| Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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". |
| Myron? | Riace Bronze A | Man is strong and indomitable | Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
| 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: Herskovitz, Marshall | Dangerous Beauty | 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. | 1. The importance of accepting your own rules for living, your own morality. |
| Author: Lazarus, Emma | The New Colossus | Benevolent celebration of liberty as a beacon to a troubled world. | A marvelous land of liberty offers welcome to the oppressed of the world. |
| Composer: Handman, Lou | Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Sensuality and bitterness | The remembrance of past love. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Vance, Louis Joseph | Brass Bowl, The | The world is a delightful place. Good things happen to the deserving. | Life as a gay, lighthearted adventure. |
| Sculptor: Buonarotti, Michelangelo | Pieta | Resignation in the face of tragedy. | Recognition and acceptance of a great personal loss. |
| Sculptor: Saint-Gaudens, Auguste | Diana | Serenity in action. But not a strong world view in any case, quite placid. | |
| 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. |
| Rand, Ayn | Anthem | 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. |
| 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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| Director/Writer: Elliott, Stephan | Easy Virtue | Love isn't easy, but it is glorious. |
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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. |
| 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. |
| Designer: Eiffel, Gustave | Eiffel Tower | The works of Man are thrilling. | |
| Designer: Ferrari, Enzo | Ferrari Dino 246 GT | The world is a place of speed and elegance. | |
| Singing Group: Soviet Army Chorus and Band | Sports March | Happiness triumphs. | The power of joy to motivate action. |
| Composer: Verdi, Giuseppe | 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 |
| 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: |
| Designer: Rouff, Maggy | Helene Arpels Dress | Elegance and richness of detail | |
| Photographer: Ommer, Uwe | Pirelli Calendar Diver | Women can be strong, dynamic and unconsciously beautiful. |