Fabulous stylistic work of history by Rossellini here. In these history films from late in his career, Rossellini seems to be searching for a way to film the internal conflicts of these great figures, as the outward conflicts are de-emphasized to such a great degree. All the characters, from Descartes to Helene to his detractors, receive equal respect, which provides opportunities to draw your own conclusions about the characters and their ideas.

I have a philosophy test in 2 days, so I watched this as a way of studying. Look, I love this science and I think that Descartes’s reflexions were very interesting, but not enough to fill this 2h30min movie. The set design and the costumes are amazing, but the automaton is nightmare fuel holy shit

It was hard for me to be as engaged with this as i was with Blaise Pascal, especially after seeing Descartes getting his ass handed to him by Pascal in the aforementioned film. It probably doesn't help that the branches of philosophy that i'm the most savvy in are basically constructed around critiquing and debunking Descartes' assumptions. Other than that, it's virtually the same movie as Blaise Pascal (Rossellini even uses the same score from the previous film). It's not bad for what it is.

It reminded me of Fassbinder's seemingly theatrical work. Like Bresson, by overseeing and diluting the dramatic effect, Rossellini, like his subject Descartes, shows the "mechanism" of a system, of which Descartes speaks, and creates a mathematical equality which constitutes his narrative, but still the audience can sense the great spirit of Descartes which is the "prima causa" of all this mechanics. I think this should be added to the canon from Bresson to Straub&Huillet.

Descartes en Italiano? Over my dead body.