Hints of High Culture
Over the New Year’s weekend I was talking with my older brother about the medium of film. Now that he’s retired, he has been indulging a little more in his love of movies, although his appreciation of the classics doesn’t even approach my own. I think he is starting to fancy himself as something of an auteur, and always cites his yearly attendance of the Cleveland International Film Festival as evidence of his discerning taste.
With his increased amount of leisure time, and based on the success of recent movies filmed on the cheap with inexpensive devices, he is considering crafting his own short films. I wish him luck. We discussed how we both kind of missed the boat on that. Both of us have seen way too many shitty movies to believe we couldn’t offer better fare ourselves. My main drawback is that I’m a technophobe, and cameras always seemed daunting to me. I also tended to prefer my art static - the painting, the written word, so I could savor it at my own pace. Still, with my much improved understanding of fictional archetypes, narrative flow and the sharpened ability to distinguish between necessity and distracting contrivance, I yet think I would make an excellent screen writer. It’s an absurd fantasy (for starters, I could never plausibly envision the two of us collaborating as creative partners), but it would be highly amusing if we could be like the Coen brothers, or even better, like the directing/writing team of the Nolans. In reality I’m certain we would end up bickering like (the not real) Frasier and Niles Crane.
As we were discussing this I began musing aloud how maybe the appeal of movies was similar to the draw of architecture for me. For besides cinema, in the realm of creative human endeavor only architecture compares in offering the possibility of the apotheosis of what Wagner termed the “Gesamtkunstwerk” - the total work of art. (Thinking I was affecting an air of patronizing pretentiousness, at this juncture my brother then gave me “the Finger”). In such a building everything is carefully selected and configured to realize the end goal - the materials and the way they are employed, the textures and colors, the play of light and placement of the building on its site, the forms of the spaces themselves as well are their arrangement in relation to each other, the fixtures and furniture, and so on, all to provide a comfortable yet stimulating environment so that it can help its occupants lead satisfying and productive lives for decades to come. Maybe good buildings don’t possess the same cultural impact as a classic film, but in the long run they may confer the greater benefit to humanity.
Meanwhile, at work I am putting the finishing touches on a “scum pump station”.
With his increased amount of leisure time, and based on the success of recent movies filmed on the cheap with inexpensive devices, he is considering crafting his own short films. I wish him luck. We discussed how we both kind of missed the boat on that. Both of us have seen way too many shitty movies to believe we couldn’t offer better fare ourselves. My main drawback is that I’m a technophobe, and cameras always seemed daunting to me. I also tended to prefer my art static - the painting, the written word, so I could savor it at my own pace. Still, with my much improved understanding of fictional archetypes, narrative flow and the sharpened ability to distinguish between necessity and distracting contrivance, I yet think I would make an excellent screen writer. It’s an absurd fantasy (for starters, I could never plausibly envision the two of us collaborating as creative partners), but it would be highly amusing if we could be like the Coen brothers, or even better, like the directing/writing team of the Nolans. In reality I’m certain we would end up bickering like (the not real) Frasier and Niles Crane.
As we were discussing this I began musing aloud how maybe the appeal of movies was similar to the draw of architecture for me. For besides cinema, in the realm of creative human endeavor only architecture compares in offering the possibility of the apotheosis of what Wagner termed the “Gesamtkunstwerk” - the total work of art. (Thinking I was affecting an air of patronizing pretentiousness, at this juncture my brother then gave me “the Finger”). In such a building everything is carefully selected and configured to realize the end goal - the materials and the way they are employed, the textures and colors, the play of light and placement of the building on its site, the forms of the spaces themselves as well are their arrangement in relation to each other, the fixtures and furniture, and so on, all to provide a comfortable yet stimulating environment so that it can help its occupants lead satisfying and productive lives for decades to come. Maybe good buildings don’t possess the same cultural impact as a classic film, but in the long run they may confer the greater benefit to humanity.
Meanwhile, at work I am putting the finishing touches on a “scum pump station”.