WARNING: Extremely long post ahead. I just woke up, and didn't edit myself, so there is probably a lot more here than you have any interest in reading. Ooops. But that's what you get trying to engage me in such a difficult topic as 'what is art'
I think the issue is I wonder why we must attach the term “art” to any film that’s released.
Do we need to? Is it necessary to view the film as is? Does the lack or “artistic” quality matter?
To me, the answer is no.
I know it matters to you, however.
To me asking if we must attach the term 'art' to films is like asking if it is important to attach the word 'tomato' to what type of sauce we are about to put on our pasta. As slippery and hard to define a term as art may be, it ultimately means something in regards to what we are getting out of a film. I think a question I'd bat back to you would be, why do you feel there needs to be any resistance to viewing something as art? And maybe, that not uncommon rejection of the term, is why people like me see a need to go to bat for films that will ultimately have a diminished value if the only metrics we have left are to weigh them against 'craft' or 'entertainment' or 'product'.
While everyone is going to have their own little accents on how they choose to define what 'art' really is, it shouldn't be thought of as a word that excludes. In many ways it has such a broadly open definition that we can adapt it to nearly anything. It is why such works as Duchamps readymades, or John Cage's '4' 33' are essential in liberating the term. Duchamp taking a urinal and putting it in a gallery, or Cage having his audience sit in complete silence for four minutes and 33 seconds, as much as people may roll their eyes at such experiments, democratize what art is. They allow us to see the world as naturally full of art, it is only up to us to see the mysterious or beautiful or terrifying or peculiar in what already surrounds us. Art, by such a definition, is whatever we choose to say moves us. Then, ideally, allows us to try and to begin communicating why, so as we can have some kind of communal experience in appreciating whatever it is we've pointed at and said 'art!'.
Such a broadening of the definition though doesn't make it something irrelevant. It makes it completely malleable to the individual, which is essential to drawing the film ever closer to us. To make us understand eachother better when we talk amongst ourselves about a movie. Unlike the other very important element involved in the creation of film--craft--it doesn't have rules, or specific ways we can begin to critique whether it does something well or not so well.
With craft, we can talk with great clarity. We discuss character motiviations and if they pan out, allow us to buy into the reality of the movie. Or we can talk about whether a scene was well lit and how its composition elevated the drama of a moment. How the editing moves things along, or brings everything to a halt.
Now, these are also very important conversations to be had when talking about what films we want to champion or revile. But they are also extremely incomplete. They don't give us much room to insert our own ideas into why something affected us so much. The notion of 'art' is what permits us to start bending the rules of traditional criticism. It is the place where the difficult but (at least for me) most beautiful discussions about a film take place. Where we can begin to embrace the elements that go against the grain of what we expect something should do. Where we find justification for experimentation. The nonsensical. The confounding. The deliberately opaque. It crawls into all of the spaces we otherwise would have trouble defining. Is what allows a film to say the kinds of things that we generally have no notion how to communicate in the real world.
These more abstract, and ultimately more personal ways of looking at a film, are also what conversely allow us to crawl out of our own skin and put the general needs we have as an audience member (drama, entertainment, resolution) over to the side for a brief moment. Instead, give us a chance to start trying to consider the intent of what someone else is trying to show us. Give us a window into the obsessions and passions and malfunctions of the director. Deepen empathy, and thus a greater connection between the audience and the artist. When looking through someone elses eyes (or lens in this case) we can insert ourselves into the struggle an artist has in trying to tell us things that previously didn't have any great language to cleanly articulate.To empathize with the act of creation.
In short, art is where all of the magic happens. If we are to make a religious analogy, craft is the church's architecture that surrounds us, the sermon is the films presentation and message, and art is the holy spirit. We can't prove its there, but it is always the most interesting part to talk about because of its transience.
And, to be sure, absolutely all of this can be applied to superhero films. Or romantic comedies. Or soap operas. Or sitcoms. Or even the dreaded shot on video horror movies I tend to attach it to. But it does ask us to look a little deeper than simply talking about whether or not a characters plot arc was fully realized. Or if the cinematography was really flash. Or if an actors performance was incredibly compelling. It can include all of these things, but hopefully, not rely solely on the basic text of the film.
Now, I’m not trying to actually change any one’s mind here. I certainly don’t expect everyone to like them, and they don’t have to. Quite the contrary, really. But I do want to convey a better understanding shared in regards to them
It's fair enough that superhero movies need their defenders too. There are a lot of attacks on these kinds of films where people claim fans of them are 'childish' or 'unsophisticated' or that they like their stories spoon fed to them. All of that noise is garbage talk. It's the same kind of noise that tries to sink the value of the horror genre which to me, without any question, can have just as much cinematic and artistic value as Andrei Tarkovsky or Ingmar Bergman. Even though I don't personally see it in superhero movies, I don't begrudge those that do. They simply don't move me. They don't compel me to think or talk about them. But that's just me.
But a lot of this kind of dismissal that goes towards the MCU, comes back ten fold against supposed art films. I dont' know how many times I've been told anyone who is a fan of Jeanne Dielmann (ie. me), is a phony and is just pretending to like something because it is the arty farty thing to do. That there is no inherent value in such a film. There can't possibly be, because it is a fraud. At the very least, in dismissals towards superhero films, as terse and snobbish and irritating and even dehumanizing as those can be, there is an acknowledgement that these films do what these films set out to do. They entertain, and no one doubts that. Yet, those who like art films, are frequently made to read comments that not only are we pretentious ********, but there isn't even any faith that we are talking honestly. What we love is considered without any value whatsoever. Even worse, it is a trick played on gullible people like myself.
So, it's not like there isn't blood on everyone's hands in these petty discussions about what we should or shouldn't like. And it's why I generally dismiss this element of the discussion as irrelevant. Because what we like barely matters. It's how and why we like it. And treating those who are fans of even things we hate with respect. To try and understand what they may be getting out of film. And the more we embrace this flimsy notion of what 'art' is, the more opinions we can start to empathize with.