Good Will Hunting is a very inspirational movie about friendship and love in a small town South Boston. It is about a Math genius,Janitor at MIT, and orphan boy named Will Hunting, his best friend Chuckie and Maguire, a psychology professor at a community college,who is Will’s therapist. Friendship according to Aristotle is a primary need in life. He believes that:” For no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods.”This movie is a great depiction of Aristotle’s three types of friendship that I will relate to, but also a challenge to Diotima’s speech in Plato’s theory of love in Symposium. I will concentrate on friendship and love relationships in the movie. Under Friendship, I will discuss the relationship
An example is when they are at the construction site and he says to Will:” you have got something none of us has...It would be an insult to us if you were here in 20 years.” This is a good example of virtuous friendship according to Aristotle. He describes it as a friendship in which people wish good for each other for the sake of both of them. He continues saying that this friendship is hard to find , but that it lasts longer than all the others. I absolutely agree with Aristotle. Most people nowadays want to become the best and always look for opportunities to make themselves great. Will’s best friend is one of a kind. He is never jealous of his friend receiving job offers, and really tries hard to make him understand that he want Will to become a good and respectable person. Chuckie knows that he is not expecting anything from Will, but he still pushes him to leave and start a new life. It can be deduced from this that virtuous friendship is really satisfying. I also believe that Aristotle would have placed this relationship under virtue
They seemed to ignore at the beginning of the movie when Prof. Lambeau goes to ask him for help with Will.Prof. Lambeau seemed to think that Maguire was a failure because he taught at a community college. Prof. Maguire considered his job honorable and didn’t want fame or status as most of his college friends seemed to only care about. Prof Maguire really wanted to see Will become a new and goal oriented man. Prof. Lambeau wanted to use Maguire to help Will leave his old habits and thus use him for his mathematics discoveries and theories. This was a perfect example of Aristotle’s utility friendship. Aristotle describes as one where one expects something useful for himself. This kind of relationship is the most popular nowadays. We all want great things for ourselves and thus we do anything to get there. The movie illustrates well how the audience,meaning us, would first think that Professor Lambeau really wants Will to go on the right track. In the end, however, it is clear that all along he wanted to make Will part of his work and thus make a name for both of them. Nevertheless, Prof. Maguire is a very understanding man who wants the best for will even if Will does not follow the Mathematics
One of the most memorable friendships of the early 2000s is portrayed in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. When the two main characters Napoleon and Pedro meet, they become fast friends. Napoleon and Pedro stay loyal to each other throughout the entire movie, despite what others might think. This is similar to how John Steinbeck portrays friendship in his novella Of Mice and Men. The friendship between the main characters of the novella, George and Lennie, is unexpected. They choose to stand by each other regardless of society’s expectations. Through this, Steinbeck communicates the theme that a loyal friend can be a haven in a heartless world.
One of the things Aristotle discusses is the need to limit the number of friends we have. He states: “So the right course is perhaps not to seek to
In Good Will Hunting the main character Will Hunting is a janitor at Boston’s prestigious M.I.T. His ability to solve complex mathematical equations has earned him notoriety through out the mathematical department. Will Hunting is not a student, he is merely a bright young 20 year old kid with a troubled past. Will Hunting is exposed by Professor Gerald Lambeau when he is caught working on another mathematical equation. Professor Lambeau discovers his troubled past when he attends Will Hunting’s court hearing. Lambeau Finds out that Will Hunting has had many run-ins with the law and offers to give Will Hunting direction instead of being sent to jail. Will Hunting is ordered by the court to attend psychiatric sessions to he...
While it was a huge success financially and critically acclaimed as well, the movie, Good Will Hunting, offers vivid focus on a young math savant from the socioeconomic realities of Boston’s South End, an underserved section of town that is not unlike inner city environments across the country. I will review and critique the film from the perspective of sociology and the changes a marginalized youth is able to go through thanks to his hitherto unknown brilliance in math. The striking contrast between the bad Will and examples of the good Will, and the juxtaposition between the economic deprivations that Will grew up in – including being
Aristotle argues that friendship is a vital part of life. It serves not only as a means to bond individuals together, but also a necessity in achieving overall happiness. Aristotle comments on the various types of friendships that exist, and the role they each play in society. He explains three overarching types; utility, pleasure, and complete friendship. Yet, with family, friendship is different than it is with companionship. As Aristotle states in his piece, Nicomachean Ethics on friendship in families, “they all seem to depend on paternal friendship” (Aristotle, 1161b18). In The Aeneid, Aeneas and Anchises’ relationship, perfectly embodies this. The father son bond does not distinctly resemble one of the three types, rather it is a friendship in of itself; a paternal friendship.
