“When one is able to follow an actor in continuity, one is leading him, in spite of himself but thanks to him, towards public confession,” said film director Jean Renoir in conversation years ago with Jean-Luc Godard ( Godard on Godard, DaCapo, New York, 1986 145). Hotel Rwanda and William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice are two films that look at the trouble that can come from social differences that are believed to be essential and they feature good performances by their leading actors (Don Cheadle in the first, Al Pacino in the second). The respect we sometimes have for physical strength is a holdover from earlier times, when a man’s survival or laboring power depended on it, especially if he was a servant but physical strength is less important in the modern world, in which much of the work to be done is the work of mind or machines (and physical strength has now merely a symbolic or erotic force)-and yet, thoughts and feelings are respected most when they can be made into a commodity and sold, as in books or films. The work of people such as Plato and Shakespeare is not important because they are Greek or English but because of how they illuminate the human condition, an illumination not limited by language, national borders, or time. Sometimes we feel inferior because we are. Human Conflict, or the legacies of superfluous men: Hotel Rwanda, The Merchant of Venice, Bad Education, The Woodsman, and Notre Musique Godard and Terry George, Shakespeare and Susan Sontagīy Daniel Garrett Volume 9, Issue 2 / February 2005 61 minutes (15171 words)Įach of us is human and has value, but we are not equally valuable-our resources (knowledge, skills, talents, and monies), and relationships to others, determine the extent of our value.

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