Art House Films

The so called "art house films" can also be entertaining. When I watched Tarkovsky, Solaris I couldn't take my eyes out of the screen, the same happened to Lynch's Eraserhead after some time. It is difficult to even classify films as art film or not.

Some cases are obvious:

Art:


Not art:


But, how about this, art or not art?



At surface, just a kiddie cartoon, but below the surface there is a whole new film. Voted the greatest animated film of all time in a pool of animation critics in 2010.

I would say that an art film is a film made without the objective to entertain the viewer. I.e. The director didn't care at all if the audience would be automatically drawn into the film or would have to pay attention to the film.

In that case, I think that very few films are true art films. Bela Tar and Tarkovsky would be the only 100% art film directors that I know about. In animation only short films could be considered true art films as full length animations cost a lot of money to make and so Frederick Back and Yuri Norstein would be the only true art animators.

I don't consider Bergman to be a pure art filmmaker. Many of his films are quite entertaining. I found Persona to be an horror movie, very powerful and disturbing. While Fanny and Alexander looks like a hollywood drama movie done better.

In my honest opinion, the only truly great art film maker in my book is Tarkovsky. Watch all his 7 films. They are all great and must see (with the possible exception of Ivan's Childhood, which is not a true art film whose script wasn't written by Tarkovsky so it doesn't count as a 100% Tarkovsky film).

They only require some patience and above average attention spans.

I hate to admit it, but I dislike "art films." I don't have the patience. I like to go into the cinema and be entertained by a story I can get absorbed in, characters I'm going to either love or hate, any genre as long as I can forget myself and just have fun for 2 hours or so. I think the most absorbing film I've ever seen was Inglourious Basterds, I could not take my eyes off that movie. It held my attention for it's long running time effortlessly, I routed for the heroes, hated the bad guys, and laughed and applauded by the end. For me, that's a great night at the cinema. I like "independent cinema," well, some of it, but I can't take art films.

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There seems to be some kind of consensus - to me, a misconception - that arthouse films (or art films) either emanate from David Lynch or outside the United States.

Maybe that's because once an American director becomes somewhat successful, in terms of critical acclaim or the box office, we no longer consider him/her to be on the side of 'art.'

Also, as I mentioned in another thread yesterday, the types of films that were formally considered art films - especially American ones - have been subsumed under the general rubric 'indie film,' a term which has become increasingly meaningless.

For me, an art film is like much other art - whether it is a poem, a song or a painting - that I really appreciate: one that does not shy away from ambiguity, that is open to interpretation, that cannot be read in a linear fashion. There is no doubt that David Lynch's films fit the bill, but so do those of other American directors.

Two notable examples that spring to mind are Darren Aronofsky's Pi and Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York.

Can you think of others?

...before you start reminding me that your opinion is merely subjective, such statement only indicates a rudimentary grasp of cinema.

I was thinking about the differences between 'art' films and more conventional films when I watched Beau Travail last night (which was very good, by the way). I suppose in a nutshell, art films are more concerned with visual effect and ideas than plot. Sort of like the difference between poetry and prose.

Films which are not known or not advertised and which do not intend to be entertaining I call art house films.I've seen only a tiny amount but most of what I've seen,I disliked.The ones which I really enjoyed was Stalker and Army Of Shadows(I wouldn't call it art house but some sources state that it is).I also liked Aguirre but that was quite a tough watch.Anyway,these few movie give me hope that there are some art house films which I can like.

However, Eraserhead was the most painful film to watch.

If you like them, why do you like them?

Whenever I think about cinema I think about the endless possibilities that it could achieve. To divide it into two groups: "arthouse" films and naturally, "non-arthouse" films is not very enlightening because how on earth do we make sense of the meaning of "art"? Hence, I propose a new way of classifying cinema into two fields. I call it "meaningful" cinema and everything else that lies outside it. How is a film considered meaningful? I especially like cinema that is inventive, inspiring but most of all, life-affirming.

Do you prefer artistic films over more conventional cinema?

Meaningful cinema is all that matters. Anything that falls outside should only be watched to kill time, or in other words one should ask himself, "What is the point of the movie?".

What art films would you recommend for someone like me?

I like Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Stranger Than Paradise...

People get meaning from lots of different things. What moves people is certainly different too. Many people have never been moved by a film, book or piece of art, but they find meaning in their children, marriage or if they're lucky, their jobs.

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In normal cinema, it's a compromise between the screenwriter/director and the audience. They have, say, idea x, y, and z to present, and they present those ideas in a way that the audience can enjoy taking them in. Or the whole focus is on entertaining the audience, while also mentioning ideas x, y, and z, but since the main focus is entertainment, the ideas/concepts are secondary.

With good art film, there is no compromise. The director will present the ideas in exactly the way that he/she feels is the most effective, even if some of the audience gets lost in the process. It feels far more genuine, really. Oftentimes, an art film is a sort of a personal exorcism for the filmmaker, take Bergman's religious worries and his faith trilogy. He did not make those films to entertain the audience, or because it was time for a new Bergman film to hit the theaters, he made them because he feels like he had to make this statement, to try to get the issues that dominated his mind off his chest, and to share them with the world. That makes good art film more pure. You're less likely to feel like the filmmaker has some good ideas, but has to run them through a dumbing down process, making it easy to digest, which is insulting to the audience. I don't want to sit down and fly through a Spielberg film and get it right away. I want to claw and bite and sweat my way through all 7 hours of Satantango or 3+ hours of Inland Empire. In the end, the experience will stick with me much more.

I get your point but it seems to me that you are saying that in order for a film to succeed first it must trigger some sort of emotional response. And that definition of an arthouse film or of any great film in general is certainly questionable because not all films strive to do just that.

I disagree with this because I believe that if an artist is sharing his art,then it should connect with the audiences at least a bit.Not necessarily connect like Spielberg does but,for example,I think that Bergman or Tarkovsky care about people who watch their films.They create a difficult puzzle but a solvable one.If an artist is creating something that only he can understand,then I see no point in showing that to others.

so do you watch films to challenge yourself?

To me Satantango was way more enjoyable and compelling than 90% of mainstream.

Says the Bela Tarr fan.

You seem to say (and I've certainly heard many others say) that art is purer when made for oneself, without consideration for how it will be received. I don't agree with this, but even assuming it's true, how can this principle be used to make any kind of qualitative judgment? If such art is superior because it's what the artist wants, and some artists decide they want to connect with a larger audience, what then? The moment you exalt the artist's desire as some kind of superior artistic motivator, that exaltation ceases to provide you with any reason to prefer one to another. Which means it's just another statement of preference, and the "purity" of the vision doesn't have any explanatory power.

The Bergman example is problematic, too. You say Bergman's art is "purer" because he had to "get something off his chest" and "share it with the world." But sharing something with the world suggests that the world share in it with him, yes? Which means it has to be accessible to them. Where is the distinction between this noble "[sharing] with the world," and the baser "dumbing down" you mention? They sound like different ways of describing the same thing: that art is meant to be shared, absorbed, and understood by others, and not made only to please oneself.

Just to point out that it doesn't have to be a torment for everyone. Every human perceives art differently and thus it's possible to enjoy such films.

It wasn't a torment for me.

I'm about to watch Blue right now. I'll let you know what I think.

Well, I'll try and check out Woman in the Dunes soon and see what I think. I actually never heard of Hiroshi Teshigahara before (or Kenji Mizoguchi). But if he's anything like Kurosawa I'll probably like him. Or is their only similarity just being Japanese?

Hmm. Interesting.

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I have come to enjoy many movies that are deemed to be art house like Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, Bicycle Thieves, The Seventh Seal, and M. But the term Art Film to me is very subjective. After all some great "conventional films" to me are great works of art. My favorite movie Taxi Driver is one such example.

Now there is the Avant garde which pushes the boundaries of film making certainly can fit the art house category. But then you have certain people who call something art where it has no business to be called art. For example there are people on the internet that claimed the Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered (one of the worst movies I have ever seen) was a piece of Dadaist cinema.

To quote Kyle Kallgren: This movie cannot be Dada! It is to normal to be Dada! It is too **** to be anything else!

Maybe by now some people view Taxi Driver as being conventional - perhaps because it's so widely cited.

However, when it was first released nobody used the word 'conventional' in the same sentence as Taxi Driver.

Is there even such a thing as Dadaist cinema? I can't think of how it could be adapted into film.