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 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.
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.
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.
But people might still like it regardless.
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.
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?
Artists very frequently do not create with the notion of a reception in mind.
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.
And here is where you completely tip your hat to being staggeringly ignorant.
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.
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".
You take a chance. Hope someone gives a ****.
This is the vaccuum that most art is created out of.
The rest of your post is rather hysterical and abusive, so I'll leave off here.