| Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sculptor: unknown | Niobe |
Human action is beautiful. |
Life is movement. |
| Director: Rob Reiner | A Few Good Men |
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. |
| Author: Henry Kitchell Webster | Real Adventure, The |
Life is wonderful as long as you realize that life has to be earned the hard way. |
Creating your self is the only way to live. |
| Director: John McTiernan | Die Hard |
The way to beat evil is to give no quarter, no compromise. Life is hard, but fighting for the right is rewarded. |
Giving up in life is not an option. |
| Director: Alan Parker | Fame |
Life is hard, but you can succeed, and it is worth it and exhilarating. |
Go after your heart's desire. |
| Director: Baz Luhrmann | Romeo + Juliet |
Tragedy is central to life. |
Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives. |
| 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. |
| Dancers: Torvill and Dean | Bolero |
Harmony, grace exist. |
Two people as one. |
| Painter: Ettore Tito | 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. |
| White, James Terry: | Hyacinths to feed thy soul |
Hopeful. Even in poverty one can have beauty. |
Beauty is a form of sustenance |
| Painter: Thomas Wilmer Dewing | Comedia |
Life is sumptuous and beautiful and alive. |
Feminine vivacity and gaiety |
| Choreographer: Harold Lander | Etudes |
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. |
| Architect: Guarino Guarini | Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Royal Church of St. Lawrence) |
The world is perfected. The joy of seeing complexity that is simplicity, i.e., that the rich complex vision arises from simple elements which because of their arrangement provide layers of visual thrills. |
Complex, soaring geometric order. |
| Director: Hugh Hudson | Greystoke |
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. |
| Director: Andrew Stanton | Wall-E |
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. |
| Author: John Steinbeck | East of Eden |
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. |
| Architect: Unknown | Burgos Cathedral Crossing |
God is order and reason and light. |
The spirit of god is rational, uplifting and rich in detail |
| Sculptor: Pio Fedi | Rape of Polyxena, The |
Strength and complex beauty are central. Vitality, passion and action are hallmarks of this work. |
Life is complex strife, entwined with strong god-like characters. |
| Composer: Giuseppe Verdi | Attila (live performance) |
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 |
| Director: Hugh Hudson | Chariots of Fire |
A complete feeling of openness of the world to greatness of your own choosing. |
Life is achievement. |
| Playwright: William Shakespeare | 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. |
| Director: Raymond De Felitta | 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. |
| Vance, Louis Joseph: | Brass Bowl, The |
The world is a delightful place. Good things happen to the deserving. |
Life as a gay, lighthearted adventure. |
| Myron?: | Riace Bronze A |
Man is strong and indomitable |
Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
| Director: Emile Ardolino | Dirty Dancing |
Life is passionate and meaningful. |
The joy and passion of love and life and dancing, while learning integrity and independence. |