Philosophy of desire

In philosophy, desire has been identified as a philosophical problem since Antiquity. In Plato's The Republic, Socrates argues that individual desires must be postponed in the name of the higher ideal.

Within the teachings of Buddhism, craving is thought to be the cause of all suffering. By eliminating craving, a person can attain ultimate happiness, or Nirvana. While on the path to liberation, a practitioner is advised to "generate desire" for skillful ends.

History

Ancient Greece

In Aristotle's De Anima the soul is seen to be involved in motion, because animals desire things and in their desire, they acquire locomotion. Aristotle argued that desire is implicated in animal interactions and the propensity of animals to motion. But Aristotle acknowledges that desire cannot account for all purposive movement towards a goal. He brackets the problem by positing that perhaps reason, in conjunction with desire and by way of the imagination, makes it possible for one to apprehend an object of desire, to see it as desirable. In this way reason and desire work together to determine what is a good object of desire. This resonates with desire in the chariots of Plato's Phaedrus, for in the Phaedrus the soul is guided by two horses, a dark horse of passion and a white horse of reason. Here passion and reason, as in Aristotle, are also together. Socrates does not suggest the dark horse be done away with, since its passions make possible a movement towards the objects of desire, but he qualifies desire and places it in a relation to reason so that the object of desire can be discerned correctly, so that we may have the right desire. Aristotle distinguishes desire into appetition and volition.

Désiré (baritone)

Désiré (29 December 1823 – September 1873) was a French baritone, who is particularly remembered for creating many comic roles in the works of the French operetta composer Jacques Offenbach. Désiré was a stage name; the artist's real name was Amable Courtecuisse, but for most of his life he was generally known as Désiré.

Life and career

He was born in Lille, or a nearby village, and studied bassoon, singing, and declamation at the Lille Conservatory. His first appearances were at small theatres in Belgium and northern France beginning in 1845.

In 1847, he arrived at the Théâtre Montmartre in Paris where he met Hervé. He asked Hervé to provide him with a musical sketch (drawn from Cervantes' novel Don Quixote), in which the tall and thin Hervé as the Don was pitted against the short and plump Désiré as Sancho Pança. The sketch inspired what was later dubbed the first French operetta, Hervé's Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, which premiered in 1848 at Adolphe Adam's Théâtre National at the Cirque Olympique, but with Joseph Kelm, instead of Désiré, as Sancho Pança.

Desire (2000 film)

Desire is a Canada/Germany treaty coproduction drama film, released in 2000. It was directed and written by Colleen Murphy produced by Elizabeth Yake (Canada) and Eberhard Junkersdorf (Germany). The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Plot

The film stars Zachary Bennett as Francis Waterson, an aspiring concert pianist, and Katja Riemann as Halley Fischer, an elementary school teacher with whom Francis enters a romantic relationship.

Awards and nominations

The film garnered two Genie Award nominations at the 22nd Genie Awards, with a Best Actress nod for Katja Riemann and a Best Actor nomination for Zachary Bennett.

External links

Movies@

Movies@ Ltd. is a cinema chain in the Republic of Ireland. The company opened its first multiplex cinema at the Dundrum Town Centre on 1 October 2005, with 12 screens. Other sites include the Pavilions Centre, Swords (11 screens) which opened in mid November 2006, and Gorey, Co. Wexford. A branch was proposed to be located in Salthill, County Galway (10 screens) in Autumn 2007, but has not yet opened.

The company bears some resemblance to the largest Irish cinema chain, the Ward Anderson group, in that it is a family owned business run by members of two families, in this case the O'Gorman family (who ran the Ormonde Cinema in Stillorgan) and the Spurling family who are also involved in rural cinemas, albeit having closed one (Enniscorthy) due to being in relative proximity to a Movies@ site.

External links

The Movies (The Goodies)

"The Movies" is an episode of the award-winning British comedy television series The Goodies.

This episode is also known as "The British Film Industry" and "The Black & White, Western, Epic Movie" as well as "BBC" and "The Choices of Film Creation".

As with other episodes in the series, this episode was written by members of The Goodies, with songs and music by Bill Oddie.

Award

The Goodies won the Silver Rose in 1975 for this episode at the Festival Rose d'Or, held in Montreux, Switzerland.

Plot

After complaining about the decline of the British film industry, the trio purchase Pinetree Studios (for £25) in the hope of making some good films. They then fire all the directors, whom they consider to be making films which are either "very boring or extremely pretentious" and decide to make a film themselves.

Their attempt to remake Macbeth with less violence and more family interest is a complete failure, and leads to the three Goodies falling out with each other and attempting to make their own films, separately. Tim wants to make a Biblical epic — while Graeme wants to make a violent Western, and Bill wants to make a silent black and white comedy (believing that to do this he has to paint everything monochrome, and not talk). Bill comments: "Buster Keaton must have spent three weeks painting the whole town black and white. And then a ruddy great building falls on him, and he doesn't make a sound."

Movies (song)

"Movies" is a song by Alien Ant Farm, released as the first single from their album Anthology in 2001, then re-released to a larger audience after the success of "Smooth Criminal". Though it only peaked at No. 18 on the US Modern Rock chart, it remained on the chart for thirty-two weeks, five weeks longer than "Smooth Criminal" which hit No. 1.

Lyrically ambiguous, the song deals with images of young, independent kids salvaging relationships, inherent power struggles, finally letting go, and then (possible) reconciliation, practicing concepts of love, despair, and bargaining that adults have difficulty dealing with, and the resolution and “drama’ so well-written that it’d be worthy of a movie. “You won’t cry/I won’t scream” may be describing promises made in order to continue, or may be describing the final goodbye and never seeing each other again.

The original single version had two tracks, Wish, and Movies (the album version).

Music videos

There were three music videos made for this single, one, which was shot before the success of "Smooth Criminal" features a 'behind the scenes' style shooting of the video, with grips and lighting crew interrupting shots to fix equipment, while the band performs before a tacky Hollywood Hill backdrop.