I had this odd dream
I was watching CNN in my dream. Weird, given my overall opinion of their journalism, but okay.
There was Wolf Blitzer pontificating on a movie. He was reviewing it, if you could call it that. I want to say it was Speed Racer, and how it was a demonstration of all that was wrong in holywood movies now - that they had long ago stopped being art.
Here's the bit that's been jangling in my head since....
"If it does not touch the higher purposes of humanity, if it does not uplift our souls, educate us and instruct us to be better people, it cannot be art."
I can't agree with that. It makes it not a specific kind of art, but dammit - there's art that uplifts, there's art that educates, there's art that instructs, there's art that makes us laugh, makes us cry, makes us giggle like teenagers or even like small children.
I think this is all part of my "dammit, Shakespeare isn't for the elite, you nobs!" rant...Shakespeare - that bastion of modern day "artistic elite" is full of fart jokes, "your mamma" come backs, broad slapstick, and all the things that modern critics complain about in movies.
(I can hear a few of my old movie fan friends bristling slightly, secure in their knowledge that nothing as good at Casablanca, etc, has been done recently, and they may well be right - things like Casablanca and Shakespeare stick around as long as they do for a reason).
Here's the thing. Just because something isn't a classic doesn't make it not art. Art isn't that easy to encapsulate. Tell an artist that the only way they can self-define that way is if they guarantee they can create something for the ages and I suspect most of them would either quit or laugh in your face...and I suspect it would be more of the latter.
It saddens me that I run into more and more instances of "it must be highbrow and noble to be art" attitudes more and more in real life.
And hopefully, really hopefully, I'm preaching to the choir here.
There was Wolf Blitzer pontificating on a movie. He was reviewing it, if you could call it that. I want to say it was Speed Racer, and how it was a demonstration of all that was wrong in holywood movies now - that they had long ago stopped being art.
Here's the bit that's been jangling in my head since....
"If it does not touch the higher purposes of humanity, if it does not uplift our souls, educate us and instruct us to be better people, it cannot be art."
I can't agree with that. It makes it not a specific kind of art, but dammit - there's art that uplifts, there's art that educates, there's art that instructs, there's art that makes us laugh, makes us cry, makes us giggle like teenagers or even like small children.
I think this is all part of my "dammit, Shakespeare isn't for the elite, you nobs!" rant...Shakespeare - that bastion of modern day "artistic elite" is full of fart jokes, "your mamma" come backs, broad slapstick, and all the things that modern critics complain about in movies.
(I can hear a few of my old movie fan friends bristling slightly, secure in their knowledge that nothing as good at Casablanca, etc, has been done recently, and they may well be right - things like Casablanca and Shakespeare stick around as long as they do for a reason).
Here's the thing. Just because something isn't a classic doesn't make it not art. Art isn't that easy to encapsulate. Tell an artist that the only way they can self-define that way is if they guarantee they can create something for the ages and I suspect most of them would either quit or laugh in your face...and I suspect it would be more of the latter.
It saddens me that I run into more and more instances of "it must be highbrow and noble to be art" attitudes more and more in real life.
And hopefully, really hopefully, I'm preaching to the choir here.