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20 Versions of “The Cave:” A Video Roundup

July 18, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

Plato's Allegory of the Cave (which we didn't get around to spelling out on our Plato's Republic episode) has been given scads of video treatments, both professional and amateur. Here are some I found on YouTube before getting too irritated to look at any more:

Easily the best of this bunch, here's Orson Welles narrating over creepy animations, going on at some length to give probably the clearest depiction of the story:

Watch on YouTube.

I kind of like this claymation one with a maybe-South African narrator:

Watch on YouTube.

This student project (I guess) with computer-generated voices and bad flash animations was the only one of the bunch that actually made me laugh.

Watch on YouTube.

Here's a short, creepy one, with little clips from various movies:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's one that's essentially audio-only from Learn Out Loud. Just someone reading Plato's text over one pretty nice diagram:

This is the Three-Minute Philosophy version, not limited to the Cave, though that is quickly described starting at 1:15:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's "Plato's Cave: the Motion Picture," an irksome, high schooler production that starts off with about two minutes of a dude climbing rocks over loud music:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's a British story time version, mostly free of visuals:

Watch on YouTube.

This one really wants to be trippy:

Watch on YouTube.

Tired of hearing about The Cave? Try this silent movie version:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's a version with bad singing and no apparent connection to the allegory of the cave:

Watch on YouTube.

Better music on this class project one: with some nice charcoal cartoon sketches:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's an overwrought PowerPointy version that expels gothic fonts at a rapid pace:

Watch on YouTube.

This one gets the prize for worst narrator:

Watch on YouTube.

Someone trying to do the Cave as a fake Monty Python sketch? Oy. (No, I did not watch parts 2 and 3):

Watch on YouTube.

Here's the wacky sound effects version, with legos!

Watch on YouTube.

A stop motion one, with more toys (Spider-Man is trapped in the cave, I guess); pretty abstract:

Watch on YouTube.

Here's an Xtranormal movie maker discussion.

Watch on YouTube.

Here's a longish British version with minimal visuals:

Watch on YouTube.

This may be the crappiest of the bunch: another music video, for a pretty terrible song, which at least has lyrics sort of about The Cave:

Watch on YouTube.

-Mark Linsenmayer

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Filed Under: Things to Watch Tagged With: philosophy blog, plato's republic

Comments

  1. Marcus Shoemaker says

    August 4, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    Another video to add to the list:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dBVzKSZNCQ&ob=av2e

    A song that’s much better than the one in that last video.

    Reply
  2. Allyn Kahn says

    February 22, 2018 at 2:34 pm

    I am looking for a film on Plato’s cave that I used to use when I taught intro Philosophy. There was no animation and virtually no dialogue. In addition to the main actor, who leaves the cave, and actors who were chained to chairs, there were four dancing, frightening “fears,” who blocked the cave exit.
    When our hero returns from outside of the cave to tell the others what he had seen, he is again confronted by the same “fears.” But this time he stares down these illusions and they melt into nothingness.
    If anyone has access to this old film, please post it and let me know akchesscoach8@gmail.com

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Orson Welles Narrates Plato’s Cave Allegory | Open Culture says:
    July 19, 2011 at 2:33 am

    […] may recall this brilliant version done with claymation. Gluttons for punishment may wish to peruse this collection of 20 YouTube versions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them frightfully amateurish and some of them presenting a warped and/or incomprehensible […]

    Reply
  2. Orson Welles Narrates Plato’s Cave Allegory | CourseKeeper.com says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:47 am

    […] may recall this brilliant version done with claymation. Gluttons for punishment may wish to peruse this collection of 20 YouTube versions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them frightfully amateurish and some of them presenting a warped and/or incomprehensible […]

    Reply
  3. Orson Welles Narrates Plato’s Cave Allegory, Kafka’s Parable, and Freedom River | Open Culture says:
    December 28, 2011 at 9:55 am

    […] casting. This is hardly the first animation of the cave allegory. Partially Examined Life has a roundup of 20 animations, but we’re always partial to this brilliant version done with […]

    Reply
  4. Topic for #64: Celebrity, with guest Lucy Lawless | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 12, 2012 at 1:35 am

    […] seems limited to the ancient Greeks (and in that, it’s got a classics bent, in that knowing the allegory of the cave is much different than slogging through the Theaetetus) and things that literary critics learn […]

    Reply
  5. Carsten Nicolai: cavernas contemporáneas | TheTrendNet says:
    November 5, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    […] antiguo como la Humanidad, y da origen a una de las reflexiones más conocidas de Platón sobre la relación entre representación y realidad. Pero unidisplay en particular parece conectar con obras de los últimos años como las sombras […]

    Reply
  6. Two Animations of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: One Narrated by Orson Welles, Another Made with Clay | multiplode6.com says:
    February 10, 2014 at 4:54 am

    […] like the two examples above. Mark Linsenmayer of The Partially Examined Life points us toward these 20 YouTube takes on Plato’s cave, “many of them,” he writes, “frightfully amateurish and some of […]

    Reply
  7. Orson Welles Narrates an Animation of Plato’s Cave Allegory – One Hundred Pages says:
    October 16, 2016 at 2:49 am

    […] recall this brilliant version done with claymation. Gluttons for punishment may wish to peruse this collection of 20 YouTube versions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them frightfully amateurish and some of them presenting a warped and/or incomprehensible […]

    Reply
  8. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a long… – Phy-d'eau says:
    October 29, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    […] Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a long time favourite and these video versions run the gamut of interesting and creative to just awful. Worth taking a look, especially the Orson Welles version (by way of openculture.com) http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2011/07/18/20-versions-of-the-cave-a-video-roundup/ […]

    Reply

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