Book 2

Book Two of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra opens with a dream: a child holds up a mirror and Zarathustra sees the devil in it; his teachings are being twisted into doctrines he never meant. Clancy Martin takes it from there. Zarathustra comes down again, overflowing, and starts over with a human truth, willing, valuing and creating, which the Übermensch will do best. Martin picks out The Pitiful, The Priests and The Tarantulas as speeches to look forward to.

The center of the film is the will to power, which Martin thinks has been given too much weight, largely because of Heidegger. He goes back to Schopenhauer, who called the basic drive a blind will to life. Nietzsche's correction was the Greek agon: the will wants to overcome and to win, and it shows in Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Amy Winehouse giving everything for their art. Book Two is also full of jokes, and laughing at your own beliefs, Martin adds, is a condition of wisdom.