Are Films Art or Entertainment?

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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Maybe somebody can just delete this thread because I would have sworn I posted it several years ago but I couldn't find it. At both moviejustice.com and metacriticforums.com, I posted a similar thread and both seemed to explode and have lots of discussion. I used to write up something approximating a huge essay trying to explain what I mean, but since after a day or two, nobody ever bothered to read the first post, I'm not sure there's a point. I'll also tell you that the consensus at both sites was that movies are BOTH art and entertainment but there was never any agreement about what exactly constitutes both or what movies tend to fall on one side or the other.

For example, is there some reason that during the history of filmmaking that non-English films should be considered more Artistic than English-language ones? Are English-language films really supposed to be "more-entertaining" than their counterparts? Based on how many people love various Asian films around here (as well as others), I would think that many of you believe that Asian films are "more-entertaining". But hell, what do I know? The longer I post here, the more-irrelevant I feel (honestly).

So I hope this thread works as well here as it did elsewhere. I think a few of you here may even remember this thread from before. What this thread used to turn into was something approaching the concept of the Elite Vs. the Masses. I hope we can get past that but I'll take anything which comes, and I'll try to keep feeding this thread whenever I feel necessary.
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Movies are art.

Entertainment can be found in almost anything and movies can certainly entertain, but I think that, first and foremost, movies are art. Subjective art.

Foreign language films do not make for better movies -- that is sentimentality. I say be proud of films that are American or english speaking and give them the same respect and seriousness as any film, provided it deserves it.



RIP www.moviejustice.com 2002-2010
Well I seem to recall this discussion from several years ago, but yes films are both entertainment and art. But good art should be entertaining and it's certainly an art to make good entertainment.

Take one of the most interesting movies - for me anyway - that seems to have an odd marriage of the two that I've been a fan of for many years - Point Break. On the surface it seems like a silly action/testosterone inducing flick, which it is, but there's so much more going on than you'd ever really find in a Michael Bay movie for instance.

You might say a Michael Bay movie is therefore entertainment and not art, but I rarely, with the exception of The Rock, find any of his movies slightly entertaining. Regarding my liking of Point Break, I had a friend questing The Hurt Locker and Katherine Bigelow (sp?) as saying, "And this is the same woman that directed Point Break.) I defended that movie as well as the underrated Strange Days and Near Dark.

I think a lot current directors are trying to buck this idea that films are either entertainment or art. Of course Christopher Nolan is a perfect example of a director loved by audiences and critics, though I'm not a fan AT ALL of his and find his films of late to be nauseating. However there are directors like Guleirmo Del Toro (sp? - too lazy to look it up) - who made Blade II, Pans Labyrinth, and Hell Boy, all solid films, Robert Rodriguez, John Woo - who bridge both gaps.

Now regarding the foreign film question - a very good question mark, I'll let someone else get to that before I chime in with my thoughts.
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Any movie I love is an example of a great film. I say this without arrogance or stupidity - I know there's many, many more great movies out there. I know many films are generally considered better than a lot of other movies and I agree with that, but I do not agree that certain films will always continue to exist as great motion pictures. Certainly they probably will in our time and maybe into the future, but I suspect that with our evolving world, classics may stay classics, but to me it is very possible that the artistic merit of some movies may change - though, right now I say the safest bet is probably with those movies that win Academy Awards or whatever -- things popular in the moment.

This is a serious subject because movies are still kind of in its infancy - or young stage, at least. But I don't know what the future for movies is - it could die a child. I doubt that, though, because we will still need drama in our lives (I hope) and new symbols, new actors, new storylines, new dilemmas, new conflicts, new types and new characters and situations to work out with ourselves, collectively and personally. Movies change year by year, reflecting our cultures, our people, our styles and our psyches. To me, it's a chaotic mess of beauty.

Music has been with us for many centuries and so has drama, but movies have only been around for one century, at least. It has a long way to go. Its history is only beginning. It's very possible that movies could change dramatically in five hundred years -- perhaps turning into some weird holographic thing or something, I dunno. Maybe a bizarre thing we could interact with. I can't see the future, but it wouldn't surprise me. Certainly, movies that are "artistic" now will still be on record, and I'm sure that there's going to be lots of people who take what we consider our greatest art now and treat it with severe seriousness far into the future, but I am personally skeptical about treating certain things as "great art" -- I see films as subjective art. I believe that lots of people do respond to great art, but I also suspect that great art is decided on whatever is popular, or whatever's deemed important by members of society at the time. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but because of this, I can't say it's accurate. I'm sure a lot of great things are overlooked and don't get as much as respect -- and maybe they will get their revenge one day and finally get it.

