Matthew McConaughey & Lincoln 1
The Philosopher’s Walk
What a wonderful time we live in. Do you remember these commercials?
It’s 2014 and Matthew McConaughey is driving for the Lincoln Motor Company. This was right after he saved the world in the movie Interstellar which, for me, was a deeply and randomly emotional movie. The guy just threw himself into a blackhole after rebuking the impossibility of docking a hurling space station with necessity. If you haven’t started actively living your life this is your sign and that is your anthem.
He was a hometown hero in outer space with clear reason, determination, and principles. What is more, he had the capacity to wonder at the stars.
So after this movie of incredible soliloquies and monologues about the philosophy of love and value of absurdity, we see him re-emerge in a four-door Lincoln MKC in the name of authenticity and futurism.
This night drive in which we encounter him is the equivalent of the philosopher’s walk, the place where lively and sporadic musing happen. What is he saying now?
He is saying this:
“Sometimes you gotta go back to actually move forward. I don’t mean going back to reminisce or chase ghosts. I mean going back to see where you came from, where you’ve been, how you got here, see where you’re going. I know there are those who say you can’t go back. Yes, you can. Just have to look in the right place.”
First, let us be clear that what he is talking about is literally what it means to reminisce, despite his best attempts to not do so.
Secondly, what do we make of this? Ridiculousness, frankly. We didn’t know what to do with this, so we laughed. Jim Carrey did a spoof of it on SNL. All my friends were talking about it. I still am.
This commercial series is a case study in taking something out of context (Cooper) and trying to remake the same meaning with a different environment (salesmanship). This monologue he is having in the car is vaguely reminiscent of the soliloquy he gave on the porch about dust and looking at the stars in Interstellar.
Here, though, he is just driving. We don’t have the crisis of the movie or any pretext to this car conversation to make it meaningful. Really, a man drives up and starts “thinking.” There is no philosophy (no “depth”) without context, and in this clip we see how strange that outcome is.
But so it is; the philosopher speaks.
More soon,
Trevor