Most people, before leaving their homes in the morning, look into a shiny piece of glass. They do this to get an answer to a very important question; “How do I look this morning?”. But is what they are seeing in the mirror really the way that they look? Plato would argue that it isn’t. The reflection that many people are seeing in the morning is a false representation of them. So it isn’t a trust worthy answer in Plato’s opinion. However, even worse than believing the image that they see in the mirror, is believing the picture that say a painter would paint of the person. That is even farther representation of the way that person looks. To believe the painting, is to believe a lie. For Plato, this also goes for poets, and overall artist. In today’s day and age, one could probably add films to the list of false representations especially films that are representations of true events like biofilms. The clip that I chose is a piece from the movie Frida, which is suppose to be the true story of the life of Frida Kahlo.
It is true, that there was an actual person that once walked the earth named Frida Kahlo. And, it is true that she did cut off her hair after her divorce from her husband Diego Rivera. It is also true that she painted a picture for that event. The makers of the film want their audience to believe that what they are seeing is actually what Frida Kahlo lived and did in that moment of her life. However, the fact that they had to replicate that does not make it at all reality but instead, a false representation of what happened in Kahlo’s life, as close at it may be.
The reason why is because of how far away the clip is from the truth. Plato uses the example of a bed to show the three levels of reality in an object.
“’Well, we’ve got these three beds. First, there’s the real one, and we’d say, I imagine, that it is a product of divine craftsmanship’… ‘Then there’s the one the joiner makes.’… ‘And then there’s the one the painter makes” (Plato 69)
In the case of the clip, it is God that created the situation that Kahlo would go through in her life. The joiner would be Kahlo who physically made it happen, and, the filmmakers who made it on screen. Plato then goes on to say that God makes the one true reality; that the joiner is the manufacture, and the artist is the representer. (70)
In terms of what is true, Plato says that representation are not truths, but instead they are appearances of things. (70). It is because “representation and truth are a considerable distance apart, and a representer is capable of making every product there is only because his contact things is slight and is restricted to how they look.”(Plato 70). The filmmakers of Frida made the appearances of the way things looked to them in terms of the stories they heard about Frida Kahlo, her paintings, and her journals. It is what they think things should look like.
Although, the filmmakers of Frida made sure to do their research and got pretty close to the truth, Plato would argue that it is not at all a truth but an appearance of that moment in Frida Kahlo’s life. If Kahlo’s painting of herself in that moment of time in her life is a representation the filmmakers must be even farther from the absolute truth then what Plato thought.
Works Cited
Plato. "Republic: Book X." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2001. 67-80.
"YouTube - Self Haircut for a Self-Protrait." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. N.p., n.d. Web. 15
July 2009.
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