| Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Designer: Otar, John | Covered Box | Fun; complexity made from simplicity | |
| Painter: Alexander, John White | Repose | Life is extravagant and lush and sensual. | Feminine Sensuality is a main theme, though one can argue that a related (equal theme or sub-theme) is: The Lushness of the Material World. The dramatic draped womanly figure pressing against a divan, whose figure is clearly oulined, shares the visual dominance of the painting along with the magnificent sweeps of her dress and the giant pillows, the massive backrest, and even the strong elements of the floor material and the golden back wall. All together a remarkable composition. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
|
| 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". |
| Director: Tran, Anh Hung | The Taste of Things | test test test test |
tentative: the ideal world of physical creation of food shared by soulmates. |
| Sculptor: Saint-Gaudens, Auguste | Diana | Serenity in action. But not a strong world view in any case, quite placid. | |
| Painter: Peale, Charles Wilson | Staircase Group (aka Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale) | Perceiving accurately is important and playing with the artistic medium is fun. | |
| Director: Canet, Guillaume | Tell No One (aka Ne le dis à personne) | Life is sad, and controlled by mysterious corruption. | |
| Designer: Tiffany, Louis Comfort | Spider Web Narcissi Table Lamp | Richness of form, sumptuous shapes. | |
| Author: Young, Phyllis Brett | Psyche | Optimistic, Hopeful, even under terrible circumstances. |
We are beings of self-made soul<br> |
| Painter: Mondrian, Piet | Composition with Red Yellow Blue and Black | [Seems mute] | |
| 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> |
| Hiroshige | Senso-ju Temple at Asakusa | Pure, simple, quiet tranquility. | |
| 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: Benigni, Roberto | Monster, The | Just laughter and more of the same. | |
| Vance, Louis Joseph | Brass Bowl, The | The world is a delightful place. Good things happen to the deserving. | Life as a gay, lighthearted adventure. |
| Photographer: Ommer, Uwe | Pirelli Calendar Diver | Women can be strong, dynamic and unconsciously beautiful. | |
| Designer: Ferrari, Enzo | Ferrari Dino 246 GT | The world is a place of speed and elegance. | |
| Director: Zinnemann, Fred | High Noon | 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". |
| Director: Korda Alexander | Rembrandt | Life is hard as an independent spirit, and wealth will elude you, but you will be happy, after a fashion. | |
| Rudyard Kipling | The Ballad of East and West | When two sworn opponents recognize each other’s heroic qualities, their enmity dissolves. We feel inspired to see that intelligent and courageous men can recognize what is truly fundamental in the character of each individual. |
Though different cultures may be fundamentally opposed, two individuals from such opposites may fully transcend those differences and respect each other for their virtues. |
| Myron? | Riace Bronze A | Man is strong and indomitable | Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
| Director: Luhrmann, Baz | Romeo + Juliet | Tragedy is central to life. | Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives. |
| 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. |