Year of the Horse... Horse Year... Nietzsche. From 'The Turin Horse' to '2001: A Space Odyssey'
2026, the start
Happy New Year, everyone.
I look forward to your continued support this year.
This year is the Year of the Horse.
Furthermore, as it is the 'Hinoe-uma' (Fire Horse) year, a decline in the birth rate is expected.
Speaking of 'uma' (horse), it means 'horse'. When it comes to 'horse', it's 'The Turin Horse'.
For those who love Nietzsche and those who love film, 'The Turin Horse' is a keyword.
'The Turin Horse'
Nietzsche, who started out as a brilliant German philologist, wrote his debut work 'The Birth of Tragedy' based on Greek tragedy. He soon published four 'Untimely Meditations' ('David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer', 'On the Use and Abuse of History for Life', 'Schopenhauer as Educator', 'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth').
These are treatises that criticized the mainstream ideas and authorities in Germany at the time from their very essence, and pointed out 'what is truly important'.
At the same time, reading these, one realizes that unlike standard philosophical books by Kant or Hegel, they are closer to ideological essays.
For Nietzsche, his interest was not in systematically and logically building up his own theory like a grand cathedral, but in writing as if speaking to people (one of the authors Nietzsche admired was Montaigne, who wrote 'Essays').
From this point on, Nietzsche explicitly identifies Christianity, which lies as the fundamental substrate of European society and culture, as his "enemy" and begins a fierce attack.
For Nietzsche, Christianity is a hotbed of defeatism and ressentiment among the weak, and without breaking away from it, there can be no further development, nor any recovery of healthy humanity.
On the other hand, he did not merely criticize; he created a "new human image" that would emerge once the poison of Christianity was washed away, as the"Übermensch = Zarathustra".
Although he was such a Nietzsche, around the time he reached his mid-forties, his mental balance collapsed, and he began writing numerous letters filled with madness to his neighbors.
When a worried friend visited Nietzsche, he burst into tears, exposing a state where he could no longer control himself.
A dramatic episode from this period of Nietzsche's life is "The Turin Horse".
In January 1889, while in Turin, Nietzsche saw a horse being whipped by its owner in a square; he ran toward the horse, threw his arms around its neck, and collapsed on the spot, losing consciousness.
It remains a deeply memorable anecdote that symbolizes his tragic final years.
And the film inspired by this event is the apocalyptic black-and-white work byBéla Tarr,"The Turin Horse".
Béla Tarr's "The Turin Horse" is a work with a unique and powerful persuasiveness, but since it is the New Year, I cannot end on such a nihilistic black-and-white world.
Speaking of Nietzsche, there is one more work, a piece of music, that is truly fitting for the New Year.Richard Strauss composed the piece of the same name, inspired by "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".
The opening of this piece became famous after the genius filmmakerStanley Kubrick used it in the most precise way imaginable in"2001: A Space Odyssey".
Let us conclude with this piece of music for our first "note" of 2026.
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