Sacrifice and eternal return

scenes by Nietzsche, Foucault and Tarkovsky

Abstract

Nietzsche’s Eternal Return concept is represented in a metaphorical, theatrical, and enigmatic way through his work. A weapon against nihilism, this doctrine brings its ethical implications and summons the individual to become an active part of existence. Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovski proposes freedom as freedom to sacrifice and create, in the wake of what Foucault adduces as “aesthetics of existence” from Greek culture. In the film The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky makes a “self-writing”, and transforms the Eternal Return into new scenes that thematize ideas of the end of the world and the quest for transcendence. The metaphor of sacrifice (Tarkovski) dialogues with parresia and subjectivation (Foucault). It proposes an ethics of courage, from Amor fati (Nietzsche).