Descartes

I rented this because I found it on a list of impressive foreign films. As far as any attempt at adventure or cinematography, other than a still camera, there is very little. When the woman tries to dump the wash water one of Descartes' friends, that's about as much action as one gets. Still, it is really cerebral and it's a way of putting forth the ideas of one of the world's great thinkers. I believe that when one embraced science, it could be very risky. Yet, rather than being executed, this man had options; mostly to find a place that accepted him or at least tolerated him. The church has been the biggest enemy to intellect throughout time and here it is no exception. I did plot through this, but I felt that it taught me something.

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?)

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.

Part of Roberto Rossellini's Italian TV series on philosophers in history (other titles: Socrates, Blaise Pascal), this three hour chunk of television is, like the other titles, riveting in its own unique way. Granted it is a talk fest, but imagine listening to the leading lights of Renaissance Italy, Holland, and France talking for three hours on the subject dearest to their hearts: scientific investigation and its relation to the Church (which meant only one thing at the time, of course: the Roman Catholic church). It is an edifying three hours, but, this may surprise you, a very entertaining three hours as well. Negative points, however, to the rather annoying Mario Nascimbene score (though annoying in a way that doesn't really distract from the action). Rossellini's attention to quotidian detail is always fascinating. (In "Socrates," for example, Socrates goes to market, and his fish is wrapped to go -- in a piece of lettuce!) Shown at the Cinematheque Francaise in a Rossellini complete retrospective, in a print that was, unfortunately, badly faded. But that's videotape for you. FOLLOW-UP, summer 2009: My title is no longer valid, now that the Criterion Eclipse series has released this in a pristine print. The score (now that I have recognized that all the Nascimbene scores for Rossellini are rather interesting wallpaper) annoyed me not at all. While less well-sustained than "Blaise Pascal" (a major masterpiece), "Cartesius" is still quite interesting, though maybe not exactly riveting, for Descartes, it would seem, was not as fully integrated a personality as was Pascal. This is nicely summed up in a scene where Descartes is about to abandon (for work) his child and her mother. "She is beautiful because she is perfect," he says. "For me she is a miracle," says Helene, the mother. "No, she is not a miracle. She is a perfect machine of nature."

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.