So...WHAT are movies supposed to be?

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I guess I can't disagree with this. Yes, if it turned a profit, more people would have seen it. Still not understanding why this is what a movie needs to be.
A film does not "need" to be profitable to exist "as a film." The question, however, is "What are movies supposed to be?" We are NOT speaking of what is required for a film to merely "exist."

A film is made to viewed. Profitability is generally instrumental in connecting eyeballs to artifacts.

Moreover, films are financial endeavors. Financial endeavors are supposed to make money. People invest in production, postproduction, distribution, etc., in large part, because they're trying to make money.

Some of the many hands who make it for the light work are a bit mercenary, like Han Solo. A film depends on the collective intentions of the people who make it. Some of those people are just in it for the money, so the purpose is not just instrumental, but for some it is is intrinsic.

IYeah, everything needs money to at least some degree. But you are act like things don't happen in art without profit. And they do, all the time. This may surprise you, but people are creating art on their own, everywhere. Even movies. Camera's cost money, sure, but it doesn't cost anything to go out and film whatever the **** you want. Just because you haven't seen any of these movies doesn't mean they don't exist.
And there is a lot of art on refrigerators made by children which I have not seen and which involves no financial interest. But so what? The looser we are with categories, the more exceptions we will find, but in approaching "everything" we risk losing the capacity to say anything of real interest.

Yes, there are some people out there making recordings which they have no intention of ever releasing. If you wish, you may call private films made for sole amusement of their makers "movies." These have an audience of one and they have no profit motive. It is here, however, that the sidewalk ends. We can have no useful discussion of what these products are supposed to do, because they were not created as cultural artifacts.There is no judging the idiosyncratic purpose of purely subjective interests. If we go this far what a movie is supposed to be is "everything and nothing." This is a checkmate for rational discussion. There is nothing left to be said once we divide by zero. The game is over.

So, do you want to "win" at the cost of making the question unanswerable or do want to discuss what is typical of "movies" as we talk about them on a film forum dedicated to discussing movies? If we go with the former, you have a Pyrrhic victory (no rational discussion possible, because there is always someone recording something for no particular purpose at all). If we go with the latter, then we are speaking of what is typical of the movies we watch here.
Where is contempt coming into the picture. Why are you letting your insecurity show so completely? This isn't about you and your taste. It's about other people making different movies for people who are not you. Get over yourself.
You know, you could almost pull off this sort of moralizing sniping if you didn't immediately reveal your contempt for audiences in your very next statement.

First (above) you say that this is about "people making different movies for people who are not you." So far, so good! Films are made for people, it's just that some films are not made for me. Here I am implicated in greedily thinking that all films are made for me or rather that they should be. I mean, this is completely out of left field, and nothing I've said here evidences the insane accusation that I think films are all about me. But if you could make it stick, this would be OK. You would be pointing out that audiences are various and that a good film can serve an audience which is not everyone or even "most of everyone."

Unfortunately, you kind of flip out and shove your foot into your mouth into your next statement.
It doesn't have to serve a ****ing single soul.
See, this is what I mean by "contempt." This is the obnoxiously romantic idea of "art for art's sake" under which the artist gives the world the finger and just makes his/her stuff. "I made it just for me!" Again, this is a cope, because artists know that most artworks fail and it hurts when the reception of your new baby is silence. Art, however, is most typically made in the hopes of being inaugurated, noticed, understood and appraised (e.g., this is why we have all those art galleries--it's so all those people who allegedly don't matter can have a chance to view artworks).
But people might still like it regardless.
But then again, they might not. It is not made for them, after all.
And once again, we're back to the checkmate of subjectivism. If a film only need be made for the idiosyncratic purpose of the maker (the audience of one), then there is no meaningful answer to the question of the thread. A film is supposed to be potentially everything and nothing. In your world where there is no external criterion of correctness, the discussion of purpose and value is entirely vacuous.
What is your obsession with artistic obedience? Things can still matter if they aren't subservient to your particular needs.
It's not about me at all. It's about playing your part in the dance. What is your obsession with art as perfectly autonomous from the very culture it is supposed to challenge and delight?
Are you completely unaware of all of the artists who have felt they have created something too self indulgent for release, and only do under protest, only to find that it has an enormous audience?
This is not a class of counter-examples, crumb. This proves my point. The artist thought it didn't do what it was supposed to do (please an audience), because it was thought to be deficient (self-indulgent). However, when it escapes it turns out that it did meet my prime criterion (i.e., it was pleasing to an audience).
Artists very frequently do not create with the notion of a reception in mind.
What a "movie is supposed to be" may or may not align with the private intention of a writer, or director, or producer, or lead actor, etc. The evaluative question of what a movie is supposed is not the same question as to what it's maker wanted it to be (e.g., the maker may have wanted to make a bad movie or a movie no one would ever see or a movie that confused three friends).

