Indiana Jones: And what did you find…
Henry Jones: Me? …Illumination.
-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
About the Blog
Hello and welcome to Deep Focus Philosophy, a blog that looks deeply into film narrative and the profound insights found within.
I am Jacob Ruby and I am a writer, filmmaker, and musician who is also interested in learning more about philosophy. I started this blog as a personal challenge to deepen my understanding of philosophical questions and themes explored through the lens of film narrative.
My goal is to select one or two films each week and delve into the concepts they portray. Ever wonder how the Big Lebowski connects with Taoism or how Rashomon battles with the question of objective and subjective truth? What about the concept of dualism in Psycho, or unraveling the intricacies of catharsis and redemption in Pulp Fiction? Each article will analyze how these movies tackle difficult themes and how they connect with our real-life experiences.
This blog won’t simply provide film reviews; it will dig deeper to reveal the underlying layers of significance. By connecting the narratives, characters, and visual elements of cinema with philosophical ideas, I hope to demonstrate how movies can serve as a tool for examining human existence. Each article aims to spark conversations encouraging readers to reflect on the films they watch and the ideas that bring to them what they seek…illumination.
“Self-reflection is a vice best practiced in private or not at all.”
-Roebuck Wright, The French Dispatch.
About Me
Ask anyone who grew up in the 90s and watched movies, they will tell you, it was a magical time. When I was young, I quickly found there was something mysterious and majestic about the movies I was watching. Each black monolithic VHS tape held the potential to draw out some hidden knowledge, some hidden emotion. I knew then movies were much more than mere surface level entertainments, they were quintessential commentaries and critiques of humanity, asking important questions. The influence of cinema was so overwhelming for me, in fact, that towards the end of my senior year of high school, I traded my car in for a brand-new Cannon GL2 Digital Video Camcorder and an Apple iBook G4. I presented this transaction to my parents as a logical, even inspired, choice, regaling them with promises of the “extraordinary” films I would undoubtedly create. My first endeavor? A shoddy gangster comedy, parodying the films of Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, and Martin Scorsese. The short film was titled The Deal.
During my first year at university, working my way towards a major in film production and a minor in journalism, I entered my first short film there into the university’s annual film festival. My short would showcase a very irreverent “guide” on how NOT to navigate the freshman year to new students. Some of these steps included, how NOT to dodge the RN’s in the dorms. How NOT to pick up the ladies. How NOT to ignore personal hygiene. And how NOT to make new friends. I recall sitting in the theater after the laughs and roaring applause had died down, now watching the event presenter’s dismay. He was apparently so offended by my entry that he followed up the end credits by saying something like, “How did that film make it into the festival?” Despite this, I ended up winning the second-place prize.
“Not quite my tempo.”
-Terence Fletcher, Whiplash.
Then there was the odd case of taking an advanced course in screenwriting, an experience I approached with a level of enthusiasm, in hindsight, that might have been the wrong approach. I signed up as soon as I had met all the prerequisites, convinced that screenwriting was one of my fortes. Armed with a certain confidence—too much confidence in fact—I was ready to showcase my technical and creative prowess. After all, I had already read all the required texts on the syllabus (some of them twice), and I also had completed a first draft on a feature-length western screenplay, which I had been working on for more than a year. It seemed course credits were in the bag and that I would undoubtedly impress the professor, refine my first draft in the process, and effortlessly ace the class.
However, the professor had a rather different, and decidedly contradictory, perspective on my work. Not only did she reject the very premise of my screenplay, but she also awarded me poor grades on nearly all the short-form assignments. To add insult to injury, she gave me a resounding 0/100 on my meticulously crafted twenty-page outline of my feature-length script. The crowning moment of humiliation came when she dedicated an entire class period to dissecting why my screenplay was a failure, encouraging the other students to join in the critique. I sat there, mortified and seething, wondering how she could judge so harshly something that, to my mind, was purely subjective. It became increasingly clear that I was headed for an inevitable and spectacular failure. So, in a, “fuck it, I’m going to fail the class anyway” moment of defiance, I decided to make my pent-up obstinate stance completely transparent. For the next short script assignment, I crafted a scathing meta-comedy parodying my teacher’s disposition towards me, a dialogue between two characters: a director and an actor, who find themselves in a heated debate over the interpretation of a scene in which the actor’s character lights a cigarette and delivers a one-liner. But the actor cannot bring himself to say the line because to him it doesn’t feel true to the character. For the director’s dialogue, I borrowed—verbatim—the very words my professor had used to critique my script, ensuring there would be no mistaking this was a direct mockery at her teaching.
The director, speaking with an air of pretentious authority, explains the reasons for the line including the metaphors and homages at play all while the actor listens patiently. When the director finishes, the actor simply nods and says, “Alright, I’ll do the scene how you want…but it’s still bullshit.” After the live reading of the scene ended, the entire class fell silent as well as the professor. Needless to say, I was not surprised to find I had yet again received a 0/100. I thought for sure I was cooked, but then, seemingly out of nowhere and for no particular reason, a turning point emerged near the end of the semester. The professor suddenly changed her tune. She began giving me fair grades and when I submitted the second draft of my feature-length script for my final screenwriting thesis, she even added exemplary comments. I finished the course with a surprising passing grade.
I continued much in this way through-out my time at university while enjoying the process of creating scenes, working with actors and crew members, and getting to hear and ask questions to some great industry artist such as Spike Lee’s go to composer, Terence Blanchard. All of this as well as collaborating on short film projects with fellow film students.
While at university, I also took as many film and foreign film studies courses as I possibly could and started my own kind of essay director’s series in the process. Various essay titles included, “Inside the Mind of David Lynch”, “F.W. Murnau’s Last Laugh”, “Inside the Mind of Takeshi Kitano”, “8 ½ Ways to Interpret 8 ½”, “Wim Wenders, American Friend or Foe?”, and, “Tarkovsky in Time”. During my Junior year I took the opportunity to study film and art history in Florence, Italy. This included a six-week study program learning narrative through photography as well as visiting, viewing, and writing about the life and the paintings which depicted the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.
“Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.”
-Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
My work with film began as perhaps many others did, holding a boom mic and camera while getting paid little to no money and while also owing a tremendous amount in student loans. My first position in the realm of film was an internship at a local full-service media company. It was shoot and scoot type work where we would receive new assignments each day. Sometimes it would be videographer for event footage, sometime B-roll for a local news network, commercial edits, re-edits, transcription, etc. It was fine for some technical knowledge and a resume builder; however, the pay didn’t even cover the cost to fill up my tank and worst of all, it was unfulfilling both creatively and intellectually.
After this I started working part-time at a 9 to 5 to pay for film and music equipment. It was around this time I fell in with a local group of like-minded filmmakers who had already made a name for themselves with short films. They had also had done some networking within both the fringe and established filmmakers within Hollywood. We started off making short sketch comedies on the weekends and eventually would go on to make two independent films. Both films were selected for film festivals and ultimately received distribution.
Currently, I am still working my 9 to 5 job as well as co-owner of a small film company, Hidden Fortress Films. We have made several music videos and an award-winning short film. My love for film is still as strong today as it was when I was growing up. I am forever intrigued by film and continue to watch and analyze them. My hope is to be in some small way a part of this craft by continuing to write, making music, and making more films in the future.
Frodo: Go back Sam. I am going to Mordor alone.
Sam: Of course you are. And I’m coming with you.
– The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
About You
I invite you to join me on this exploration and share your thoughts, insights, and questions on film and philosophy. Should you wish to show your appreciation for this blog consider extending your support by sharing a post and sharing a comment.
Thank you