Title | Creator | Date | Era | City | Country | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme | |
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Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (aria from La Wally) | Composer: Alfredo Catalani | 1892 | 1851-1900 | Milan | Italy |
Longing is the overall emotional tone of the music. The lyric gives reason to this overall tone. |
Sadness at having to leave forever the place where you were happy once. |
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3 Idiots | Screenwriter: Chopra Vidhu Vinod | 2009 | 1991-2010 | India |
Life can be fun and productive and exciting. As is true in some other Bollywood features, this story and the ideas behind it about pursuing the good life, has an honesty and clarity and benevolence that is not part of the U.S. movie scene. |
Be what you want to be; follow your passion in life |
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A Few Good Men | Director: Rob Reiner | 1992 | 1991-2010 | United States |
Justice should be fought for, needs to be fought for and can be fragile. |
Commitment to a moral code is central to a good man's life. |
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Anthem | Rand, Ayn: | 1938, revised 1946 | 1900 - 1950 |
The book starts out psychologically dark and disorienting because of the protagonist struggling with the radically collectivist world he was born into. But what shows even in the early pages, and grows to the climax is the triumphant struggle of a rare few who break free of the yoke of total mind control and become free to live a life as a conceptual human and rediscover what it means to be an individual. Thrilling and emotionally satisfying (unless the reader is a committed determinist.) |
Ego and using one's individual mind is the core of being human. |
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Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Composer: Lou Handman | 1926 | 1900s |
Sensuality and bitterness |
The remembrance of past love. |
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Atlas Shrugged | Author: Ayn Rand | 1957 | 1951 - 2000 | New York | United States |
Life can be good; Men are competent to live happily; The world can be a shining, happy place to exist, if one is free. But novel also presents a dark, dystopian world to help make real that positive view. |
The crucial value of the human mind. |
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Attila (live performance) | Composer: Giuseppe Verdi | 2010 03 03 | 1851-1900 | New York | United States |
Life is a mix of strength, heroism, romantic passion. The work is a long complex opera, so it has many other lyrical emotions as part of it, but this covers the basic sense of life. |
Loving a heroic woman leads to death |
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Billy Elliot | Director: Stephen Daldry | 2000 | 1991-2010 | United Kingdom |
Life is dirty but one can clean up. |
Go after what you love. |
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Black Stallion | Director: Carroll Ballard | 1979 | Sardinia | Italy |
Everything is possible between boy and beast, between an innocent human and mother nature. |
Man and nature in harmony. At least this is the theme of the first half of the movie. See "Description" and "Context" info below for more on this comment. |
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Blue Steps of Naumkeag | Landscape Designer: Fletcher Steele | 1937-39 | 1900 - 1950 | Stockbridge, MA | United States |
elegance and grace |
The man-made enhances nature -- it is what makes nature beautiful |
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Bolero | Dancers: Torvill and Dean | 1994 | 1990-2009 | United States |
Harmony, grace exist. |
Two people as one. |
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Boulevard of Broken Dreams | Composer: Warren and Dubin | 1933-34 | 1900s | United States |
Weariness & Sadness |
Life is loss of dreams and sadness |
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Brass Bowl, The | Vance, Louis Joseph: | 1907 | 1900 - 1950 | United States |
The world is a delightful place. Good things happen to the deserving. |
Life as a gay, lighthearted adventure. |
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Brief Encounter | Screenwriter: Noel Coward | 1945 | 1931-1950 | United Kingdom |
Passionate love. Tragic choices. |
High romance is possible. Such love is unlikely to survive. This film manages to embrace two contradictory themes, leading to a major bittersweet outcome. |
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Burgos Cathedral Crossing | Architect: Unknown | 1569 circa | 1500s | Burgos | Spain |
God is order and reason and light. |
The spirit of god is rational, uplifting and rich in detail |
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Camelot | Composer: Lerner and Loewe | 1960 | 1951-2000 | New York | United States |
One must attempt to live by values, even though virtue is powerless and hopeless. |
Camelot: a medieval place of goodness and justice, and its inevitable failure. |
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Chariot of Apollo | Sculptor: Jean Baptiste (1630-1700) Tuby | 1668-1670 | 1600s | Versailles | France |
The world has thrilling powerful men of action. There are no limits to what can be achieved. |
Elegant, physical power. The fantasy ability to fly through water and air with grace and ease. |
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Chariots of Fire | Director: Hugh Hudson | 1981 | 1971-1990 | United Kingdom |
A complete feeling of openness of the world to greatness of your own choosing. |
Life is achievement. |
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Chocolat | Director: Lasse Hallstrom | 2000 | United Kingdom |
Pleasure is good; religion and conventional thinking is bad. |
Follow your dream and disregard convention. |
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City Island | De Felitta, Raymond: | 2009 | 1991-2010 | New York | United States |
Anxiety and pain from all the lies and mistaken motives. Catharsis from the climax, leading to feelings of wanting to be truthful in life! |
Lying is not the way to live. |
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Comedia | Painter: Thomas Wilmer Dewing | 1892-4c | 1800s | Philadelphia | United States |
Life is sumptuous and beautiful and alive. |
Feminine vivacity and gaiety |
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Cyrano de Bergerac | Playwright: Edmond Rostand | 1897 | 1900s | France |
Life can be exciting. Life can be grand, literally. There is also some great sadness about consummated love, since it is portrayed as unreachable. |
The importance of independence and independent thought. Compromise is deadly to one's soul. Sub-themes: a) Doubt of one's goodness because of an incidental fact (physical feature) is terribly damaging and tragic. b) Helping someone by faking reality is damaging and can come to no good. |
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Dangerous Beauty | Director: Marshall Herskovitz | 1998 | United States |
The world is a horrible split of conventional marital morality vs. honest but promiscuous morality. The way to live requires one sacrifice one's body for one's soul. |
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David | Sculptor: Michelangelo Buonarotti | 1504 | 1500s | Florence | Italy |
Man is a strong, indomitable creature who has the intelligence to overcome terrible odds. |
[requires assumption of some context of this work -- not a "cold" introduction to it]: A man able to face a daunting task, with tremulous calm and determination. This is the depiction of the David/Goliath story of the Bible in which David takes on the much more formidable Goliath and wins. |
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Design for Living | Writer: Noel Coward | 1932 | 1900s | United Kingdom |
Life can be giddy and bright. Facing up to one's anti-conventional values is important. Conventional morality must be questioned if it causes suffering and conflict. |
You should follow your deepest values and accept them no matter how unconventional the outcome. A rare combination of the wittiest, lightest of Noel Coward's style, along with deeper themes of romantic love, proper morality and how should one live. |