We cannot reduce standard of evaluation of what a movie is supposed to be down to the private intention of a maker without committing a very gross version of the Intentional Fallacy under which the VALUE of a work of art is determined by artist. No one in the intentionality debate in aesthetics and literary criticism has championed the idea that the artist gets to determine the value of their expression. Again, you're flirting with vacuous subjectivism.

Also, "movies" as we discussing them here (in a movie forum) are large commercial enterprises which reflect the collective we-intentions of the people participating in making them (the composer, the writer, the director, the actors, director of photography, the editor, the producer, and so on and so on). There is no single romantic private intention to turn to here. There are many. These are large projects collectively intended for popular audiences. They aren't fridge art, or private poems.
It might blow your mind, but obsessing over those sorts of things is something that seems to frequently create the worst art. Yes, there are some out there who are masters at giving the audiences exactly what they want, while also remaining artistically potent (Billy Wilder for a quick example), but he is the exception to the rule.
What people are trying to do when they make something is an entirely different from the question of what a properties a good example of that something should have. Another swing. Another miss.
And here is where you completely tip your hat to being staggeringly ignorant.
At some point you may learn that adjectives are not arguments.
I will never bumble like Inspector Clouseau into your theology discussion because I understand I'm not equipped. Be humble and listen for a second.
I'm all ears.
Jim Jarmusch has a great quote about this. I don't know if it his or him paraphrasing someone, but when he feels doubt about the very idiosyncratic (but also profitable enough for him to make a living off of them) movies he makes he reminds himself: "If this is something I want to see, I have to assume someone else wants to as well".
This is not a counterexample. Rather, this is a description of how the avowed creative process of an artist aligns in meeting/statisfying a criterion I advocated (a film should be entertaining). How the film turns out to meet this standard is not my concern.
You take a chance. Hope someone gives a ****.
And you hope that someone does, because is what a movie is supposed to do. It is supposed to pleasing such that people to give four asterisks!
This is the vaccuum that most art is created out of.
Even we agreed that art magically comes from a vacuum -- it doesn't, but let's suppose just for a moment that it did -- this is independent of the question of what art is supposed to be (an honorific/valorific question which speaks to "good art").

The rest of your post is rather hysterical and abusive, so I'll leave off here.



You're setting up I'm unnecessary either/or here. Of course some artists do embody the "either" or the "or" of this formula, but not necessarily all artists.
I am speaking of an attitude here and Crumb is dripping in it (e.g., his statement that "It doesn't have to serve a ****ing single soul."). I am not trying to set a trap here so much as talk him off the ledge. The old prideful narcissism of "my art is made by me and for me only" just doesn't realistically reflect what artists are generally up to and certainly offers us no brief for what "good art" is supposed to be.

In other words, an artist could remain an unknown, and yet it's not untrue for that reason that his art is worthless and not even great.
A tree that falls over in the forest with no one around makes no sound that is perceived. An artwork that is forever buried is an artwork that plays no part in the cultural language game we call art. It must be inaugurated as an artwork. It must be received as an artwork. It must circulate as an artwork to be part of the cultural game of art. To evaluate the artwork we must know it. To know it, it must be made public. It's quality cannot be assessed in isolation and without circulation. And the quality of the artwork is assessed in terms of whether it pleases the community.

And at the same time an artist can become famous and his art could still have merit regardless of his fame. I.e., I don't think there's really a necessary relation between fame and artistic merit.
Sure, but what does this have to do with me?

