Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
---|---|---|---|
Architect: Unknown | Burgos Cathedral Crossing | God is order and reason and light. | The spirit of god is rational, uplifting and rich in detail |
Painter: Mondrian, Piet | Composition with Red Yellow Blue and Black | [Seems mute] | |
Designer: Fortuny, Mariano | Green fabric | Still produced by the Fortuny fabric company. | |
Photographer: Ommer, Uwe | Pirelli Calendar Diver | Women can be strong, dynamic and unconsciously beautiful. | |
Sculptor: Canova, Antonio | Three Graces | The female human form is beautiful, graceful, ideal. | Quiet repose and sisterly love. The piece exudes a quiet elegance and peacefulness amidst the complex three-dimensional composition. The inclusion of "sisterly love" is less certain, except that taking into account the mythological background of the piece. It can be argued that one should not take that into account, so perhaps that should not formally be included in the theme. |
Composer: Lerner and Loewe | Camelot | 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. |
Maugham, W. Somerset | Of Human Bondage | Life is a fearful gray spread of actions and in-actions without genuine values. We are all deformed in mind or spirit and should accept convention as demanded by those around us. | Man's life is outside his control. Conventionality is the final ideal. |
Director: Stone, Oliver | Wall Street | 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. |
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Sculptor: Agesander | Laocoon (Laocoön and His Sons) | 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. |
Composer: Catalani, Alfredo | Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (aria from La Wally) | 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. |
Draftsman: Boscoli, Andrea | Horse Seen from Behind | Not much except perhaps stylistic -- confident, strong drafting style, and a vibrant, alive, horse. | |
Composer: Lehar, Franz | Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) | Love brings gaiety and joy to life. |
Love can be gay and tender, solemn and lighthearted, painful and joyous. |
Ohara, Shoson | Crane Under the Rain | Life is difficult. | |
Designer: Rouff, Maggy | Helene Arpels Dress | Elegance and richness of detail | |
Director: Ardolino, Emile | Dirty Dancing | Life is passionate and meaningful. | The joy and passion of love and life and dancing, while learning integrity and independence. |
Playwright: Shakespeare, William | Othello: the Moor of Venice | Malevolence and horrible tragedy is unrelieved. Evil is potent. |
A great man can be gullible and controlled by an evil character. Or, an evil character can have potency in the world, because of the weakness of a good man.<br> |
Screenwriter: Chopra Vidhu Vinod | 3 Idiots | 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 |
Loysel, Jacques | La Grande Nevrose | The dynamic female body is beautiful and exciting. Although it may not explicitly suggest it, the nude and its tense position could be felt as erotic. | An animated female body is a vessel of perfection. |
Painter: Tito, Ettore | La Gomena (Towing a Boat) | There is great effort in life, and a woman can be the master of it. This painting is a curious combination of romantic heroism and 19th century genre naturalism. It has a visual dynamism and dramatic content that is strongly romantic, yet the subject is the prosaic task of pulling a boat out of the water. |
The will and the power of a woman. Implacable determination. |
Director: Reiner, Rob | American President | Romance is fun, funny and important. | |
Director: Kurosawa, Akira | Rashomon | The world is terrible and full of disasters and mankind is awful and pathetic. | Objectivity is a myth -- everyone sees a different reality, a different "story". |
Author: Shute, Nevil | Far Country, The | Life can be bright, happy and successful, but hard decisions must be faced and dealt with. | A good and happy life is made up of self-directed actions, self-chosen goals. A less important theme is: |
De Felitta, Raymond | City Island | 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. |
Director: De Felitta, Raymond | Two Family House | 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. |
Author: Young, Phyllis Brett | Psyche | Optimistic, Hopeful, even under terrible circumstances. |
We are beings of self-made soul<br> |