Is the movie about Friedrich Nietzsche When Nietzsche Wept historically accurate?
By: Ringo Bones
Maybe a modicum of blame should be placed on Gene
Roddenberry because in his Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda science fiction TV
series put forth the impression that Nietzscheans – as in Friedrich Nietzsche –
was into late 20th Century extreme games / X-Games or has invented
it. And no, snowboarding wasn’t invented by Nietzsche. To those who only knew
Nietzsche from Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda could be facing disappointment once
he or she knew the “historically accurate” version of Nietzsche.
Well, even though in some relatively “religiously
conservative” regions of the word, the movie When Nietzsche Wept – a.k.a. “That
Nietzsche Movie” – that stars Golden Globe award winner Armand Assante and
often shown during Valentines day for some high-brow humor effect seems about
as far away as the “X-Game enthusiast” Nietzscheans most of us know form Gene
Roddenberry’s Andromeda. The historically accurate Nietzsche in the movie is
often depressed and often checks himself into the nearest mental institution
every chance he gets. Sometimes I wonder if I’m watching a lost episode of Dr.
Katz. For someone who supposedly inspired the Nazis, the supposedly
“historically accurate” Friedrich Nietzsche seems too sedate to have done so.
Is Friedrich Nietzsche in reality rather sedate and kind of
dull despite earning the ire of Organized Christianity and / or adherents of
Abrahamic Theology on his brand of atheism? Well it could be if you got excited
on that bit where Beavis and Butt-Head tells their own version of the story of
Jesus Christ back in the 1990s, then maybe in reality Nietzsche is kind of
bland and boring compared to his present-day disciples. But is it enough to dilute the
mystique surrounding Nietzsche? Given that many of today’s under 40 year olds
don’t know squat about Friedrich Nietzsche, his very obscurity could be his
very mystique.