It's not always the case that an artist remains unknown because of his own fault. Sometimes an artist might remain unknown because of circumstances beyond his control.
What makes an artist successful and a movie is supposed to be are two separate questions.

it's virtually impossible to become a famous artist no matter what you do, unless you have nearly supernatural luck and get invited to the right parties and sleep with the right person, etc. So are we going to fault the artist who just happens not to be able to have such extremely unusual luck?
I am not faulting the artist at all. I am talking about the "movie" and what it is "supposed to be." And a movie, whatever else it may need, is supposed entertain and make money. It is supposed to be profitable mechanism of delight in addition to whatever else it should be.

Might it be the case that what we now view as a good movie may have initially flopped? Sure. Might we find that what failed to be a profitable mechanism of delight is good? Yes, but only because we find that it is delightful. Blade Runner, for example, was not an initial success, but after all those cuts and improvements it has proved that it was, in the long run, a profitable mechanism of delight.

Movies (the sort of movies that have producers and distributors and which are viewed at film festivals) are collective enterprises, partially financial in purpose (i.e., they are supposed to make money), partly made for the purpose of pleasing some audience (this purpose is instrumentally dependent on the financial success of the film). There is no single artist of artistic intention which defines what they are or how good they are.
And finally to underscore my point, take the famous wealthy artist who has a long career of public rewards for his art: If he can't in the middle of the night when he's all alone measure the worth of his art not by his public fame or his money but solely on the merits of the art itself,
The merits of the word of art are not decided by the artist, but by the public. Once released into the world, the artwork is separated from the artist, and must stand on it's own two feet. An artist might might never believe in the merits of the artwork, but the artwork might be recognized as culturally important nevertheless. Likewise, a failed artist producing drivel might always believe in the merits of her artwork, but the artist is not the judge.

And again, there is no single intention that defines the purpose of movies (which are the products of many hands).

Whatever else the filmic work of art is supposed to do, it is supposed to please some audience and thereby produce a return on the investment of the investors. This isn't to be reductive and jaded and say that this is all there is to it, but one ignores these realities at one's own peril. Moreover, unpacking the question of the qualities which make for a good movie will be an excavation of the features that result in the entertainment of the audience.



The trick is not minding
As Crumbs said earlier, film makers make art that they presume people like them want to see, not necessarily films for themselves first and foremost.
Art isn’t created soley for the individual, but for like minded individuals. Sometimes it’s a niche audience.



I think they're supposed to be profitable and entertaining, no?
Yeah, for sure. For backers, they are an investment. Money in should yield more money out.

How to make that happen is the big question. People like the idea of "Art" (note the capital A), but they also want action, conflict and entertainment and you do need, at some point, to get butts in seats. It gets to be like the blind men and the elephant.



Art isn’t created soley for the individual, but for like minded individuals. Sometimes it’s a niche audience.
Right, so a key question to ask is "Who are these like-minded individuals?" This is not a purely objective question, but a normative one.

How large, for example, does the audience need to be to really offer a respectable mark of intersubjective accomplishment? It is impossible to please everyone, so we can't raise the bar too high. On the other hand, you can always find one person who is a fan (or claims to be), so we shouldn't set the bar too low. Where would you draw the line?

Another question is whether the audience for whom the artwork "works" needs to be the audience the artist had in mind. Or does the artwork merely need to find "an" audience regardless of whether it is the one the artist has in mind? If we go with the latter, we should note that the author's relevance is fading from view.

If we're talking about a single artist (which is not the case when we're speaking about movies), the artist gets to
  1. decide whether to make the work
  2. decide whether to release the work (unless it is leaked without their approval)
  3. decide to announce it is an artwork
  4. to a limited extent the artist might determine the proper categorization (i.e., genre) of the artwork


What happens after the work is released into the wild, however, is not up to the maker. The artwork lives a life of its own once it is out there. Thus, the value of the movie (what it is supposed to do) is connected to the context of it's reception and not its creation. And if we are making an artwork, we would be well-advised to keep an eye on the context of how it will be received.

Finally, a film is not a single-artist enterprise. An artwork is a raft of collaborative efforts of artists, technicians, makers, financiers, etc. A movie is the result of a collective "we-intention" which involves competitive and mutually exclusive ideas. The finished product is most often the result of fights and compromises and deadlines. Once again, the idea of dipping into "the artist's intention" to answer questions is not a promising well into which to dip.



