Chapter 4 Fighting—Philosophy
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Chapter 4 Fighting—Philosophy Finding a truth in one discipline and then applying that truth to an entirely unrelated discipline is a hallmark of Lee’s genius: he saw the connections where others did not. - John Little (in Lee 2001: xiv) [T]o link is necessary; how to link is contingent…. But there exist genres of discourse which fix rules of linkage… - Jean-François Lyotard (1988: 29) He says JKD has no technique. My wife says everybody in the sixties talked that way. - Dan Inosanto (in Miller 2000: 107) Filming Philosophy: Like a Finger Pointing Away to an Icon According to Daniele Bolelli, ‘we only need to examine the concepts at the root of Jeet Kune Do, the martial art created by Lee, to see how fun- damental philosophy was to Lee’s approach to the martial arts’ (2003: 157). At the same time, however, after a brief account of the most formu- laic elements of many martial arts films, Bolelli argues that ‘Lee’s four movies (five if we include the posthumous Game of Death) contain all the defining elements of martial arts films. Philosophy, on the other hand, seems to be (literally) missing in action’ (178). The key word here is ‘lit- erally’. Bolelli cannot detect anything philosophical in Lee’s films be- cause he is looking for it in words alone: his notion of the philosophical is logocentric – focused on words. Thus, Bolelli trades in a very particular notion of philosophy and the philosophical: ‘Generally speaking, movies are not the best form of media to convey philosophical ideas’ (178). He proposes: Martial arts movies, in particular, are not exactly famous for their philoso- phical depth. Fast-paced action scenes and spectacular stunts are the staple 166 Theorizing Bruce Lee of this genre in which the plot is often little more than a pretext for the fighting sequences. Since audiences usually do not watch martial arts movies for their fine intellectual content, producers often save on the un- necessary expenditure of a decent screenwriter by recycling the same plot over and over. (178) On the one hand, this seems to be a reasonable observation. Yet, on the other, Bolelli can also equally reasonably observe that although Bruce Lee was an action hero first, he nevertheless ‘added to this role an aes- thetic beauty and a philosophical depth which were lacking’ in other male action heroes (155). For Bolelli, this testifies to the fact ‘that his appeal relies on something deeper than a popular infatuation with Asian fighting styles’ (156). Indeed, to support this claim he quotes Lee’s widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, when she asks rhetorically: ‘What is this something about Bruce Lee that continues to fascinate people in all walks of life? I believe it is the depth of his personal philosophy, which subconsciously, or oth- erwise, projects from the screen and through his writings’ (qtd. in Bolelli 2003: 156). We have already considered aspects of this ‘projection’ of a ‘phi- losophy’ onto the screen in Chapter Two. Similar to that discussion, Linda Lee Cadwell’s claims here suggest that to be able to regard films as philosophical, a notion of ‘philosophy’ – or at least of ‘communication’ – that is somewhat other than logocentric will be required. For, the logocen- tric focus on words as if they are the exclusive medium of philosophy, or any other kind of communication, can lead to an impasse – an inability to ‘see’. Specifically, this will take the form of a mind/body dualism. We can see the kinds of effects that this can have, in Bolelli, when he writes: ...in order to find any sign of philosophical life in Lee’s first two movies, Fist of Fury and The Chinese Connection (a.k.a. The Big Boss), one needs the gift of a very fertile imagination. As an explanation for this complete lack of philosophical substance in the works of a man who was so im- mersed in philosophy, we need to remember that in 1971 Lee was still not particularly famous as an actor. For this reason, it is logical to assume that he did not have much power to influence the scripts of the first two mov- ies. In fact, as soon as Lee gained great fame, philosophy entered into his films. In his next (and last) two movies, Return of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon, glimpses of Lee’s philosophy manage to come out in between action sequences. (Bolelli 2003: 178-9) So, in the most traditional of manners, Bolelli regards the philosophical as existing primarily as words. Yet Bolelli also has an inkling that philoso- phy can be communicated by being ‘translated’ into other realms, regis-.