Film Courage: What are your thoughts on this statement "If you've seen a thousand films,
you've lived a thousand lives?"
Robert Rippberger, Filmmaker: I love filmmaking and a lot of the reason why I love filmmaking is
because I feel like it transports you into these different ways of navigating life and being in
different circumstances and I really feel like film is this sense in which if you've seen a
thousand films you've lived a thousand lives and does it have to be something that has a quote
unquote message or can it just be a fun comedy a lot of the films that I do seek out to entertain
and also provide a message but there is certainly a side of of entertainment in itself that is that
uplifts people Frank Capra very early on made can't take it with you and just a number of films
he was nominated for for best Oscar like time and time again and they were all message based
like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and then Preston Sturges came out after that and was like this
is too much there's something inherently good about just entertainment that it really lifts
people up and so there's a huge spectrum and I think all of it's valuable for me the really
important thing is is that entertainment and storytelling has a huge transformative power
and so I really seek to to educate and also better understand for myself about what that
power is and and how it can produce change and speaking of Frank Capra what makes a good life
what makes a good life it's such a it's such a good question I mean I think for everybody it's
something they they ask individually or should ask individually I study philosophy and the
core question with that is what is a good life and sort of philosophically speaking and and in
philosophy you explore it through through telling stories which is also why I i love philosophy so
much and if the life lives if the life ends in bliss then it's a life worth living if it ends
in despair then it's it's not but largely I found that if there's a one sort of category if it's
say okay to be a hedonist or to be a stoic or to be this or that that you really can't ever
make a mold fit your unique situation it's better to kind of consider all these possibilities and
but ultimately to ask yourself what it is that you want and what you want your your your legacy to be
did anyone ever try to talk you out and say Robert just go have fun just get out of your head like
you're young what you seem like you you're sort of an old soul and and you to be interested in in
such heady things and such deep things fascinates me it's a good question multiple times my dad
has been like you need to be having fun when I was like oh I'm gonna go to Berkeley and study
philosophy people were like I don't know if that's great you're already you already think a lot about
things and but for me that is fun right that is the sort of like where meaning comes from and
i've always found that through my work it's a way of expressing and connecting with the world
and so the more that I work the more that I engage the community around me and people around me so
it's always been very very linked whether people have been able to see it or not from the outside
bro so you gain energy from these deep thoughts then it's not it's not depressing oh cert
certainly certainly yeah it it it absolutely fires me up and and yeah there's also too it is
the great thing about art is it allows you to the great thing about art is
it allows you to express yourself and work through your own things and so that has been
fantastic to explore as well while also connecting with others and there's a sort of thing I always
tell myself of like turning pain into productivity sort of taking things and experiences and
and even if it's just sort of stuck in day-to-day doldrums and kind of using that to
to to create what makes a meaningful story I think what makes a meaningful story is one that speaks
to what it is to be a human that is to be alive and that really I think it comes down to intent
in any films that I direct and ones that I produce a central question is always like what is it
that I want to say and I feel like you can have entertainment but even the entertaining films that
don't ask themselves what is it I want to say with this film sort of have a bit of a quick shelf life
and so for me it comes down to the intent and and the the narrative drive and
the sort of meaningful message that you put into a particular work how is a horror movie meaningful
horror is such a phenomenal genre because it elicits such a strong reaction and it pulls
you so much out of your head to literally be there on screen and to connect with other people in an
audience and there is this amazing way science fiction is often talked about this is you can
create these metaphors and this whole series was actually about one thing when we thought
it was just entertainment on its core and horror film I feel is the exact same way and it struck
me when I was first watching the blob and the blob is coming and everybody's yelling the blob
is coming blob is coming and people are partying and kind of ignoring it and and you realize that
oh this is about the red scare this is about what happens if communism comes and takes over
are people just going to ignore it and this blob is going to go and absorb everything in its path
and and that and other films other horror films like that really opened my eyes to
wow this this this art form and this genre can can actually engage on on a much deeper level
even if it's as a joke even if it's just kind of tongue-in-cheek but that there's a lot more here
in this genre to to explore how has philosophy impacted your film career philosophy has impacted
my film career in that it's gotten me to fall in love again with filmmaking I think
for anybody alive they look around and they see all these problems in the world and it's hard to
realize you're escaping it and it's hard to fall into your series fall into your shows and
and still see all these things out there and realizing that my love my love of filmmaking can
engage on these issues elevate these topics or even just give a little bit of life to
other people and in what they watch or get them to consider things in different ways
really brought me back to filmmaking that it wasn't just popcorn that it was a
it really had a a very strong value and they've often said without science there would be no life
and and I think it's true of of art without art there wouldn't be life wouldn't be as as glorious
as it is was there a school of thought or a certain type of like philosophical principle that
you take with you when you go on set I would say the the largest philosophical influences on me are
mainly Heideggerian which basically says that we are not separate from the world you cannot
define yourself as I am here and the world is there that we are all and and it's such a it's
so prevalent that he that Heidegger even tries to reinterpret our whole understanding of being
as amidst the world so to say I'm in the world it like that doesn't even make sense we are all
amidst the world and filmmaking is such a to quote Hannah Arendt term is such action in concert so
many people coming together that for me it's also a recognition of that extreme vulnerability if
somebody doesn't want to come to set if somebody's forgotten something if a location isn't available
all these things or this action in concert and put us in this extremely vulnerable place to
produce something that on paper at some point could could feel impossible
and that we're all able to do it together by leaning in by depending on one another
and then to at the end have this thing that we get to go and and eat popcorn
and and and celebrate together at a premiere and sorry what was the principle called again
so it's basically his entire philosophy it's his basically his theory of of being and so it's it's
yeah he doesn't really have like a specific kind of school of thought that that speaks to it but
but largely people who think like that or call themselves like Heideggerians or it's also taken
up by another philosopher Merleau-Ponty and then the person that I studied closest with who who did
this his name was Bert Dreyfus so if and forgive me I'm rusty on my philosophy but like Ayn Rand
she was more about like rugged individualism yeah and so it sounds like this is the opposite
so it's not so much about a lack of individualism it's more about how you look at yourself in
relation to the world and so it's where stoics say you are to be completely detached and to shut down
or even buddhists right that say I'm equanimous things change but I am going to maintain my
my sense of peace and well-being this is throw yourself into things
throw yourself into commitments that basically the best life is to be completely
committed to a work or two people and that that is what as Kierkegaard puts it as it sort of entwines
itself around every ligament of your consciousness and gives you a world and gives you meaning.