| 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. |
| Director: Murer, Fredi | Vitus | If you have the will, you can find the way to live the way you want. | Living your life your own way is the only right way. |
| Composer: Beethoven, Ludwig | Symphony no. X | test |
|
| 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. |
| Alexander Mackendrick, Director | The Ladykillers | All is right with the world because virtuous people prevail over evil people. Evil people simply destroy themselves, and innocence strengthens you. |
Evil is impotent. Secondary theme: you can’t cheat an honest lady.
|
| 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. |
| 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: Luhrmann, Baz | Romeo + Juliet | Tragedy is central to life. | Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives. |
| Sculptor: unknown | Niobe | Human action is beautiful. | Life is movement. |
| 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> |
| 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. |
| Architect: Anonymous | Sainte-Chapelle | The world is brilliant, light, colorful, orderly. | The world is brilliant, light, colorful, orderly. |
| Director: Benigni, Roberto | Monster, The | Just laughter and more of the same. | |
| Painter: Dewing, Thomas Wilmer | Comedia | Life is sumptuous and beautiful and alive. | Feminine vivacity and gaiety |
| Director: Daldry, Stephen | Billy Elliot | Life is dirty but one can clean up. | Go after what you love. |
| Myron? | Riace Bronze A | Man is strong and indomitable | Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
| Author: Rand, Ayn | Atlas Shrugged | Life can be good; Men are competent to live happily; The world can be a shining, happy place to exist, if one is free. But novel also presents a dark, dystopian world to help make real that positive view. | The crucial value of the human mind. |
| 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. |
| Composer: Handman, Lou | Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Sensuality and bitterness | The remembrance of past love. |
| Classical Persian School | Ardabil Carpet | sumptuous eye candy. | |
| 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. |
| Blum, Robert Frederick | Moods to Music | Life is colorful and glorious. |
Pure joy of movement and femininity. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |