Docs/Interviews That Emphasize Degeneracy In Arts?

Especially movies and music?

Personally, I think the last 40 years have been dead (I'm not that old, so no, its not nostalgia for me - just talent).. I don't know if the YouTube link is any good, but it seems to be along the lines of what I'm talking about (after watching the preview)..... Growing up, I do remember Debbie Gibson being the biggest thing, selling millions of records, being everywhere. What does a 15-yr old have to say? Did she inspire you to do anything?

I think a lot of it has to do with visuals, especially music. Apps doing the work, auto-tune (don't even need to sign in key!), "drum machines" (oxymoron), and other programs that sells one thing (dancing) and using some program like ProTools to sanitize and "fix" the product.

There was a time people had nothing but a radio, and so there was less discrimination. And this is before the 1st MTV video "Video Killed the Radio Star". You devoted all your attention to the music, instead of the face, ****, ass, clothes (lack of clothes), name, race, gender, orientation, etc etc.. Once upon a time in the movie industry, the "dinosaurs" actually LOVED movies, and would take chances. Some lost MILLIONS of dollars with just one movie. Now, you have "people" who are nothing but those who want to turn a profit and don't care what it is. CGI in movies is another example. A non-stop shoot-out, showing guts all over the screen, disguised as being free (when its exploitative). Car chases.. Movies that start with the protagonist having to face 100 ninjas, knowing they won't kill out the star in the first minute of the movie, so you have to sit and be bored while waiting for the time to die, which is horrible. Time shouldn't be killed - its one thing you can't buy.

Or having the freedom to show nudity, akin to being masturbated in a movie theater in the dark. Yeah, you might like it, but not if you are aware of whose doing the jerking.

Then you have the "social" media ****. They are not only billionaires, but the product is YOU, and it has a lot of influence. Twitter finds way to bump up certain hash-tags and hide popular stuff if it doesn't fit the agenda. One person with 50 million followers can say how great an awful movie is, and people will usually follow. It seems like the only movies that get attention are those that get all their attention talking about everything EXCEPT the movie itself. Some tweet, twat, post. Someone does something ridiculous, gets the attention, and then "sells" the movie. I notice they never talk about the merits of the film. It's always, "First Tranny Director" or some other superficial nonsense. And judging by ratings by "professionals", most seem to sustain from criticizing in fear of being socially ostracized, or being called a ____ist. I actually think political correctness is the ultimate prejudice - having a couple of elites telling EVERYONE else what they can or cannot handle.

It's sad, because 20 years ago, I thought with the internet accessibility and cheap cameras, that there might be saturation, but there would be REAL diversity (thought, not things you had no control over, like skin pigment)... Someone can make the greatest movie and upload it on YouTube tomorrow. But I don't see it. This isn't to criticize, but its a plea for something better. I would love to find an artist whose work I can look forward to seeing. New movie, album, concert (at their peak). Maybe you can create something great and share it with the world? If not, maybe you can introduce people to great things that might have gone under the radar?

When I did use social media, I would post something like this, only to receive PRIVATE messages saying "You know, I agree with you, but I don't wanna rock the boat". You have so many ratings show up for anything you type up, including dead people like RogerEbert who can't possibly rate a movie after death, but it has a lot of muscle with influence. I've mentioned this before, and many would say "Well, its the website", but that's not the point..

You made some great points, Matt. Keep up the good work!

~Doc

From a traditionalist

You're not the first to bemoan degeneracy in arts.



Snide aside, your post might start a discussion or two, but its ranty character makes it hard to grapple with. One point you made, about producers taking chances, can be easily counterpointed with the works of Welles and von Stroheim which had been simply butchered by the producers. This borders on the censorship of art, too.

Censorhip has always been a big thing in the US. Political correctness nowadays, e.g. Hays code in the past. It's true you can show nudity. Now. In American films. And you couldn't. In the 40s. In American films. But the point is, what the filmmakers got was the very opportunity. What they do with it is up to them. It's always better to have more opportunities. A tasteful, beautiful, arty presentation of the human form was not possible then. It is now. Case in point.

Autotune and drum machines aren't inherently good or bad, because they're just tools, so they can only be used either in a good or a bad way. Same goes for any digital software to master music or edit movies. You don't expect them to shoot on film and then hire some people to cut the movie mechanically, do you? Anyway, nowadays even movies shot on film are then digitally scanned and further edited on a computer.

And no, if anything, art has been thriving for the past 40 years. A good deal of my favourite films and albums is no older than 40 years. You need to take time to look and find what's valuable. It's always been like that, but nowadays it's easier than ever, with countless film and music rating sites (where you can find souls with a similar taste and steal heaps of recommendations) and a plethora of ways, both legal and illegal, to obtain what interests you. So stop whining and use some of that time to look for great modern art because there's aplenty.

PS: Listening to J.S. Bach's fugues now. Only 1740s kids will understand!!!

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I watched it some time ago, and, among many other issues I had with the documentary, found his narrow-minded views on what constitutes art and what's its purpose simply grating and highfalutinly laughable.

yeah im agree with you though arguably he made some fair points, his stance on conservatism is downright narrow-minded and limiting the possibility of the art form itself.
I like to think that as more as imperfect wake call because in the age of democratization of art when like everyone can express themselves, people thrilling more on the idea, statement, forgetting the aesthetic aspects.
i mean i pay respect for the avant-gardist, for breaking and bending the "rule", to come with a new possibility of expression, but a messy morning bed intersubjectively just bad art.

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Maybe you don't know, but in 1996, the US passed the Telecommunications Act. Before this, companies couldn't buy every single small independent radio station (or media in general), and after that (and to this day), SIX companies run it all. I'm not saying there isn't anything out there, but I'm saying they don't have a chance. But also, they know it, so they want to make a living, and will go along with the trend, which is the exact opposite of the Nazis, or the Soviets. The excuses were always "Oh, this is capitalist propaganda" or "This is counter-revolutionary". Both sides use it, usually to get rid of their political enemies.


Anyway, just check out the documentary, and THEN we can have a better discussion.

Just do the comparisons.. 1939-1979 vs. 1980-2020. (I'll add movies just for the heck of it.. I won't even mention literature, etc)

(I'll just mention those who were around in the 60/70s, since it would be too unfair).... The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Wilson Pickett, Supertramp, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Steely Dan, ELO, America, Eagles, David Bowie, , Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Neil Young, Bob Marley, The Stylistics, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Love, The Allman Brothers, The Kinks, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Three Dog Night, The Hollies, The Grateful Dead, The Velvet Underground, Ray Charles, The Animals, Deep Purple, The Stooges, Aretha Franklin, The Zombies, Simon & Garfunkel, Steppenwolf, The Moody Blues, The Dave Clark Five, The Temptations, Santana, James Brown, Janis Joplin & Big Brother Holding Company, Sam Cooke, The Mamas and the Papas, Frank Zappa, The Supremes, The Everly Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Four Tops, The Band, CCR, John Coltrane, Captain Beefheart, Wayne Shorter, Roy Orbison, Them, Nina Simone, Yardbirds, Charles Mingus, etc etc

The Godfather, Citizen Kane, La Strada, Nashville, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Network, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Battle of Algiers, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, A Woman Under The Influence, The Seventh Seal, Rashomon, On The Waterfront, A Clockwork Orange, Casablanca, The Misfits, La Grande Illusion, McCabe And Mrs. Miller, The Seventh Seal, Ace In The Hole, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Sound of Music, Midnight Cowboy, A Child Is Waiting, Harold and Maude, 12 Angry Men, Annie Hall, Ikiru, Mikey and Nicky, Lawrence of Arabia, Last Tango In Paris, Taxi Driver, Dr. Strangelove, Sunset Boulevard, Gone With The Wind, Bonnie and Clyde, Shane, North by Northwest, Sullivan's Travels, The Philadelphia Story, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Rocky, The Deer Hunter, To Kill A Mockingbird, Vertigo, The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, All About Eve, The Graduate, Chinatown, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, Apocalypse Now, Rear Window, West Side Story, Cabaret, The African Queen, All The President's Men, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, The Apartment, Spartacus, The French Connection, Ben-Hur, Yankee Doodle Dandy, etc...

My wrists are cramping up, so I'll stop it there after I've made my point.... And that was the POPULAR stuff!

Yeah uh like Minio said you really gotta be aware of the associations that come with mentioning "degeneracy" and "art" so closely to one another (dropping a t-slur while you're at it doesn't help). Anyway, I'm well aware of how awful a lot of modern pop culture is, but I'm also not very aware of how awful pop culture was pre-1980 simply because I wasn't living through it (though attempts to familiarise myself with it have turned up stuff as inane and atrocious as anything from this century and before you say it no it's not just because it doesn't fit modern "PC" standards though that is obviously a concern that makes it hard to indulge this idea that things were simply better back in "the good old days"). Then again, I don't know exactly how hard you're trying to find post-1980 art you find worthwhile (though I guess you have at least one film from the last 40 years in your top 10) - in any case, bemoaning the state of the industry and how it limits your options only matters so much. I could easily imagine part of why you come here is to get recommendations from other users because you might find them more reliable than these other sources you don't find useful or trustworthy for whatever reason - you certainly want people to ask you for recommendations in one thread so I have to wonder how much you want that to be reciprocated.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Talking about modern art as a whole is a big generalization, but the general idea that the very object or act should suffice is just a different onlook on what art can be. A total rejection of this is just as inane as total acceptance, and in the end if art is supposed to cause a reaction and trigger emotions, the bewilderment, or exasperation of these people means the art fulfilled its task.
I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. I don't need to watch a 90 minutes video to discuss the topic. If you so much want to get across some points or arguments from the video, feel free to rephrase them in a post. But such a dismissive remark shows no respect for your interlocutor. It's as if we were talking about spirituality, and I said "go and watch the entire Tarkovsky filmography", then we can talk.
I'm a lazy man, and I don't want my wrists to cramp up, so I won't present a similar list with contemporary films. But I could. And I could show you some mediocre films from 1939-1979. But they're forgotten now, because...

You have a recency bias. You are looking at older films through the prism of a test of time. All movies made back then had been sieved, and only the best are remembered.

If the Nazis says the grass is green, I won't disagree.. Associations and labels won't scare me into believing or not believing in whatever the current orthodoxy is.

Perhaps not, but it's still bad phrasing that undermines your attempts at intellectual discourse.

as far as I kneel to the splendid articulation, in the end--as for never-ending definition we could use; the medium of expression, communicate, escapism, inducing emotional or spiritual journey, bla bla bla-- those ppl still make art, if not more esoteric.
Only imo, as these kinds of contemporaries(by generalization) went along with this idea of 'progress', It seems to me already long lost its revolutionary nature, somehow saturated as the conventional concept itself. On the mediocre and lesser imaginative minds, the thing just dilutes and turns to be just a highlight of apathetic mundanity, with suspectingly less to no effort. For lack of better words, It's kind of no different with term of overused trope, or like marcel ducamp's pastiche. just gimmickery by the sole impression.

That's why i think the need, the consideration for some kind of aestheticization. The 24 frames of my morning bed are, probably, at least sound a bit better rather than always directly bring the object to the gallery and let itself 'communicate' the idea, without even encapsulating the context of time and space, on how, when, and where we should perceive the object.

A couple of things. Firstly, here's a trailer for a documentary you might find interesting and for those with access to iPlayer it's there for the next 4 weeks.



Secondly, why are you looking for art in commercial movies? Go to an art gallery or just watch the guys you know will give it to you. Don't moan when **** doesn't taste like chocolate.

If there's an arguement that things were better in ye olden days (and there always is regardless of when that was) then in this case it'll probably have more to do with a new generation which Hollywood, Madison Avenue, etc didn't know how to milk and, therefore, were more willing to risk money on things they didn't understand in the hope of striking lucky.

When the formula has been found, the machine perfected or the consumer has been conditioned, then normal service can resume. It is as it ever was.

Congratulations on getting older.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I knew there'd be an Oscar Wilde quote somewhere in there..... Actually, many times I purposely go on IMDB, and pick out movies under 1,000 votes. Again, all the great ones are usually from the 60/70s, especially European movies.



I'm surprised they didn't show a banana peel sell for millions of dollars on the trailer.