:middle line:84%
with this body of
knowledge, these techniques
00:17:48.910 --> 00:17:52.450 align:middle line:84%
of argumentation, of thinking,
this mental flexibility, if you
00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:55.300 align:middle line:84%
like, and perhaps
heightened moral awareness,
00:17:55.300 --> 00:17:58.636 align:middle line:84%
if you\'re lucky, there is
nothing for you to do with it.
00:17:58.636 --> 00:18:00.010 align:middle line:84%
There\'s no community
to which you
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feel you belong which you
can then go and work for.
00:18:01.690 --> 00:18:03.880 align:middle line:84%
At least for many of
us, that is the problem.
00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:05.570 align:middle line:84%
That\'s why perhaps
some of us decided
00:18:05.570 --> 00:18:07.690 align:middle line:84%
to go back into the
university again, and look
00:18:07.690 --> 00:18:10.900 align:middle line:84%
at it some more, and
stay insulated that way.
00:18:10.900 --> 00:18:12.970 align:middle line:84%
But it still seems
to me that that kind
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of an educational tradition
is one that is specifically
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Greek in foundation,
and something
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that we should not neglect.
00:18:20.380 --> 00:18:54.910 align:middle line:90%
00:18:54.910 --> 00:18:56.680 align:middle line:90%
--who has the knowledge.
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One of them has the
knowledge and tries
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to transmit it in various ways.
00:19:02.930 --> 00:19:09.100 align:middle line:84%
So one is the leader and
the other one is the pupil,
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or if you want, the analysand.
00:19:10.630 --> 00:22:38.920 align:middle line:90%
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A sortie through the
streets of Athens,
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where every plaque is a signpost
for an adventure in language.
00:22:44.130 --> 00:22:47.000 align:middle line:84%
But a maze within that maze
may bring us further back
00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.030 align:middle line:84%
into a world whose language
is still open to choice,
00:22:50.030 --> 00:22:52.640 align:middle line:84%
or reaches towards the
extremity of language,
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:55.340 align:middle line:84%
the point which no
language is able to touch,
00:22:55.340 --> 00:22:57.350 align:middle line:90%
which we call music.
00:22:57.350 --> 00:22:59.200 align:middle line:84%
Let\'s imagine that
the fate of the logos
00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:02.030 align:middle line:84%
is logomachy, the
wrestle with words,
00:23:02.030 --> 00:23:04.265 align:middle line:84%
that music be the
food of self-renewal
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and self-purification.
00:23:06.630 --> 00:23:09.805 align:middle line:84%
And let\'s call it, to use
yet another Greek word,
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a hypothesis.
00:23:10.982 --> 00:24:56.750 align:middle line:90%
00:24:56.750 --> 00:24:59.800 align:middle line:90%
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Distributor: Icarus Films
Length: 26 minutes
Date: 1989
Genre: Expository
Language: French; German; English
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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