I am not faulting the artist at all. I am talking about the "movie" and what it is "supposed to be." And a movie, whatever else it may need, is supposed entertain and make money.



The merits of the word of art are not decided by the artist, but by the public. Once released into the world, the artwork is separated from the artist, and must stand on it's own two feet.

Movies, probably more than any other art form, are the most deeply and massively mired in the world of commercial concerns. If that isn't bad enough for the artist, it's also the most committee-oriented art form of all, in that an individual rarely has control of the artistic product but has to defer to many other people, most of whom are not artists. That said, it still was born as an art form and over the decades has been pursued as one, notwithstanding those two giant hurdles in the way of practicing it in a traditionally artistic way.

And then of course we have variations, where some filmmakers are lucky enough to have much more control than others. Woody Allen is a typical example who has extraordinary individual control over his movies. His producers and financial backers essentially just say do whatever you want. But he's the exception that proves the rule. Nevertheless, even with much less control it's not like the individual artist -- whether he'd be the director or the screenwriter -- has zero control as an artist, he just has to do a lot of deferral and cooperation with others. And then of course there are movies that are almost completely commercial ventures with pretty much zero artistic content.



So the issue is complex and one can't just generalize about movies as an art form. Secondly, I disagree that the public defines whether a movie is good art. The public may decide that it's successful and entertaining, but the determination of whether it's art is in the hands of the art critic. Now among the public there may be people literate enough to be critics or to have a critical eye, but the question in general is not decided by the Roman Forum filled with John Q Publics & Joe Blows with their thumbs up or down.



Closely related to that, I would say that art is very similar to theology in that it is at its core elusive and mystical -- it's not a material commodity. Certainly it can become mired in material commercial concerns, just as someone who has true love in their heart can get seduced by prostitutes and live a life of one night stands and suppress their yearning for true love because it's too painful or it's too difficult or whatever. But that doesn't mean love doesn't exist just because they don't experience it in a fulfilling way. Similarly art, like faith and love are inviolable realities that are not dependent on fame and money to make them real; only to make them materially successful.



I'm rummaging through tonight's offerings and look at MF reviews of recent movies and can't help but reinforce something that's been rattling around in my head...namely, what movies are supposed to be. When I read published reviews I know that, based who is reviewing, they will have a preference for a certain type of flick.

At one extreme, we have the cinephiles who often veer toward movies that don't do much with action and FX, who want intelligent drama, centered around people taking about important stuff.

On the other extreme, we have movies that are little but action, clearly stereotypic dialog that's kept brief, lots of combat, car crashes, exploding planets or whatever.

In particular, a movie popped into my queue, "After Sun", which according to Wikipedia, is meaningful, full of angst and psychological issues, adolescence and parenthood. It's being touted as a "great" movie. It also seems like it could be a book or a stage play, since it's about "meaningful" dialog, etc. In short, really slow and talky on a night where I need some action.

I guess, my contention on this issue is that, if a movie doesn't do more than what can be done in a book or stage play, if it doesn't take you somewhere, alter the time-space continuum, evade some of reality, show you something that you won't see in regular life, why bother? If it's just a visual version of a book I wouldn't read, why bother? Critics will say that it's meaningful, insightful, well acted, etc, but again...to me....too much sitting and talking, an angsty version of My Dinner With Andre.

I guess the question is...what is the right balance of action, literature and FX? Is a movie just filmed dialog? I don't know the answer, but I do find myself asking the question a lot.
I really didn't get AFTERSUN. Read my review if you don't believe me.



Movies, probably more than any other art form, are the most deeply and massively mired in the world of commercial concerns.
Exactly. Like it or hate it, filmmaking is bound to commercial concerns. A film is supposed to make money.

If that isn't bad enough for the artist, it's also the most committee-oriented art form of all, in that an individual rarely has control of the artistic product but has to defer to many other people, most of whom are not artists.
Exactly, we cannot hope to evaluate the "supposed to" of film in terms of the private mental state of a single individual. Even if we could reduce everything to the design or plan of the author, this is no standard for saying what a film should be as this would be a gross version of the Intentional Fallacy (i.e., the artist decides for himself whether the artwork is good or great or poor).

