Donnie Darko and Philosophy: Being and Non-being. By nature, humans are
inquisitive creatures. Over the course of time, we have continued to seek to better
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A. Student B. Polina Kukar HZT 4U Date Donnie Darko and Philosophy: Being and Non-being By nature, humans are inquisitive creatures. Over the course of time, we have continued to seek to better understand the world around us. However, despite the scientific advances we have made, we still wonder, at some point or another, "where does the universe come from?”. This is the most fundamental of all metaphysical questions because before one can consider the finer aspects of reality, one must first come to terms with the infinite nature of the universe. Don DeLillo (12) once said, "let the latent meaning turn and bend in the wind, free from authoritative comment." This passage urges us to ask the tough questions about the world while dispelling our preconceived notions. Rather than accepting what other people have told us, DeLillo asks us to draw our own conclusions. One individual who did that exceptionally was Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu wrote a highly influential text know as the Tao Te Ching. In this book he explains his philosophy of how the world exists and where it comes from. His beliefs contain elements of dualism in terms of Yin and Yang, but also adopt a monist worldview with regards to the Tao, the one latent, infinite force that transcends the universe. Like Lao Tzu, my cosmological beliefs are grounded in considering not just what is there, but what isn't. I believe the world is conceivable in terms of being and nonbeing, and that there exists a distinct divergence between the two. By considering our tangible existence as one side of the coin, the other, or non-existence, reveals itself on the reverse.
However, when the two sides coalesce, the coin ceases to exist as it is
impossible for anything to have only one side. Dualism is present in both our cosmological beliefs, as it allows latent meaning to turn manifest. If one adopts this lens in approaching film, often confusing elements become astoundingly clear. One such film that epitomizes this phenomenon is Donnie Darko. From the opening scenes of the movie, it is apparent that it is saturated with latent dualism. The first scene begins with the main character, Donnie, asleep in the middle of the road, just as the sun is coming up. He awakes from his dream into reality as night turns to day. Later that night at the dinner table, Donnie and his family are having an orderly meal. A controversial conversation arises and out of nowhere order turns to chaos, love leads to hate. Both these instances are representative of Lao Tzu's fundamental worldview "being is born of non-being" (Mitchell 40). The inciting incident of the movie provides a graphic representation of this shift. A plane turbine crashes into the Darko's house, destroying Donnie's room. Donnie's older sister states bluntly "they don't know where it came from" (Donnie Darko). Lao Tzu has an answer for this. That plane turbine came from it not being there, the ensuing chaos was a byproduct of the established orderly life. When the plane turbine crashes, the world in the film is set down an incomprehensible spiral of events, as noted by the spiral in the centre of the propeller. Time is sped up and slowed down; normal day to day rituals are altered. Essentially, being (chaos) is born of non-being (order). But what does this have to do with where the universe comes from? This is where my philosophy comes in. This scene marks a divergence in the film, an origin. Despite the fact that each scene brings new twists into the fold, one can observe this point as when two branches form - the world with the crash and the world had the crash not happened at all. This
concept is aptly summarized a few scenes later when Donnie is talking with his eventual girlfriend, Gretchen. As a result of the school being flooded, the two end up walking home together. Donnie says "I'm really glad that school was flooded today . . . because you and I never had this conversation" (Donnie Darko). This is the first point since the crash that the divergence is re-iterated. The viewer is once again reminded that there exist two distinct worlds - the one that could have been and the one that is - running parallel. However, when these two paths no longer run parallel, the world will ceases to exist. Essentially, the plot, characters, and dialogue exhibit dualism throughout the opening scenes. This framework, combined with the movie's main project, time and space, epitomizes Lao Tzu's beliefs as well as my own. However, film is abstract and ultimately open to interpretation. A topic such as time is ever harder to pinpoint effectively. With the aid of something tangible, such as a graph, one can begin to understand how everything ties together with greater precision. As summarized above, Lao Tzu believes that being comes from non-being. In addition to this, he claims that the universe was brought out of non-being by means of something formless and perfect. In chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching, as translated by Stephen Mitchell, Lao Tzu explains: There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. (Mitchell 25)
In essence, Lao Tzu recognized that the universe exists because it was bequeathed by this great unnamable force. This is akin to the Greek myth of chaos, where all facets of existence came to be from this one infinite void. However, regardless of whether it is seen as chaos, Tao, or simply “nothingness”, Lao Tzu believed that everything, God included, derives from this unquantifiable “something”. Much like film, the open-ended nature of Lao Tzu’s writing comes with a price. The Tao Te Ching can be taken in a number of different ways. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy summarizes: One view is that [Lao Tzu] reflects a deep mythological consciousness at its core. The myth of “chaos” in particular helps shape the Taoist understanding of the cosmos and the place of human beings in it. Chapter 25, for example, likens the Tao to an undifferentiated oneness. (Chan 2009) That oneness is exactly what can be depicted graphically. Since our universe and the existence that comes with it are infinitely complicated a graph with has an endless ebb and flow is needed. Consider a sinusoidal function. The function is odd and has rotational symmetry around the origin. One arm of the graph exists in the negative domain, extending from negative infinity to zero. This is the realm of non-being. The other branch exists in the positive domain, branching off from zero until positive infinity. This is the realm of being. Bisecting the graph in the middle of its range is an axis. This axis runs parallel with time and is unwavering in both the realms of being and non-being. This is the Tao. In some ways, this could be an effective model for the metaphysical statements made in Donnie Darko. There exists an indescribable force which prevails throughout the
story (time). There are parts of the movie that occur in the realms of existence and nonexistence. However, this philosophical model does not account for the possibility of holes, points where the graph ceases to exist and reverts back to the origin. The striking difference is that Lao Tzu's beliefs are infinite and the phenomena in the film experience a definite end. A better graphical depiction of how the forces in the movie pan out is the inverse of the above function, but doubled across the y-axis. This model has paths running side by side, each the opposite of the other. The shape of the graph resembles an hourglass, a symbol of set time, as opposed to the previous model which has infinite domain. If and when these two arms coalesce, the graph experiences a hole and reverts back to the origin. This graph is cyclical, but also finite. When the hourglass runs out of time, it is turned on its head and starts again. At the end of the movie, Donnie realizes that the life he just experienced post plane crash was in the realm of existence, but ultimately doomed by an impending hole. That hole was depicted as the end of the world, but also death. Donnie has to come to terms with the fact that if he continues to live out this absurd reality, his life will begin to deteriorate, starting with the death of his girlfriend. This is the point on the graph when both facets change course and accelerate towards one another. In the movie, the action picks up and the plot accelerates accordingly. Moments before the story ends, a void opens in the sky and the realms of being and non-being meet for the first time since their divergence. At that point, time reverses and the entire movie unwinds back to the point of the plane crash. The sand in the hourglass comes to an end. Donnie was meant to die. His tangible experience in the realm of being is washed out by non-being.
The fragmented plot is a structural model for how the universe came to be, and how the universe will end. From beginning to end, the film Donnie Darko aptly synthesizes Lao Tzu's philosophy with my own. There are instances of dualism, allusions to a great unnamable force, but most importantly, the film exemplifies the relationship between being and non-being. With regards to what Don DeLillo said about latent meaning, this movie was most certainly able to turn and bend in the wind.
Works Cited Chan, Alan, "Laozi", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. New York, NY: Scribner, 2007. Print. Donnie Darko. Dir. Richard Kelly. Newmarket Films, 2001. Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1991. Print.
