Blaise Pascal died at the age of 39 in 1662, a contemporary of René Descartes. We don't hear nearly as much about Pascal as we do about Descartes. Of course Pascal never said anything as memorable as "I think, therefore I am." But he DID say something like "the heart has its reasons which the mind will never know" and "men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" and (my favorite)
"Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere."
It's my favorite because I don't understand it. I can't tell whether Pascal was channeling Euclid or Joseph Campbell was channeling Pascal.
Of course that's neither here nor there. Pascal came from a sort of upper-middle class French family, not overly liked because its Catholocism was at the time démodé. However the kid was a genius. It's impossible to list his achievements which ranged from the material to the philosophical. He has several things named after him -- units of measurement, mathematical tricks, and the like -- and even a spiritual notion called "Pascal's choice." Pascal figured that you could either believe in God and act accordingly -- or not. If God didn't exist, the outcome would be the same, but if he or she DID exist, then believing would get you into heaven, while disbelief would take you elsewhere. I'm vulgarizing all this, naturally. For a fuller analysis, kindly read my forthcoming tome that explains everything, "I, Who Know Nothing."
The movie. Made for TV although you'd never know it. The production design is exquisite. And the actor who portrays Pascal, Pierre Arditi, bears a striking resemblance to the death mask Pascal left behind. He was always sickly, and Arditi gets this across too. He's often too weak to walk unaided, and his head is declined sideway so that it seems almost to be resting on his shoulder. His sickness wasn't feigned either.
Nobody's head is wrenched off, yet it's a very engaging film. Roberto Rossellini has done a fine job of directing it. No point is spelled out in capital letters but only handed to the viewer matter of factly. Did you know that Pascal built one of the first computers, a bread-box sized device that could do arithmatic up to and incuding multiplication? I didn't.
