Abbas Kiarostami on Original Love

An excerpt from our interview with the filmmaker, featured on our release of CERTIFIED COPY.

[@homerdomincus5378]

That was very interesting. When he talked about the original I thought of Plato's theory of forms. The "original" would be the form and the copies would be the forms particulars. Now unlike Plato who claims that one should pursue the form and not praise any particular, what was said in the video raises some objections towards Platos theory. One I think the director is correct that yes there is an original that perhaps is out of the many, but that doesn't mean one should not appreciate copy's of the original. The copies are enough when the original is out of reach.

[@ammarbeik]

After we've seen so many copies of something over so many years, the original stops us in our tracks. It takes our breath away. We're not all experts who can stand before an original and understand it. We're not all experts who can stand before an original and understand it. Therefore, without the existence of copies, we wouldn't understand originals. When we fall in love, we see everything as an original. We're the ones pulling the wool over our own eyes. We inflate the value so much, and add so many zeros to it, that we can't afford it ourselves. And when we can't pay the price, we start eliminating, one by one, the zeros on the price tag. We discount the price. Then we arrive at the truth. The point here, which I truly believe, is that access to the original is out of reach for many of us. Therefore, we should value and appreciate a copy. That's what's important.

[@arvandpiltan9833]

sounds like a poem when you also read the gaps and the silences in between.

[@revdckmz]

​@@arvandpiltan9833 Is Kiarostami saying that true love is out of range for us and most of us will have to live with what we find instead of that true, divine love?

[@matinmoeinmanesh8460]

​@revdckmz Well I'm a bit late but i hope you are still intrested. And I'm actually Iranian so I thought I could put it in a more clear way. I mean What i understand, obviously. I think What he's trying to say is that basically what we imagine as "Original love" simply doesn't exist! as we imagine it. and what we might get is something like a copy from it. But in that perspective, Isn't that copy, an original? The point is to enjoy, admire, and love that copy, and to find the beauty in it.

[@AvidVisuals]

"Philosopher and filmmaker share a way of being, an outlook on life that embodies a generation." ― (M. Merleau-Ponty resumed by Jean-Luc Godard)

[@deelot1]

Yes philosophy and art go hand-in-hand like that. I agree Kiarostami is one of the best examples this.

[@d2nt3]

from Masculin Feminin if anyone is wondering where this is from

[@TheoNeeson]

beautiful movie

[@MarianMurphy-rz8ej]

It was but it was a simulacrum of life, an imitation of life and not at all in conformity with the real world which is a vicious place and only a thin patina of civilisation where people behave in as atavistic and cruel a manner as they have from the dawn of time. Regardless of how things may seem on the surface…

[@wordmeaningsforyou]

but i want the original...no matter what, how, or after how long..