Cartesius, by Roberto Rosselini, is another of the Criterion Eclipse restored and released films that the director made for italian television. It is another wonderfully imagined work (when I had expected a loss in quality from the notion that Descartes was not a very interesting personage as Pascal or Socrates was). The same attention to the minor rituals of life, to the sartorial fashion of the time and the social customs as they were back then, is lavished on Decartes' everyday existence. I derived some amusement from knowing that the great mind was an avid sleeper who worked till early morning, arising usually very late in the day, or when a servant came to harass him out of bed if a guest was at the door. He also married a chambermaid, a charming homely woman who responds in country maxims: "A good conscience makes for a good pillow." Lastly, some comfort in knowing that Descartes abandoned Paris, the scene of great intellectual excitement, in preference for a quieter foreign atmosphere in the Netherlands, where he spent a large part of his life writing the works by which he is known to posterity. Why comfort? Because I too desire the same latitude, the same sense of retirement, to accomplish what must needs be accomplished.
...
Where the score fit Blaise Pascal perfectly, with its doom and dread, here clashes with the aridity of Descartes' life and personality. Ugo Cardea, who plays Descartes, does a good job formulating a convincingly cerebral, aloof, and determined philosopher. The Descartes he presents suits us as the right one.
...
No comments:
Post a Comment