Descartes

It's a deep sorrow when I saw meager votes and seven reviews concerning so prominent thinker that the world ever had, the French René Descartes is the father of modern philosophy and mathematics as well, dared bring the lights over the outdated scholastic system from Greece and developing later the Cartesian Method which comprises in the doubt and skepticism under the analytical thinking about everything.

The outstanding and prolific director Robert Rossellini already previously made others biographic movies over Socrates, Blaise Pascal and Agostino d"Ippona, on Descartes he had a broad scope of source materials to build up a best screenplay to make a movie with utmost genuineness, also embellished by so magnificent thoughts from their books.

The storyline spans since his final days at Jesuit School at La Fleche around twenty years old and moves to Paris, in this point the director skips Descartes on Universities that he attended, maybe by lack of source material probably, then he headed to Holland that period of time a most advanced place on the Europe in every facet, meeting with Isaac Beeckman who really aroused its interesting in Mathematics, therefore the fidgety Descartes soon travelled to Bohemia where gains the fondness of Princess Elizabeth, wherever he goes he found a shelter from the scholars and sages, due his wisdom whose preceded himself opening countless dors.

Meanwhile finishing his works and starting printing he was very concerned over the Church's reaction, due what had happened with Galileo arrested by the Pope, advised by his former Jesuit teacher, during this time he gets sexual involving with his servant Helena, who gave a girl named Francine, he never married her, nevertheless never drop out her, sadly the child died five years later, further the movies doesn't display his life at Sweden and his relation with Queen Christina, neither his remaining days at Stockholm and his death.

I consider Descartes a man from another world, someone which was born time after time with a regular gap until was born another genius, then we shall see how the mankind will drives along in steady progress, Descartes quite sure is one my favorite Philosopher, until unknown by the majority of the human race, as shown at IMDB where gathered one best brainy people which consist in this planet, the numbers of votes spoke for themselves!!

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.25

Extremely good value for folks interested in the history of science, history of rationalism, or mid-renaissance thinkers and culture. Rossellini's very sober Cartesius is a chronicle of Descartes' life and times, following him through Europe as he develops his ideas about science and existence. Rossellini shows us the genius Descartes, but also shows us quietly that he could get things wrong and that he was a product of his times.

The production has some weaknesses as well as some strengths. The music, as another reviewer has mentioned, is odd and over-used. The acting is adequate but never more than that. There is a tableau quality to scenes throughout the film – the people are stiff and come across as conduits of the dialogue rather than actually speaking. There are some real pluses too. During the entirety of one scene in which Descartes is describing his philosophy to a printer, two men work a printing press – one placing the blank pages on the type set that he has daubed with ink, and the other turning the screw a half turn, then back. There are several other scenes that show craftspeople engaged in their work. Finally, I found it refreshing that everyone, French, Dutch, and English, spoke Italian - leaving me to figure out nationality by clothing styles and names.

If Cartesius turns out to be your cup of tea, you may like Potop (The Deluge), directed by Jerzy Hoffman, set in Poland around the time of Descartes (and Gustav Adolph). While a very different approach to filmed history, it is a colourful and interesting story.

At first glance this is the most tedious of Rossellini's portraits, double the length, with even more repetitive talk about a more abstract subject: the correct use of mind. The character is portrayed in the most distant light of all. The tensions are the most faint: Descartes has to fight prejudice like Socrates in a previous film by Rossellini but he's never really troubled, he has to worry about the Church but he can safely publish in tolerant Holland.

The most interesting way to experience the man would be in the course of making his observations: it would have to be visual, internal, in space. Not very educational; a different thing altogether than Rossellini tried with any of these things. Instead we have only the expositions of thought in long monologues, the sober history.

It's all there in a roundabout way. In a nutshell what Descartes was doing was this: the senses are unreliable and I have reason to doubt them, the world tentative, the only thing that is concretely known to me is that 'I think'. This was his anchor from which to reconstruct all the other stuff.

Now the observations are central in the sense that we needed someone to come up with the first intuitions so we could have a picture of what to correct and overcome. Indispensable in his time when mind was all sorts of muddled ideas bundled together, with hindsight we can see that in his quest for absolute clarity he severed a lot of vital nuance that we've been putting back in.

So, tedious and dry if you stick to the thought, educative. But if you see past his 'I' that thinks and thinks and into the pooled space of life in which it appears?

Rossellini's Socrates offered warm interrogation. Descartes does haughty exposition. Socrates was also concerned with drawing limits to reason but it was to free thought. Descartes wants to make it concrete. One man therapeutic, the other arrogant and dogmatic in his way. This is why Rossellini includes his erroneous views on the boiling heart and fluid heavens around an immovable earth, we're meant to see a sometimes presumptuous man who is prone to error as much as anyone.

One reviewer seems to think that Rossellini undertook the project to celebrate reason over prejudice, not quite of course. That's only one side of it. Rossellini contemplates both sides; and does it with the hand of a cinematic master.

Another reviewer deems this worthy for classroom use; I agree, it's a solid exposition and likely the only one on the subject that we're going to have for a long time. But I'd also draw attention to this mechanical view of life that results from it; people are like trees in a forest Descartes muses, inanimate nature, his newborn baby is a perfect machine of nature, in the end when he grieves he wants to 'extinguish the senses' and withdraw to reflect.

(Exercise: put the man to the test, try to not think. It's okay to learn stuff, but how about we actually see our own mind for a change? Sit somewhere quiet, eyes closed, relax the body, focus on the breath thinking nothing. When the mind strays in thought gently bring it back. This is the preliminary for Buddhist meditation, so you can snoop around the web for better instructions, the concept is the same. Descartes was not trying to model some other 'I', it was this one in his own mind. What happens? Where is I?)

This film is excellent for intellectual history. I've studied Descartes and the history of his time, and this film is spot on accurate, so it seems to me. For those interested in the history of philosophy and the rise of modern science, it is well worth the two-and-a-half-hour watch. For instructors in the classroom: The acting feels a bit staged, and the film is almost entirely seventeenth-century philosophical and scientific debate. So sleep-deprived students would not be able to sit for long viewings without falling asleep. However, particular scenes, especially of key moments in the development of Descartes's philosophy can be selected out and offer terrific visuals to accompany the teaching of Cartesian philosophy and/or the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century. Certainly the whole film could be shown in segments in a course entirely on Descartes. The film also captures insights into the religious hegemony and theological debates in Europe at the end of the Reformation. Because the film is in Italian, it would also be an excellent exercise for those studying Italian since every scene is a matter of dialogue.

I saw it more than a good film but as magnificent trip. Not across a rich, beautiful life or great work of a remarkable director, but as a wise try to explore the meanings of life. It is more than beautiful, right or fair portrait of rene Descartes. It is one of films for who the term memorable has so many significances. So, just a profound useful experience.