The poeisis of thinking

Yesterday's post tried to show why the cigarette in Hannah Arendt does not function like a cinematic or literary metaphor for her often times rather intimate moments of thinking. I carried further my thoughts on what the metaphor is, or rather can be to stress the point that even when the metaphor's complexity is not placated, the cigarette does not necessarily hold a metaphorical connection with the images of Hannah Arendt's engrossed, immersed, submerged in the acts of thinking. 

Thinking enters the realm of praxis where the dramatization of thinking, be it Hannah Arendt's or that of anyone less eminent, falls under the burden of poeisis. How cinema cogently, evocatively or emotively represents the weighty moments of a philosopher's thought production requires other than mere realistic representation? By other than mere realistic representation I refer to the balance that the creation of such scenes requires. These scenes need to reconcile the probable realism of how thinking might have been experienced by the historical Hannah Arendt and how the director, von Trotta, imagines that someone like Hannah Arendt must have engaged with thinking. The balance situates itself in the recreation of scenes that promise to be appealing rather than isolating to the viewer. The acts of Hannah Arendt's thinking need to be as compelling as seductive as her ideas. 

It is perhaps in the ways that such scenes are configured that a committed sympathy for Hannah Arendt's intellectual (and ethical) positions can be gleaned from von Trotta's direction. Rather than the scenes in which Hannah Arendt exposits her ideas with vigor, it is the scenes showing her alone in the faithful company of her cigarettes, quietly, calmly toiling with thought that suggest undeniable affinity between the filmmaker and the philosopher. Von Trotta's treatment of these challenging scenes, which she's handles with quiet elegance, reminds us that there is no naturalist way of portraying the act of thinking. For Hannah Arendt, thinking cannot be dislodged from pathos, even agony at times. Thinking cannot be practiced with levity, particularly the thinking of such matters.     

According to Ancient Greek thought, poeisis relates to truth as praxis relates more closely to will. Even though the publication of Hannah Arendt's report of the trial in Jerusalem and her response to the aggressive attacks to her and her analysis of Eichmann's role in the Holocaust, shows the presence of her unmovable and determined will, her moments of thinking in the film appear as the dramatization less of energetic will than the relentless yet serene desire for truth.