The idea of "art" isn't totally important to me. I believe in finding whatever delights and entertains you -- however, I do think of awards, prestige, good movie reviews and even the status of "great art" as a good pinpointing device to finding better things that will "wow" you and make you fulfilled by something that is part of another world, another reality inside our own -- the creative apparatus that is inhabited by films, books, TV, and some other things. The land of make-believe -- the realm of imagination outside of our own brains that is put together by many different people (or sometimes just one, but at least another person). Movies are a way to experience another person's dreams -- they're dreams we share and invite others into. I dream of Jake Gyllenhaal and am completely fulfilled by those dreams - often I wake up wet (soaked, even) - others wake up dry and go to the doctor and get a prescription filled so that they won't have dreams like that. It's subjective.



I should add a little more: I think it's all art, just not all good art. But objectively good? That's only what we agree it should be...

Art can be enjoyable in many ways, whether because you like a gloomy drama (Wild Strawberries, Revolutionary Road) or get a morbid kick from some scary film (Friday the 13th, Psycho), or love a silly comedy (Dumb & Dumber, Duck Soup) or are inspired by a sappy feel-good story (Simon Birch, It's a Wonderful Life).

It's all art.

Even this gawdawful piece o crap:




[quote=Deadite;740377]I should add a little more: I think it's all art, just not all good art. But objectively good? That's only what we agree it should be...

Art can be enjoyable in many ways, whether because you like a gloomy drama (Wild Strawberries, Revolutionary Road) or get a morbid kick from some scary film (Friday the 13th, Psycho), or love a silly comedy (Dumb & Dumber, Duck Soup) or are inspired by a sappy feel-good story (Simon Birch, It's a Wonderful Life).

It's all art.

Even this gawdawful piece

The garbage Pail kids or whatever they're called isn't artor entertainment....
That is sh*t



I never saw The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. I remember them from my childhood, though. I am intrigued. Messy Tessy looks hilarious sneezing all that popcorn on those theatre patrons.



[quote=Deadite;740379]No, it's art. You just don't like it.

I guess your right... **** can be art



I never saw The Garbage Pail Kids. I remember them from my childhood, though. I am intrigued. Messy Tessy looks hilarious sneezing all that popcorn on those theatre patrons.
It's a terrible movie, in my opinion, but it has moments. It's gross, that's for sure. It's also weird to me how it seems to have a message of not judging yet the GP kids are pretty nasty and mean themselves.

Now if you'll excuse me, Wild Strawberries is on TCM.



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Ayn Rand held that art is a "re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." Reads the introduction to Atlas Shrugged. But when producers fire up the greasy Hollywood money machine the definition falls to pieces and writers get to work on getting paid. This machine spawns the same blockbusters every year, sporting the same shallow types of actors, posed in the same phony positions, going through the same god-awful, relationship crisis' and I bet they still learn something along the way.

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Film, the media has always been and will always be art. I guess a piece, in general, be it music, literature or film, becomes art when the audience embrace it and form their own opinions on it. But then again, art is a positive word, and some movies are deemed unworthy of that description and these movies generally suck. But is art even capable of being bad? Can I look at a painting of a field and find the shadows poorly done and the colors off-putting and write it off as a piece of mainstream filler, created in someone's basement? What's the difference between that painting and the ones hanging in the museum of modern art? The answer is critical acclaim and public praise and this is where it gets tricky and we begin to disagree. So I've come up with this.
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Speaking in metaphorical goosebumps, due to the invention of the sweater, my top ten list is compiled of the ten films that resonated most with me and left the biggest impression on my mentality. We have film institutes and organizations that rate every mainstream movie released and we even have people spending time on movies no one cares about but are still good. I guess what this all comes down to is that brilliance is in the eye of the beholder and you're free to define your favorites as art if you like but people are going to disagree and some are more skilled at explaining why than others and we might do good by listening to the sensible ones.
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Yes, art can be "bad". No, it doesn't always have to give you "goosebumps" to be good.
Yes it does. "Goosebumps" in this context meaning that people get it, that the piece means something to them, that it's provoking or grotesque, insightful or truthful, that it in some way is universal and people are able to recognize elements and that it resonates with something in them or around them. Bad art doesn't exist. It's just a crap painting.



Yes it does. "Goosebumps" in this context meaning that people get it, that the piece means something to them, that it's provoking or grotesque, insightful or truthful, that it in some way is universal and people are able to recognize elements and that it resonates with something in them or around them. Bad art doesn't exist. It's just a crap painting.
I understand what you meant. I know that it's a tricky subject because of how it's related to what the individual considers "important" or "meaningful".

But a profound emotional/mental frisson alone is not what makes something art. Your standard seems to unfairly leave out many things I would consider art, such as comedy.

Speaking for myself, I can recognize a film's artistry even without it having any personal significance.



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I don't think I'm excluding comedy. I guess the right word to use was impact. Comedy falls in nicely with drama on the scale, I think. That the academy doesn't really recognize this is another issue.



You know, I was just considering: Some people enjoy watching movies that most people consider to be crap, sometimes even more than watching good ones. They enjoy them because they're bad.