I hope I'm not duplicating myself here because it's often difficult to remember.

I believe that movies are both art and entertainment. However, I feel more comfortable, if I'm rating something, to rate it on its entertainment value rather than its artistic value. Entertainment seems to be more of a communal experience, while art seems more personal. I don't feel the need to tell someone else that they HAVE to watch something because it's an artistic masterpiece (unless I know them well), but I enjoy telling people that they can take a load off and enjoy themselves for a coupla hours.

I'm coming to movies from the perspective of having seen thousands of obscure, avant-garde, foreign, and now-lost or recently-discovered films, as well as being a fan of mass-entertainments. I've spent years writing about, researching, watching and loving movies of all kinds.

What do you all think about this? Can art and entertainment find a middle ground, or do we have to cut ourselves in half to fully appreciate film?

Isn't good music art and entertainment?
Movies can be both art and entertainment. As can many forms of art be both art and enjoyable.

I agree with you, but how does it affect the way you react to the art, and how you tell others about it? I mean, I'm here to tell you that no matter how lousy something is, it still has some component of art, at least if it's a movie or music. But I honestly believe that others may disagree.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
I mean, I'm here to tell you that no matter how lousy something is, it still has some component of art, at least if it's a movie or music.

I want to believe that, but some of those crappy sequels Hollywood churns out...I have a hard time imagining anyone being involved for art's sake. I can't imagine anyone on American Pie: Naked Mile had any sort of "artistic vision".

For me the best films are art and entertainment. I think it's a rare gift for a writer/director to make a film that appeals to snobby critics, their peers in the industry, and average Joe Moviegoer.

False dichotomy mate.
Film is an art form, which can be, depending on the film, described as entertaining, or not so entertaining, or self-indulgent, or depressing or any number of adjectival rejoinders.

Take that you Firefly non-conformist you.

Movies today are an integrated experience of art and entertainment. Good art can oftentimes lead to good entertainment, but bad art can oftentimes lead to bad entertainment. To separate the two and to judge only on entertainment is to artificial divorce the movie experience as to why a good entertaining movie is entertaining and many times it can be followed back to good art.

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
I can't imagine anyone on American Pie: Naked Mile had any sort of "artistic vision".

Ah-ah! You can't pick & choose! If you consider film to be art, then it's ALL art! However, just like in museums, you have art that people love & art that people hate. Not every movie can be a Kubrick, just like every painting can't be a Picasso. At the same time, not everyone would enjoy a Kubrick or a Picasso. It all depends upon personal tastes & preferences. EVERY form of art has its hacks, from movies to music & books. The thing that makes them worthwhile are the few fantastic pleasures that we occasionally stumble onto. The moments we find our own personal masterpieces!

Return of the Monkey King.!!

Onward to the West!

quote:

Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
...just like every painting can't be a Picasso.

I do like Picasso.

Another interesting topic.

I once attended a lecture where I was shown works which had Wagnerian traits, and others which were considered Brechtian.

Wagner believed that the reader should be completely swept away by an art work. That is to say we become completely emmersed. We believe we are witnessing some alter-reality. The work should make you feel happy, sad, fearful, excited etc. It is escapism from the mundanity of life.

Brecht on the other hand, believed that the intellectual processes of art should be on show. The reader is constantly reminded that they are witnessing an art work. We are merely watching a play, a film or an opera. This is not reality and we should not view it as such. We are encouraged to think about the art work, and that becomes the entertainment.

I can't choose between these 2 aesthetics.

I dislike films that are pure 'throw away' entertainment because I don't like being patronised. The film is very often predictable and tedious.

Having said that, I also dislike films that are too clever for their own good. Often they are elitist and exclude the viewer from their 'private jokes' and high brow paradigms. Again, I come away from the film feeling unsatisfied and bored.

I like films that are entertaining and clever. To that end, they can convey anything. They engage both the mind and the emotions.

Having said that, it's a bitch finding a film to rent these days.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Duncan Black,

Entertaining and clever??

Try David Mamet's House of Games

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels coffin:
Entertaining and clever??

Try David Mamet's House of Games

... or almost any of Woody Allen's early films.

I second you Mr. Scribbler.

Entertaining and clever has been part of the mainstream for a long time. For example -

Koyaanisqatsi
Blazing Saddles

These are just a couple, but they use innovation and pioneering techniques that have gone on to influence other films.

Koyaanisqatsi is spell binding. There are no words, no actors, no story, nothing - it's just edited time-lapse photograhphy with a soundtrack by Phillip Glass. It's minimalist, but beautiful in a way that Wagner himself would have appreciated. It's hard not to feel emotional when the space rocket falls from the sky at the end of the film. This year, Koyaanisqatsi was used as a paradigm in the latest 'Grand theft auto' computer game. To see something so deep and intellectual used in a mainstream medium is confirmation of it's accessability.

Blazing Saddles unquestionably uses elements of post modernism and Brechtian thought - even if Mel Brooks did it unintentionally. We have a scene where the actors are watching themselves in the very film they are starring in (until the audience tell them to get on with it). That scene is pure Brechtian, but I challenge anyone to watch the film and not laugh. There are many more scenes that send up the notion of cinema.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels coffin:
Entertaining and clever??