That said, it still was born as an art form and over the decades has been pursued as one, notwithstanding those two giant hurdles in the way of practicing it in a traditionally artistic way.
Meh, it has always been a collective art form. Pining for romantic visions of individual creator single-handedly creating the work misses the point.
And then of course we have variations, where some filmmakers are lucky enough to have much more control than others. Woody Allen is a typical example who has extraordinary individual control over his movies. His producers and financial backers essentially just say do whatever you want. But he's the exception that proves the rule. Nevertheless, even with much less control it's not like the individual artist -- whether he'd be the director or the screenwriter -- has zero control as an artist, he just has to do a lot of deferral and cooperation with others. And then of course there are movies that are almost completely commercial ventures with pretty much zero artistic content.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. However, the film is made, it should make pay off as an investment and please an audience. There are many ways to make a film that embodies what a film should be.

So the issue is complex and one can't just generalize about movies as an art form.
The complexity of creation is irrelevant. What matters in discussing what a film should be is the product. What properties should the finished film have? Note: If we cannot generalize about this, then your move is a checkmate for rational discussion. Your stance would, in effect, be that there is no answer to the question because we can draw no conclusions at all that can be applied across cases.

Secondly, I disagree that the public defines whether a movie is good art.
If they don't, then who does?

The author/maker? Since when do we let a disputant serve as the judge of his own case? It would be foolish to allow the artist to be the standard of evaluation. Every confident artist would be a success. Every troubled artist would be a failure.

Shall we appeal to objective standards? God's standards? Plato's ideal forms? This seems unlikely, given your scruples about generalization.

As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and it is the audience which does the tasting. They are one's whom we serve.

Your preferred answer appears to be expert authority. But who determines which authorities are qualified and regulative? The celebrated critics are the ones beloved by John Q. Public. Today, we live in an age of public criticism. We are all of us film critics. Criticism isn't what it used to be. The Tomato-meter is now split between commercial critics carrying water for the films that we're supposed to like which is often the opposite of what users report they actually like. I trust the users more than the meter.
The public may decide that it's successful and entertaining, but the determination of whether it's art is in the hands of the art critic.
The creation and circulation of art preceded the existence of professional critics.

Moreover, we should ask -- why should we listen to the critics? What do they know? You trust their opinion because it is qualified by something, but what is that something? It must be some objective standard which they apprehend, but what does this say about your caution that we cannot generalize? And what is the nature of this magical something which they know? Do they know the mind of God? Are they seeing true value propositions and relations in the universe?
Now among the public there may be people literate enough to be critics or to have a critical eye, but the question in general is not decided by the Roman Forum filled with John Q Publics & Joe Blows with their thumbs up or down.
Show me an objective standard of art. Detail what underwrites the authority of those critics. Where is fancy bread? In the heart or in the head?
Closely related to that, I would say that art is very similar to theology in that it is at its core elusive and mystical -- it's not a material commodity.
And what underwrites theology? God? The universe?
Certainly it can become mired in material commercial concerns,
It does not exist outside of those commercial concerns. You recoil from this fact, comparing it to whoring vs. true love, but there is no "pure" version of movie making that does not involve financial relationship. At best, you might find a hooker with a heart of gold. But these are financial enterprises producing products for consumption.



As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and it is the audience which does the tasting. They are one's whom we serve.
Again, it depends what we are measuring: for measuring material success and effective entertainment, sure. But art is another matter.


I trust the users more than the meter.
For determining if I want to be entertained, I agree; ordinary users seem to be more reliable.



The creation and circulation of art preceded the existence of professional critics.

It also preceded the hoi polloi public as a voice determining whether something was art. And even now, I'd wager the vast majority of the public who opine about movies aren't concerned with whether they are "art" or not.


Moreover, we should ask -- why should we listen to the critics? What do they know? You trust their opinion because it is qualified by something, but what is that something? It must be some objective standard which they apprehend,

This is a difficult question to answer. It's not cut and dried as if there's an instruction manual for specific points. Like I said, it's akin to the mystical. Read T.S. Eliot's little book about art criticism or read John Simon's book Paradigms Lost.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Yoda Big Brain Time: I'll ban politics so there will be no drama on the forum!
Movie-related drama: Am I a joke to you?
__________________
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.



These threads where a couple of people or more become locked in endless battles of wills are getting old. Let's just be friends here people we don't need to dominate the other person. It's more rewarding to coexist.



