Classic Hollywood Cinema Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Classic Hollywood Cinema - Essay Example This essay explores the interaction between the message and medium in a scene from Casablanca. The scene that will be analyzed is the scene when Annina Brandel (Joy Page), a refugee who is desperately looking for exit visas for her and her husband Jan Viereck (Helmut Dantine), converses with Rick and asks for guidance regarding her dealing with Renault. This scene demonstrates the themes of nationalism and sentimentalism; it uses the cinematic elements to complicate the portrayal of the themes, by showing how Rick fights his inner emotions, values, and goals, and these elements also reinforce the themes through expressing them through symbolisms and motifs, as well as the actions and words of the characters. Rick embodies his contradictions as an empty and â€Å"filled† man, which manifests more in the form of sentimentalism. He seems to not care for the idea of true love. French bargirl Yvonne (Madeleine LeBeau), in the beginning of the film, pleads for Ricks attention. She drinks heavily, showing her confusion with her feelings and Ricks feelings for her. She asks Rick for a date that night, but all he says is: â€Å"I never make plans that far ahead.† During this time, through a middle shot, Ricks back is on the audience as he busily writes on something on the bars desk. It shows his indifference to Yvonne. As he pulls Yvonne out, shadows fall on Rick. These shadows symbolize the darkness inside his heart. He seems to have no feelings for anyone. He does not believe in â€Å"love† or â€Å"passion,† which can be inferred as he brusquely shoves Yvonne out of his bar. This woman evidently likes him, but he does not care for her. His actions demonstrate how h e also brushes aside love and passion away from his life. He has an emptiness inside him and the scene sends the first impression of Rick as a lonely introvert. Nonetheless, when he speaks with Annina, the scene reveals the complication between the

Sketch descartes two thoedicie. does descartes need them both or could Term Paper

Sketch descartes two thoedicie. does descartes need them both or could he get away with only one - Term Paper Example He begins by reiterating that there are only a few things he can say with certainty about the human body, a few more about the mind, and yet more about God. His first assumption is that God would never deceive him: God being perfect and all fraud and deception being imperfect in some way or the other. He proceeds to suggest that his own sense of judgment, given him by the perfect, undeceiving God, should not commit errors if used correctly. By this logic, Descartes and indeed every human being should not even be capable of erring. To explain this obvious fallacy in his reasoning, Descartes concludes that in the â€Å"Great Chain of Being†, the complete perfection of God on one end and the total absence of perfection on the other, man must lie somewhere in between. Error is considered not a negative action, but the absence of the positive. He suggests a few other possibilities also, but pertinent to the scope of this paper is the Free Will versus Understanding theory. Descartes contends that neither the will nor the understanding is the cause of errors; it is only when the will is not restricted that mistakes occur: Whence, then, spring my errors? They arise from this cause alone, that I do not restrain the will, which is of much wider range than the understanding, within the same limits, but extend it even to things I do not understand, and as the will is of itself indifferent to such, it readily falls into error and sin by choosing the false in room of the true, and evil instead of good. The root of error lies therefore in the gift of Free Will bestowed on us. As we are allowed to choose, to make decisions, and not compelled by God to live out pre-ordained situations, we are also given the option of making mistakes, of erring: something that the perfect God of Descartes is incapable of doing, by His very definition. Although occasional errors are inevitable when one has free will, no person intentionally commits them. Even if the