Title | Creator | Date | Era | City | Country | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme | |
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Etudes | Choreographer: Harold Lander | 1948 | Pre-1950 Ballet/Dance | New York | United States |
Thrilling pleasure at beautiful movement and great success at developing the best within you. |
Hard work results in great achievement in life -- and that results in beauty and excitement in life. |
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Laocoon (Laocoön and His Sons) | Sculptor: Agesander | 1st century BCE to 1st century CE | 500 BCE - 1 CE | Rome | Italy |
Life is a desperate, agonizing struggle. |
The heroic but agonizing defeat of Men. This sculpture certainly represents at the same time the heroic nature of men but cast into an impossible situation that can only be tragic. |
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Riace Bronze A | Myron?: | c.460 BCE | 500 BCE - 1 CE | Greece |
Man is strong and indomitable |
Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
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Her Face to the Wind | Painter: William Hosner | 2006 | 2000s | Traverse City, Michigan | United States |
One gets the feeling that the young woman is able to stand strong in the world, with panache and beauty all at once. |
Facing life in a fresh, strong, vivacious way. |
|
Romeo + Juliet | Director: Baz Luhrmann | 1996 | 1991-2010 | United States |
Tragedy is central to life. |
Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives. |
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Wall-E | Director: Andrew Stanton | 2008 | 1991-2010 | Hollywood | United States |
The world is garbage, and more garbage and humans have destroyed the earth, because of their wanton consumerism. |
Mankind is a blight on the universe, and only cute robots (as opposed to evil robots) can save the earth from human degradation. |
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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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Rob Roy | Director: Michael Caton-Jones | 1995 | 1991-2010 | United Kingdom |
Life is a struggle. The life you make for yourself can be difficult, but living it with strength and morality is the way to live. Happiness is possible in romance. |
Heroism in everyday life leads to heroism writ large. A man works hard to lead his life and those of his extended clan in an honorable, productive, honest way. This is the everyday heroism. But dishonorable, evil men seek to steal from him and ruin him. This leads to a life of larger-than-life heroism to vanquish his mortal, and stronger enemies. |
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Love Actually | Director and Screenwriter: Richard Curtis | 2003 | 1991-2010 | United Kingdom |
Romantic love, family love, filial love, and the love of friendship are of central importance to human existence, and are possible to achieve. |
Wonderful experiences of love are found in many forms and places. |
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Owl and the Sparrow | Director: Stephane Gauger | 2007 | 1991-2010 | Saigon | Vietnam |
A child shows sweetness and strength and determination. |
Searching for family, for soulmates. |
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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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Two Family House | Director: Raymond De Felitta | 2000 | 1991-2010 | New York | United States |
Feelings of benevolence and optimism about life. Happiness comes from making choices for your own good. |
Going after what you want in life; Don't be stopped by conventional standards of the people around you. It takes courage to be selfish. |
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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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Bolero | Dancers: Torvill and Dean | 1994 | 1990-2009 | United States |
Harmony, grace exist. |
Two people as one. |
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Flying Fish | Dancers: Torvill and Dean | c.1995 (verify) | 1990-2009 | NY NY | United States |
A heightened sense that Life is fantastically unbounded by daily cares. Life is imbued with unlimited potential and ease of movement. |
Life is light and fluid. |
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Wall Street | Director: Oliver Stone | 1987 | 1971-1990 | United States |
There are bad people in power who use ordinary people as pawns in their endless pursuit of money. Those who are not ruthless are sheep to be slaughtered by the rich and powerful. Greed is bad. |
Financiers are amoral money-grubbing backstabbers, i.e., desire for money corrupts |
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Fame | Director: Alan Parker | 1980 | 1971-1990 | New York | United States |
Life is hard, but you can succeed, and it is worth it and exhilarating. |
Go after your heart's desire. |
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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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Godfather | Director: Coppola Francis Ford | 1972 | 1971-1990 | United States |
Life demands death; life is a horror of killing and retribution. Life is tragedy and malevolence |
Behind beauty and success lies corruption and death. |
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Greystoke | Director: Hugh Hudson | 1984 | 1971-1990 | United Kingdom |
Life is Loss -- life is grim and culture is grim and the jungle is grim. All is grim. The other important feature of the film emotionally is that Tarzan has been crippled by his circumstances of being brought up in the jungle -- he cannot live as a man, so the great tragedy of the story is that he has to return to the jungle, which is below primitive -- it is an isolated hell in which death is at every corner, and at best the companionship of apes. Given that the story partly portrays civilized men as brutes who relish killing animals, perhaps the emotional intent is to make the choice to return to the jungle as positive, but for this reviewer it is unutterably tragic and ugly. |
Loss, Loss, Loss. Man as metaphysically alien from human culture. |
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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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High Noon | Director: Fred Zinnemann | 1952 | 1951-1970 | United States |
There is palpable evil in the world. There is heroism in the face of evil in the world. The movie is full of fear and foreboding and betrayal. |
Civil Society is the ideal, and worth fighting for. Doing what is right is the right way to live. Don't let the evil bastards win. The theme is expressed repeatedly in the movie via the contrast of the Marshall who grimly faces the need to do what he lives for, despite the death facing him, vs. the mealy mouthed town folk, many of which who won't fight for their civil society, and vs. the deputy marshall who portrays the sellout who will give into evil force in order to "get along". |
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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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East of Eden | Author: John Steinbeck | 1952 | 1951 - 2000 | United States |
Life is filled with great and important choices. |
The battle between good and evil, guilt and innocence. Takes the position that we are influenced by many things, but ultimately we have free will. |