Again, it depends what we are measuring: for measuring material success and effective entertainment, sure. But art is another matter.
You've been using the word "art" in the valorific sense. To be art, it must possess a higher quality. This allows separating what the masses like from what the critics like. It implies that we can elevate true works of art from the muck and mire of the ooze financing a winning project and the collaborative chaos involved in quilting a movie with all that union labor.

The downside with the valorific sense is that we might be forced orphan certain works. What do we do with poems that do not possess the level of quality you require? Do we no longer recognize them as art? How can we speak of of "bad art" if we have invoked the word "art" so as to "only include the good stuff."

Seeing as how the war on beauty is complete and old standards have been toppled and that now "art can be anything" such an approach really appears to be impossible without repudiating the entire "cosmology" of aesthetics for the last hundred years. Can we even stick the landing with the valorific definition in a world that says everything may be art?

Most important, the valorific approach tends to beg the question. We must solve the problem of quality (what is an artwork supposed to be) in the same moment that we identify what an artwork is. But if we're attempting to address the problem of quality (e.g., the prompt of our thread), then we cannot assume that we know what an artwork is (as the question of quality is open and under discussion).

Finally, even if we make the valorific approach work, we can still admit that movies as also financial projects designed to entertain in addition to whatever high-falutin art stuff it should do.
For determining if I want to be entertained, I agree; ordinary users seem to be more reliable.
Well, my definition of "entertain" is very wide. I submit that those who pay money to watch a film DO want to be entertained.

It seems that you want to "Rosa Parks" the average viewer for not meeting critical standards, but movies are made for popular audiences.
It also preceded the hoi polloi public as a voice determining whether something was art.
I'm not sure about that one. The first bards who told the first stories around campfires were attempting to please the gathered audience. Art is culture and culture requires circulation within some public.
And even now, I'd wager the vast majority of the public who opine about movies aren't concerned with whether they are "art" or not.
Vaudeville is theater. So is opera. Must we really quibble about which is art?
This is a difficult question to answer. It's not cut and dried as if there's an instruction manual for specific points. Like I said, it's akin to the mystical. Read T.S. Eliot's little book about art criticism or read John Simon's book Paradigms Lost.
With respect, if we cannot unpack the answer to the question here, then it appears that we don't have an answer to the question. At the point where we would really get down to answering the question, we retreat into the pious silence of mysticism.

Supposing for the moment that this is the correct disposition toward art, then this is all the more reason that the objective criteria I have offered are useful as bookends for discussion. Whatever else a film should be, it should be entertaining and thus profitable. We can talk about what these terms mean. Earthy as they may be as considerations, they ground us before we attempt to reach for the heavens. Thus we have parameters, limits.



matt72582's Avatar
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I've never judged a movie on anything other than its merit. I wouldn't know if it was successful or not, financially, although I can guess, and sometimes overhear it in an interview/article.



I think there's too much condescending behavior to the audience. The typical, "Oh ME and YOU could appreciate greatness, but the others" .. and then use prejudice as a reason they have to dumb-down movies. I think you make the best movie you can make, and hopefully there's a triumph for good taste, as opposed to the idea that if movie x is successful, the artist must have diluted its message.



Because of marketing, you have less art, and more self-consciousness and making movies that fit market, or a genre.



The downside with the valorific sense is that we might be forced orphan certain works. What do we do with poems that do not possess the level of quality you require? Do we no longer recognize them as art? How can we speak of of "bad art" if we have invoked the word "art" so as to "only include the good stuff."

Seeing as how the war on beauty is complete and old standards have been toppled and that now "art can be anything" such an approach really appears to be impossible without repudiating the entire "cosmology" of aesthetics for the last hundred years. Can we even stick the landing with the valorific definition in a world that says everything may be art?
Your position or posture seems puzzling, in that you seem to insist on including art in your discussion of movies. It becomes puzzling because you seem to subscribe to the prevailing Zeitgeist that believes that art is anything and everything, which effectively destroys any possibility of defining art. So art would simply be a redundant phenomenon which can be dispensed with, and then you can move on to discussing movies solely in terms of public acclaim, monetary success, and ability to entertain and leave that quaint relic "art" out of it (one could paraphrase Tina Turner: What's Art Got To Do With It?)

