Philosophers on Film?

While I continue to procrastinate in writing about last week's Jose Luis Guerin retrospective (I will, I promise) - I see some interesting footage making the rounds (though it seems to have been around a while), purporting to be of Frederich Nietzsche, on his sickbed. It's not, of course - as Brian Leiter notes - it's digitally altered photos. It's pretty easy to spot - the pictures are famous; the animation isn't all that good (the morphing is obvious in most of the shots) - and the cinematography itself is quite impossible in 1899 - camera movement, zooms - no, no, no. On the other hand, there is this footage - which is a good deal more believable. For one thing, Nietzsche (or the actor playing him, if this is staged - which is always a possibility) moves - really and actually. The film itself looks about right: the camera is stable, the shots relatively brief; and it looks beat up in a convincing way. Splotchy, scraped up, with flashes of white - even on YouTube's crappy video, you can get an idea of what the actual damage looks like - even if it's not authentic, it's been accurately damaged.

That may prove relevant to some Guerin films...