| Title | Creator | Date |
Era |
City | Country | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireplace and Door | Designer: Wharton Esherick | 1936c. | 1901-2000 | Philadelphia | United States |
Very orderly exuberance, via "explosive" geometry |
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| Rembrandt | Director: Korda Alexander | 1936 | 1931-1950 | United Kingdom |
Life is hard as an independent spirit, and wealth will elude you, but you will be happy, after a fashion. |
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| Rashomon | Director: Akira Kurosawa | 1950 | 1931-1950 | Japan |
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". |
||
| Ruggles of Red Gap | Director: Leo McCarey | 1935 | 1931-1950 | United States |
Happiness and fulfillment is in yourself. |
Personal declaration of independence from servitude |
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| Brief Encounter | Screenwriter: Noel Coward | 1945 | 1931-1950 | United Kingdom |
Passionate love. Tragic choices. |
High romance is possible. Such love is unlikely to survive. This film manages to embrace two contradictory themes, leading to a major bittersweet outcome. |
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| Atlas Shrugged | Author: Ayn Rand | 1957 | 1951 - 2000 | New York | United States |
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. |
|
| East of Eden | Author: John Steinbeck | 1952 | 1951 - 2000 | United States |
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. |
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| Far Country, The | Author: Nevil Shute | 1952 | 1951 - 2000 | Australia |
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: |
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| Enemy Below, The | Director: Dick Powell | 1957 | 1951-1970 | United States |
War is deadly and destructive for all parties. |
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| High Noon | Director: Fred Zinnemann | 1952 | 1951-1970 | United States |
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". |
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| Camelot | Composer: Lerner and Loewe | 1960 | 1951-2000 | New York | United States |
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. |
|
| Wall Street | Director: Oliver Stone | 1987 | 1971-1990 | United States |
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. |
Financiers are amoral money-grubbing backstabbers, i.e., desire for money corrupts |
||
| Fame | Director: Alan Parker | 1980 | 1971-1990 | New York | United States |
Life is hard, but you can succeed, and it is worth it and exhilarating. |
Go after your heart's desire. |
|
| Chariots of Fire | Director: Hugh Hudson | 1981 | 1971-1990 | United Kingdom |
A complete feeling of openness of the world to greatness of your own choosing. |
Life is achievement. |
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| Godfather | Director: Coppola Francis Ford | 1972 | 1971-1990 | United States |
Life demands death; life is a horror of killing and retribution. Life is tragedy and malevolence |
Behind beauty and success lies corruption and death. |
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| Greystoke | Director: Hugh Hudson | 1984 | 1971-1990 | United Kingdom |
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. |
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| Bolero | Dancers: Torvill and Dean | 1994 | 1990-2009 | United States |
Harmony, grace exist. |
Two people as one. |
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| Flying Fish | Dancers: Torvill and Dean | c.1995 (verify) | 1990-2009 | NY NY | United States |
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. |
|
| Romeo + Juliet | Director: Baz Luhrmann | 1996 | 1991-2010 | United States |
Tragedy is central to life. |
Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives. |
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| Tell No One (aka Ne le dis à personne) | Director: Guillaume Canet | 2006 | 1991-2010 | France |
Life is sad, and controlled by mysterious corruption. |
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| Wall-E | Director: Andrew Stanton | 2008 | 1991-2010 | Hollywood | United States |
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. |
|
| American President | Director: Rob Reiner | 1995 | 1991-2010 | Washington, D.C. | United States |
Romance is fun, funny and important. |
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| Billy Elliot | Director: Stephen Daldry | 2000 | 1991-2010 | United Kingdom |
Life is dirty but one can clean up. |
Go after what you love. |
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| Monster, The | Director: Roberto Benigni | 1994 | 1991-2010 | Italy |
Just laughter and more of the same. |
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| Rob Roy | Director: Michael Caton-Jones | 1995 | 1991-2010 | United Kingdom |
Life is a struggle. The life you make for yourself can be difficult, but living it with strength and morality is the way to live. Happiness is possible in romance. |
Heroism in everyday life leads to heroism writ large. A man works hard to lead his life and those of his extended clan in an honorable, productive, honest way. This is the everyday heroism. But dishonorable, evil men seek to steal from him and ruin him. This leads to a life of larger-than-life heroism to vanquish his mortal, and stronger enemies. |
