The spark that can't start a prairie fire is still worth dedicating to

Leif 2022-04-22 07:01:31

This "Mona Lisa Smile", like "Dead Poets Society"/"Spring Breeze", became my encouraging film when I was depressed.

The change of educational purpose lies in people's enlightenment, not in following the rules. It's about someone breaking the shackles and getting everyone to believe they have other possibilities.

Even if the students did not live their lives as expected in the end, the seeds they planted may germinate in the later years of their lives, a generation, or even a few generations later.

I believe in the power of enlightenment. Just like the flourishing humanistic splendor after the end of the Middle Ages - the uniqueness of people is always to be released.

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Extended Reading

Mona Lisa Smile quotes

  • [about Vincent van Gogh]

    Katherine Watson: He painted what he felt, not what he saw. People didn't understand, to them it seemed childlike and crude. It took years for them to recognize his actual technique. To see the way his brush strokes seemed to make the night sky move. Yet, he never sold a painting in his lifetime. This is his self-portrait. There's no camouflage, no romance. Honesty. Now, sixty years later, where is he?

    Giselle Levy: Famous.

    Katherine Watson: So famous, in fact, that everybody has a reproduction. There are post cards...

    Connie Baker: We have the calendar.

    Katherine Watson: you go. With the ability to reproduce art, it is available to the masses. No one needs to own a van Gogh original, they can paint their own. Van Gogh in a box, ladies! The newest form of mass-distributed art; paint by numbers.

    Connie Baker: [reading from the box] "Now everyone can be van Gogh. It's so easy. Just follow the simple instructions and in minutes, you're on your way to being an artist."

    Giselle Levy: Van Gogh by numbers?

    Katherine Watson: Ironic, isn't it? Look at what we have done to the man who refused to conform his ideals to popular taste. Who refused to compromise his integrity. We have put him in a tiny box and asked you to copy him.

  • Betty Warren: You don't believe in withholding, do you?

    Katherine Watson: No. I do, however, believe in good manners. But for you, I'll make an exception.