Unforgiven

Ilya's take on the movie is that it is all about values in a monetary sense. My take on the movie is that it is all about values in an ethical sense. To me, the movie is questioning morality in every scene. Take the very first scene, for example, where the man cuts up a prostitute. Justice is not served because the sheriff only asks the criminals to pay a financial punishment. Murder or violence are not morally right. The fact that the women send assassins to kill the two men is not morally right. There is no justification in murdering them, especially when the victim isn't even that hurt. The morality behind Munny's acceptance of the assassination can be questioned. Munny is a confusing character because his character is blurred between a hero and a villain. Another scene that questions morality is the part when Ned asks Munny if he wants to go upstairs and join him in his enjoyment of the prostitutes. First of all, it was surprising for Ned to ask this because he seemed as if he was above those kinds of actions. Munny refuses, indicating the uncertainty of his character's rectitude. This movie seems to be stating that there are no heroes, because everyone possesses something malicious in their character. The movie also degrades violence. For example, Munny has seen this lifestyle and all of the consequences that follow. This is ironic because fun action-packed violence is expected in these western-type films. Rather than glamorizing violence, this movie has a rather pejorative take, much unlike most other westerns.

Oh yeah... and MSIT is in the championship. Surprising huh? Well, it's not.

Seventh Seal Cont.

As we see in the movie, Bloch distracts Death from killing Jof and his wife by using the knocked over chess pieces as a distraction. Death is well aware of what he is doing. Block believes this is his good deed, allowing his friends to escape death, but rather, as made evident throughout the entire movie, his friends are only delaying their deaths. Not to disparage the heroism of Bloch, but he's only allowing them to live another day because death can strike randomly. We see this when the wagon is driving away and there is a skull or mask on the back as it drives away. Death always hovers over us, and we can only do so much to prevent it.

Seventh Seal

Two additional quotes that I liked were, "You have black." "It's most appropriate, isn't it?" and "We must make an idol of our God, and call it fear."

In this movie, I, unlike some other people, enjoy the utilization of the chess game. I can already tell that it's impossible for Antonius Block to win the game. The message is clear. You cannot escape death. Block can only delay, not escape the inevitable. My initial prediction was that Block would win the game, but it would be one of those , "Win, Lose, what's the difference?" (Runaway Train) where he would still die. But, considering the chess game must remain a symbol for the struggle for life and death throughout the whole movie, I think Block will only be able to hold off his death for so long. In this way, the film is questioning God's existance or at least the uncertainty of his existance much like Block's search for meaning in the world and God. Block says he will defeat death with a combination of knight and bishop. He himself is a knight and I see the bishop as religion or faith. Block is saying he will escape death through faith. But, he will lose the game because he must as we all must. In a sense, I like to see it as Block playing chess with himself. You cannot win. You can never be sure of God's existance. You can't escape death. You cannot know anything until you are dead. And at that point, you may not even exist.

Existenialism

Existentialism seems like a good mindset to maintain throughout life in order to lead a productive lifestyle. I like the ideas of uniqueness, independence, and living life fully. What I don't like is the concept that our Existence is essentially absurd and that there is no purpose to our presence. One reason I don't like this statement is that I feel this is made out of a lack of knowledge. Since we do not know or understand the universe, life, and death, there is no way of us knowing what has happened or what will happen. The second reason is because it goes again some of the other ideals. Instead of promoting a full participation in life, it promotes depression. I believe Mr. Bennett said that our senses are deceptive and if they are, then maybe they're deceiving us right now. Perhaps we're nonexistant or already dead. We don't know. God exists to explain these unknowns. God explains the cause of our universe. Everything has a cause(I'm not saying anything about purpose yet). Humans have a cause, which is some sort of scientific evolution process. But, the only possible cause for a beginning is God. Anyway, the purpose of our presence in the universe is determined by the individual. Perhaps there is a specific purpose, but we don't know it. To say that we don't know the reason for our purpose differs from saying that our purpose doesn't exist. The individual must set out to discover his or her own purpose in the universe.

Albert Camus wrote a book called The Stranger and when I read it I hated it and could not stop thinking about how stupid the main character was. Some of you guys should have read it already and now that I think about it, the main character was an existentialist. He ended up believing that there is no meaning to life and he dies peacefully knowing this and that the world is indifferent to us. Now, I still think it's really stupid. He died living a rather useless life and with a false happiness. Throughout the story, it's almost as if he doesn't have a conscience. Camus says that we cannot find rational explanations in an irrational world. That's fine with me, but does the man really feel justified with death? It seems to me that existentialism in this sense leads to a poor, disappointing mindset.