He would rather be in the comfortable realm of his home in ‘Southie’ (South Boston) instead of using his abilities to become something more. Chuckie is Will’s best friend and in this scene Chuckie questions Will’s life and if he is really doing the best he can for himself. This scene is approximately three minutes long and uses pathos, ethos, and logos
Aristotle regards Virtue Friendship as perfect. He does not comment on the potential negatives, whereas Lewis more realistically presents possible dangers of his highest form of friendship. Lewis believes that the birth of friendship proper from companionship reveals friendship’s dark and idolatrous side. Lewis comments on the sense of inclusiveness between friends that can create an “us/them” tension that can be potentially dangerous. He believes there is danger in the sense that a partial indifference or deafness to the voices of the outside world may develop and morph into dangerous perversions of
An Analysis of the Movie ?Good Will Hunting? and the Main Characters Will Hunting and Sean Mcguire
Once upon a time, there was a little bunny named Harriet, and she loved nothing more than playing with her best friend Alice. Alice lived across the field from Harriet’s burrow. They spent hours nibbling on clover and wiggling their whiskers. Most of all, they loved playing with Harriet’s Wii. One tragic day, the Wii broke. The next day, Harriet waited and waited for Alice to come over to play. Alice did not come that day, nor the next. Alice never came over to play again. Harriet did not know that Alice had found a new friend, with a Wii that worked. When Harriet found out about Alice’s betrayal of their friendship, she wondered: what is a true friend? In an attempt to ease her pain, Harriet got a big bowl of ice cream, and lost herself in reading the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. There, she discovered that there were actually three different forms of friendship: pleasure, utility and perfection.
II In Books VIII and IX, Aristotle discusses the role of friendship in the good life.
The film “Good Will Hunting” follows the story of Will Hunting (Matt Damon) a self-taught genius who works at one of the most prestigious technology schools; MIT, as a janitor. Will is an orphan with a criminal record of Assault, grand theft auto, assaulting a police officer, etc. Will solves a complex math problem, which leads to him being discovered by professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) as a genius. Professor Lambeau makes a deal with the judge when Will is incarcerated to be on parole under Lambeau’s supervision and Will is ordered to see a therapist once a week. Will Outsmarts many of the therapists, which forces Lambeau to go to his last resort, college friend and psychology teacher Sean Macguire (Robin Williams).
The character this film is primarily centered around is Will Hunting. Will lives in a tattered house in a bad neighborhood in the city of Boston. He grew up in foster care where he sustained continual physical abuse as a child. Will has a few close friends he is always with but never opens up about anything below surface level. Will is incredibly gifted with intelligence however he works as a custodian at the highly prestigious school, MIT. Professor Lambeau teaches advanced mathematics at MIT and is the one who discovers Will’s incredible talent for solving advanced mathematical theory. Professor Lambeau has high hopes for Will and pushes him into getting jobs with prestigious employers so that his gift is not wasted working as a custodian. Chuckie Sullivan is one of the closest of Will’s friends. They’ve known each other for years and Chuckie drives Will to work every day. Chuckie cares for Will and realizes the gift that he has and tries to convince Will he should be doing something of greater importance with his life. Skylar is a college stu...
In the critically acclaimed film, “Good Will Hunting,” the central protagonist, Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon, struggles to balance his supreme intellect with his rugged, masculine and proletarian identity. Will works as a janitor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and catches the attention of mathematics professor Jared Lambeau after Will solves a complex mathematical proof. Lambeau mentors Hunting and provides him with countless opportunities to improve his quality of living but Will refuses to let go for his identity. Due to the constant conflict between maintaining his identity and reaching his own potential the film exemplifies the theme of socio mobility, which is defined as the movement of one’s current social or
Friendship is not something that has adapted over time. The desire to seek out and surround ourselves with other human beings, our friends, is in our nature. Philosophers such as Aristotle infer that friendship is a kind of virtue, or implies virtue, and is necessary for living. Nobody would ever choose to live without friends, even if we had all the other good things. The relationship between two very different young boys, Bruno and Shmuel’s in the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an example of the everlasting bond of a perfect friendship based upon the goodness of each other.
Aristotle wrote on many subjects in his lifetime but one of the virtues that he examines more extensively is friendship. Aristotle believes that there are three different kinds of friendship: utility, pleasure, and virtuous friendships. He also argues that a real friendship should be highly valued because it is a complete virtue and he believes it to be greater than honor and justice. Aristotle suggests that human’s love of utility and pleasure is the only reason why the first two types of friendships exist. Aristotle also argues that humans only set up these types of relationships for personal gain. But when he speaks of the virtuous friendships, Aristotle states that it is one of the greatest attainments one can achieve.