Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
---|---|---|---|
Director: Hudson, Hugh | 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. |
Dancers: Torvill and Dean | Bolero | Harmony, grace exist. | Two people as one. |
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. |
Author: Steinbeck, John | 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. |
Dancers: Torvill and Dean | Flying Fish | 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. |
Sculptor: Fedi, Pio | 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. |
Rodin, Auguste | Shade, The | Life is a gruesome trial. There is no hope. | The world destroys man. (Some unknown evil force is destroying this young strong man.) Given that the sculpture is titled as a "Shade" and is related to the Group sculpture "Gates of Hell", one can presume the evil is some unnamed condition that can overpower life and cause destruction of the good. |
Director: Reiner, Rob | 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. |
Designer: Rouff, Maggy | Helene Arpels Dress | Elegance and richness of detail | |
Director: Ballard, Carroll | Black Stallion | Everything is possible between boy and beast, between an innocent human and mother nature. | Man and nature in harmony. |
Architect: Guarini, Guarino | 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. |
Landscape Designer: Steele, Fletcher | Blue Steps of Naumkeag | elegance and grace | The man-made enhances nature -- it is what makes nature beautiful |
Director: Stanton, Andrew | 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. |
Director: Powell, Dick | Enemy Below, The | War is deadly and destructive for all parties. | |
Director: Tran, Anh Hung | The Taste of Things | test test test test |
tentative: the ideal world of physical creation of food shared by soulmates. |
Painter: Ghirlandaio, Domenico | Old Man with a Young Boy | Human companionship or family closeness is real. | Quiet familial love. (A grandfather (perhaps) gazing upon a grandson, and vice versa, in a clear moment of happy communion.) |
Playwright: Rostand, Edmond | Cyrano de Bergerac | 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. |
Sculptor: Saint-Gaudens, Auguste | Diana | Serenity in action. But not a strong world view in any case, quite placid. | |
Domenichino | Head of a Bearded Man | Pensive, worried, detached qualities of humanity | Worry is the way of the world. |
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. |
Sculptor: unknown | Winged Victory | One of the great expressions of the Greek Classical and Hellenistic spirit -- that men (and women) are larger than life and triumphant. While the image is partially a fantasy since the woman is winged and probably represents a goddess: Nike -- this concretization depicts a "god" in the form of a human woman, thus glorifying women. |
The grandeur of being alive and free. |
Ohara, Shoson | Crane Under the Rain | Life is difficult. | |
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. |
|
Screenwriter: Coward, Noel | Brief Encounter | Passionate love. Tragic choices. | High romance is possible. Such love is unlikely to survive. |
Writer: Coward, Noel | Design for Living | 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. |