What are the excellent films that embody the philosophy of "existentialism"

I think all the new waves are more or less existential, such as the Story of Cruel Youth by Zhudao.

In fact, there are many existential movies. Similarly, many films can also be analyzed from the perspective of existentialism. Generally speaking, almost half of the postwar western films (especially the religious themes in film noir) and many Japanese films have been influenced by existentialism to some extent.

Just add a few things you didn't mention.

mahjong

Director: Yang Dechang

Yang Dechang 1996 tells the story of the disintegration of several young people who cheat every day. It is the hero, Red Fish, who embodies existentialism, including the narrative loneliness of the whole character, which is also the change of his view on "human existence" and his father's suicide.

In the early stage of the film, there was a scene where two people were telling fortune and watching Feng Shui cheat money. Red fish advised Lun Lun to get rid of other thoughts. I believe that people who have seen this line have memories-

I will tell you what you want. No one in this world knows what he wants. Everyone is waiting for others to tell them what to do and they will follow suit. Just tell them what they want confidently and they will appreciate you. Do you know why? Because they are most afraid of blaming themselves for doing something wrong, they would rather scold others for lying to them than blame themselves.

This involves several key words of existentialism: the free choice of responsibility

Existentialism believes that people always have to choose, and freedom means making their own choices. You can make any choice, but once you make a choice, you must bear the responsibilities and obligations that come with it. This is the existential lifestyle of human beings. If you follow other people's ideas and follow the trend, then you are not really alive.

This line has changed its pattern and appeared several times from different people. It seems that Yang Dao likes it very much.

The father of Hericium erinaceus committed suicide, and Red Fish's outlook on life changed suddenly. In the last scene, facing his former business partner who had been kneeling in front of him, he shouted a line that could be called a soul speech. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at the half-dead hypocrite in front of him. The scene was well shot, and the long shot was cold, and the performance was done in one go.

Red fish: "Do you know that if you are still like this on the day you die, you will regret it?"

The other party: "Oh, little brother, we live to make money. What do you want to die for? "

……

In a rage, the red fish suddenly shot at each other.

The other party whined and struggled on the ground.

Red fish: "Is there? ! Do you feel dead! Is there! "

Author: doolittle

Link:/question/20162320/answer/78244556

Source: Zhihu.

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Just like mahjong, many films in Yang Dechang have the same theme, that is, thinking and confusion about "how to survive" and how to deal with the relationship between individuals and the world, which coincides with existentialism.

A Clockwork Orange

Stanley Kubrick

This famous film also has a typical existential theme. The problem it discusses is more acute and directly raises a question: Is it more important to be so-called "good" or to choose freely, even if the choice is "evil"? Dostoevsky's "Notes in the Basement" can be directly used as a footnote to the film:

It is precisely because people (no matter when and where, no matter who he is) like to act according to their own wishes, but not as driven by reason and interests at all; You may be willing to go against your own interests, but sometimes it is absolutely necessary ... Only in one case, only in one case, can people deliberately, consciously and even yearn for things that are harmful to them, stupid or even the stupidest, that is, in order to have the right to yearn for things that are even the stupidest to them, without being bound by obligations, and only yearn for things that make them smart.

All the problems of human beings really seem to be that people always prove to themselves that they are people, not small pins in institutions!

This is also the metaphor of clockwork orange. Oranges represent vivid flesh-and-blood people, and the state represents a highly mechanized clockwork of cold autocracy and violence. Those politicians don't face up to the value of people and regard people as simple mathematical formulas. If people's free will is deprived and replaced by life like a clockwork machine, where is the value of this rationality?