(I say "entertained" in the broadest sense meaning causes the viewer to enjoy it and have pleasure in watching it as opposed to being repelled by it and turning it off, with degrees of star ratings etc.).

For those of us who do believe that art is unique and special, and that many movies involve it among its participants -- directors, screenwriters, actors, even editors and cinematographers -- then it makes sense for us to include art in the discussion of movies. Whether or not we can define art to everyone's satisfaction is another matter. I don't think art can be defined to everybody's satisfaction, but just because we can't do that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means there will be no universal consensus. So I guess we have to agree to disagree.



Your position or posture seems puzzling, in that you seem to insist on including art in your discussion of movies.
It becomes puzzling because you seem to subscribe to the prevailing Zeitgeist that believes that art is anything and everything, which effectively destroys any possibility of defining art.
I object to valorific definitions of art as these exclude "bad art" from actually being art. I want a definition that is wide enough to include the "high" and the "low," the "good" and the "bad." I think we have to be careful about packing evaluation into the same bin as description. I don't think anything and everything is art, however.

So art would simply be a redundant phenomenon which can be dispensed with, and then you can move on to discussing movies solely in terms of public acclaim, monetary success, and ability to entertain and leave that quaint relic "art" out of it (one could paraphrase Tina Turner: What's Art Got To Do With It?)
You're making a slight mistake here. The definition of art can be inclusive (allowing for "bad" art to be counted as art), but the definition of art is not the same thing as the evaluation of art. Evaluative criteria can be discriminating (they have to be, as we must sort the good stuff from the bad stuff, the better from the worse). My contention is that whatever these evaluative criteria include, they should also include the more earthy criteria I have described as grounding parameters.
For those of us who do believe that art is unique and special,
Art is not necessarily unique and special. There is a lot of bad and middling art out there. Art can be sublime, and so I would invite you to unpack your evaluative categories to allow us to determine when a film is "unique" and "special." Those categories, however, will involve generalization, so your ability to articulate your standards would appear to be challenged from the outset.

it makes sense for us to include art in the discussion of movies. Whether or not we can define art to everyone's satisfaction is another matter.
Matters are not this dire. We should just be careful not to pack evaluative criteria in the definition of art (if art must meet the standards of "greatness," then we will find that there is not much "Art" out there).



You're making a slight mistake here. The definition of art can be inclusive (allowing for "bad" art to be counted as art), but the definition of art is not the same thing as the evaluation of art. Evaluative criteria can be discriminating (they have to be, as we must sort the good stuff from the bad stuff, the better from the worse). My contention is that whatever these evaluative criteria include, they should also include the more earthy criteria I have described as grounding parameters. Art is not necessarily unique and special.
First of all I've never heard the term valorific before. I don't fit your definition entirely, and I don't think John Simon does either, even though we both believe in art as something unique and special in human endeavor. Where we don't fit the definition is we don't say that something cannot be bad art. If you have a standard for something being excellent, that doesn't necessarily mean that attempts at it can't partially fail. It could derail into semantics where anything that's not excellent could be redefined as simply not art at all. The distinction between not art and bad art would seem to be a semantic quibble. Bad art is simply attempts at art that don't quite measure up. I don't see what the problem here is. For example John Simon considers Harold Pinter to be an artist as a playwright, but other than one play he says most of his stuff is just "okay", but it's not great. There is among those of us who believe this way, a sense of knowing greatness when you see it, much like the famous Supreme Court Justice Stewart who said he could not define "obscenity" but "I know it when I see it".. John Simon of course is more articulate than I am and has written at length on why he thinks certain works are great part. But at the end of the day, no matter how articulate and detailed he might get, Simon can't prove it like someone could prove something in a chemistry lab.

But there's still something that seems incoherent about your posture, in that you admit degrees of art and even descriptions of them as good and bad. If art can be good relative to bad then it could be also very good relative to sort of good, and then finally we get to the word great which would simply be so good it can't get better. So you've got all these words denoting art that seem to be value judgments, which I thought you rejected. And, how would you define art that's good? Would you define it in a way that distinguishes its goodness as a measure distinct the measures of public acclaim and monetary success? If so, then I don't see how your position is much different than mine (other than the details). If not, then art becomes redundant and you don't need to mention it, all you need to do is talk about the other measures of the film's success.