Try David Mamet's House of Games

You know, my dad told me about this movie (at length) and knowing him assumed it wasn't very good (or didn't even exist.) But the more I look into it and hear about it the more I want to see it

To the topic at hand! Sounds like quality v. preference, which I know well. I talk to a lot of people that think if they like something it must be good and if they don't it must be bad. A lot of us eat McDonalds but I don't think any of us would call the food "good." It's just enjoyable. Likewise, art (film) can be good artistically and un-enjoyable (Raging Bull) or it can be pleasant but not very good (Half-Baked.) Of course as has been said the truly great films are both (LOTR trilogy is a personal favorite), and then you come to movies that are entertaining because they're so awfully lacking in artistic quality (Every Robert Z'Dar movie I'm betting) Those are the most interesting.

I have trouble with the idea of film as art. My problem arises out of the inevitably collaborative nature of film. Films are always "made by committee." This doesn't mean that there is no difference between good and bad film, or that films cannot express valuable truths about the human condition. But I think that Art has to reflect the vision of the Artist. And I think one has to consider what one means by the term "Art," as well.

Now, I know about the nouvelle vague, and I've read the essays from Cahiers du Cinema from the 60s, and understand the auteur theory. But no matter how strong the director's vision, he or she has to contend with variables outside of his/her control. And, occasionally, the "artistry" of the film is primarily at the hands of others, eg., the cinematographer, the editor, etc. And this doesn't even consider the contributions of the actors. So, although a very good director can do a very good job of realizing a specific vision, it must be done as a collaborative process, and with the limitations of the collaborators taken into account. Would Bergman be Bergman without Sven Nykvist? Would Picasso really be an artist if, in order to get his paintings produced, he had to describe his vision, and then supervise Miro to do the outlines, Juan Gris to shade, Salvador Dali to color the reds and oranges, and Wilfredo Lam to do the blues and greens?

"Ok," I hear my imaginary reader saying, "what about theatre, ballet and opera?" Legitimage question. I think, in all of those, the "artist" is the playwright, choreographer and composer, respectively. The work exists as a work of art independently of it's ever being produced. The production merely represents the only means be which the artistic work can be disseminated. Shakespeare is an artist. Baz Luhrman, on "Romeo + Juliet," imo, is not.

Maybe certain film scripts are art. I think that time will have to tell, because I think this bears on what "art" means. I think that art is a form of expression, representing the vision of one, or maybe two individuals, that has something durable to say about the human condition, and it does so using secondary or symbolic materials. This is why a pipe is not art, but Renee Magrittes painting of a pipe, entitled "This is not a pipe," is art. It's also, perversely, why Marcel Duchamps urinal, entitled "Fountain," is also art, but the average Villeroy & Boch urinal at the gas station is not.

Interesting arguments Ken, but I'm not sure that "art by committee" isn't art. A good director is always going to surround himself (or herself) with people who can help to create his vision. Although the artistry being done is being done by a variety of people, they're all working according to the guidelines set by the director.

I'll admit that what I'm going to say has no basis in any formal theory of art, but it seems to me that film (movies) utilize more forms of art than just about anything else which could be considered an art form. I realize that this puts any form of film (or video) into a seemingly-equal category (TV shows, commercials, music videos, etc.)

Is all the art in a film made somehow less than the sum of its parts by being combined, or could that actually make it greater? I'd consider the following artists (not technicians): beginning/end titles designer, costume designer, art director, set decorator, production designer, cinematographer, editor, music composer, sound recorder/editor, actor, director, scripter (and I'm sure I'm leaving more out). It seems that the director's job is to marshall all the artists at his disposal to produce a unique vision. I believe that it's possible that all the artists could be on the same "wavelength" and create an exponentially-greater piece of art from the sum. I also believe that some disasters occur when they are not on the same wavelength or they are using a cookie-cutter script. However, no matter what I believe, I can certainly look at a film (any film) and see art, whether it's a shot, a performance, a wondeful line of dialogue, a beautiful set, etc. How can a collaboration negate all that art, even if it is only the cheap, shaggy, crawling carpet which devours those crazed teens in my vote for the worst piece of art I've seen, The Creeping Terror?

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
It seems that the director's job is to marshall all the artists at his disposal to produce a unique vision. I believe that it's possible that all the artists could be on the same "wavelength" and create an exponentially-greater piece of art from the sum.

The LOTR trilogy comes to mind.

quote:

I also believe that some disasters occur when they are not on the same wavelength or they are using a cookie-cutter script.

Nonsense. There's art in all films, even the cookie-cutter ones ... it's just a lesser form. Plus, I've seen stunning costume or set design in films that are pure shit ... so certainly not everyone needs to be on the same wavelength for the artist's work to be realized.

quote:

Posted by kendocubano
Marcel Duchamps urinal, entitled "Fountain," is also art,

Not often I call you out k/c as I agree with 90% of what you post, but I do not agree that Duchamp made art when he stuck a urinal in a room removed from its normal context.
He merely made a rather weak jokey commentary about the definitions of art. A work of art, in and of itself, it most certainly isn't. Same goes for Tracey Enim and her unmade bed.
Sorry k/c, but i won't be swayed, even with promises of French chocolates.