If you have a standard for something being excellent, that doesn't necessarily mean that attempts at it can't partially fail.
If the standard is the definition, then that which does not meet the standard is excluded from the definition. By this logic, we would have to say that a bad poem is an "almost poem," or an "attempt at a poem," or a "failed poem."
It could derail into semantics where anything that's not excellent could be redefined as simply not art at all.
The derailment is the result of a conceptual commitment, so it is inevitable.
The distinction between not art and bad art would seem to be a semantic quibble. Bad art is simply attempts at art that don't quite measure up. I don't see what the problem here is.
The problem has just been noted. We either have to violate the letter of your definition (by keeping around the bad stuff so we can call it "bad art") or we have to exclude non-excellent attempts as being non-art.

We don't have to go this route. We don't have to mix evaluative standards (only best of the best) with basic definitional standards (Welcome to the art club! Keep at it, we all start somewhere.).
For example John Simon considers Harold Pinter to be an artist as a playwright, but other than one play he says most of his stuff is just "okay", but it's not great. There is among those of us who believe this way, a sense of knowing greatness when you see it, much like the famous Supreme Court Justice Stewart who said he could not define "obscenity" but "I know it when I see it".. John Simon of course is more articulate than I am and has written at length on why he thinks certain works are great part. But at the end of the day, no matter how articulate and detailed he might get, Simon can't prove it like someone could prove something in a chemistry lab.
Which seems to be all the more reason not to pack evaluative standards into the definition of art.
But there's still something that seems incoherent about your posture, in that you admit degrees of art and even descriptions of them as good and bad.
I'm not sure what you mean here, so I am not sure if I do.

The move you were making was a sort of "purification" play. You were arguing that the excellences of movies are what are essential to them in a play to exclude profit and collaboration as being a part of what a movie is supposed to be. If only the purest thoughts and outcomes are allowed, we can sever our discussion from those rude considerations which intrude on the "purity" of fimic art, thereby slipping the surly bonds of Earth and matriculating to the timeless standards in the heavens. But films are collaborative. They are made (among other purposes) to make money. And it is dubious thing to mix descriptive standards with evaluative standards.

If I were to admit that art should be defined evaluatively (definition and evaluation occurring with the same stroke), I could still argue that films are more than just art, so the move isn't guaranteed to pay dividends. And I have objected here, because I really do think it is mistake (I could make my argument without pointing out what I think is an error).
If art can be good relative to bad then it could be also very good relative to sort of good, and then finally we get to the word great which would simply be so good it can't get better. So you've got all these words denoting art that seem to be value judgments, which I thought you rejected.
Again, I am afraid that I don't quite see what you're saying, so I am unsure of whether I am obligated to "cop" to the accusation.

Can mediocre artwork X stand as "better than" very poor artwork Z? Yes. Sure. But I would be counting both as art before making the comparative statement. The mediocre work would not be bootstrapped into the category of art by the comparison (as I would have already counted both as art).
And, how would you define art that's good?
By evaluative standards of "good art."

First, we establish that X is an artwork by descriptive standards of a definition. Second, we move on to consider whether it is an excellent artwork (a subset of the domain we call "art"), by bringing in additional criteria. A violin is a bowed stringed musical instrument of a certain size and shape. A great violin, however, will have specific tonal properties. This source argues that this greatness includes having a certain volume, sustain, projection, power and sweetness.
Would you define it in a way that distinguishes its goodness as a measure distinct the measures of public acclaim and monetary success?
Two options here, both of which are consistent with my case.

We may view the purpose of profit and pleasure as being proper to the category of the genre of artwork. In this case, part of the "art" of filmmaking is making money and causing delight.

Alternatively, we may view profit and pleasure as being alien to the "artistic" ambitions of movies, but then we would still need to remember a movie is more than just an artwork (e.g., it is also a financial interest), a movie is supposed to be an accomplishment in making profit, producing pleasure, creating collaboration, meeting aesthetic excellences, etc. As I said earlier, "Whatever else we condescend a film to be, it had better darned well be profitable," thus this is consistent with what I have already argued.

Either way, my standards are still relevant to determining (in part) what a movie is supposed to do. They still serve as parameters for whatever else we stir in.