So...WHAT are movies supposed to be?

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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'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.

Laying out catnip for pedants? Meow?



I'm not sure what the question is, so I'll wait and see if this takes an interesting direction.



They're not supposed to be anything. Film is a medium. Artists use it to their liking. Then if people happen to respond, great. If not, great too. At least someone took the effort to create something.



If there is any one particular thing that matters, at least to me, is that the form doesn't get codified into something it is supposed to be. Our ideas of what a movie is should always be changing. As well as what we get out of them.


What gets interesting is to see over time how many different ways different people use the exact same media for entirely different purposes. Some just want to satisfy an audience with spectacle. Fine. Some want us to think. Fine. Some want to provoke. Fine. Some have something to say about a particular subject matter. Fine. Some don't have anything in particular to say at all but just can't help themselves from expressing themselves. Fine.



They create them. We watch them. Then we enjoy them or not. Discuss them or not. And then maybe they'll make something else for us to understand or misunderstand or completely ignore.



Now if one chooses to only like watching one branch of the many possibilites film offers its viewers, well that's ultimately fine too. But the more limited one is in what they are willing to watch or think about, the less interesting the discussion about film is ultimately going to be. It would be like a person who when talking about their friends can only describe them by their haircut, ignoring the possibility that maybe there is more about these people to discuss. Now, if they have a great level of knowledge about haircuts, that might be one interesting conversation if one loves haircuts. But it doesn't give much of a chance for us to get a complete understanding of who that person actually is.


So movies are basically everything you want them to be. But they can also be even more than that.



...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....
I'm not a cinephile and I don't aim to be one. However I do like movies that are mostly void of action, twist endings and special effects...and I do seek out intelligent drama BUT I often prefer if they don't talk about 'important stuff' but instead talk about everyday life stuff. I guess that's why I'm not a cinephile.

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?
Once again I want to see slices of 'regular life', to me that's more cinemagraphically honest. And I don't read books or go to stage plays so movies are the vehicle in which I can explore such things.



Also, just because there might be lots of talking in a film does not mean it isn't inherently cinematic. How it is filmed matters. How the editing punctuates what is being said or lets it linger. The performances. The sound design. How what they are saying is reflected in their surroundings. Music, either diagetic or non-diagetic can add a tremendous amount. All of these things are a completely different experience from reading about people talking. They actually have very little in common beyond potentially the words being spoken and maybe the actions being taken. They act on the brain in completely different ways. Both art forms have their limitations and benefits that shape how we relate to them. Completely different.


Also, very few movies are just people sitting around talking. This is usually said by people who stopped paying attention after a couple of minutes of uninterrupted conversation. My Dinner With Andre is an exception (and also cinematic in a way that reading what they say on paper would be an entirely different experience, even if it was translated verbatim). Also, in regards to Andre, simply the idea of placing a dinner table conversation in front of a camera is the point. To think of conversation as a movie is a kind of provocation worth thinking about, in how this makes us relate to two men talking.



Well film is unique as an artistic medium, in that it's is able to convey actuality more vividly than any other medium. This can be used either in the direction of realism, conveying more realistically life than a stage play could (and even more so than paintings or novels) -- or this could be used to play with the medium and beguile the viewer into thinking he's watching real life when you're actually toying with it and bending perceptions through surrealism. I like both styles.


Because of the former realistic style, when a moviemaker is depicting something conventional and not trying to be surreal, it annoys me when they take shortcuts like a stage play would. So for example, Quentin Tarantino has a good grasp of this. When he directed a couple of episodes of CSI the TV series, he had one of the protagonists walking across a parking lot when it was getting dark in Vegas. A lot of people in movies or TV shows if they're showing someone in outside locations, they'll just have a set. But Tarantino clearly had chosen an actual vast parking lot situated in downtown Vegas where you could see actual cars and streets in the distance and it had a nice visual effect as a backdrop while the protagonist was walking slowly to his car, combining long shots to take in the surroundings and closeups (where he would be abducted).



There are so many examples of this, for instance when billion dollar budget movies use fake snow. They actually spend millions of dollars with snow machines, why can't they just use that budget to wait for a snowy day or go to a snowy geographical location? That's one reason why I love the Polanski movie Fearless Vampire Killers, because he has this long scene in the middle of the night where one person is chasing another across many sloping connecting rooftops of a medieval villa or castle, and all the rooftops have actual snow on them, and the two characters are slipping and sliding and creating messy tracks in the snow, which obviously could not be done in many takes, because the snow was real and he would have to wait till the snowfall covered over the tracks again. It was an amazing feat of cinema to choreograph, and I deeply appreciated the real snow in that scene, and elsewhere in the movie.



I think they're supposed to be profitable and entertaining, no?



I think they're supposed to be profitable and entertaining, no?

Profitable clearly has nothing to do with it. Like, nothing.



Entertaining, sure. But I think the real word we want is engagement. Entertainment is a word that has been corrupted by the notion that something entertaining must be something disposable that caters to audience expectations (which isn't necessarily true, and also isn't necessarily always a bad thing) or that something that is serious or slow or challenging can't be entertaining by default of being serious or slow or challenging.


I think Rambo 2 is entertaining. I also think My Dinner With Andre is entertaining. As well as all sorts of ponderous art films or completely unapproachable experimental films. But the word has a double edged sword of either discounting popular art forms (which is on its face dumb) or not being applicable to more serious ones (even though it is, I don't like anything I'm not technically 'entertained' by)



Profitable clearly has nothing to do with it. Like, nothing.


You won't make it as a producer. It's an industry. An expensive and risky one at that. Whatever else we condescend a film to be, it had better darned well be profitable. Otherwise interests associated with it will be slotted for extinction. Darwin rules all.


Entertaining, sure. But I think the real word we want is engagement. Entertainment is a word that has been corrupted by the notion that something entertaining must be something disposable that caters to audience expectations (which isn't necessarily true, and also isn't necessarily always a bad thing) or that something that is serious or slow or challenging can't be entertaining by default of being serious or slow or challenging.


I define entertain broadly. Whatever it does, some audience must have a preference for it. It has to do something for the people for which it is made.



You won't make it as a producer. It's an industry. An expensive and risky one at that. Whatever else we condescend a film to be, it had better darned well be profitable. Otherwise interests associated with it will be slotted for extinction. Darwin rules all.
"Supposed to" is an ought. What you're describing is an is.



"Supposed to" is an ought. What you're describing is an is.

No, I am describing how the ought derives from practical conditions. I am assuming that my interlocutor values "survival" and "being able to more of what they set out to do." If, as a producer, you don't care whether or not you are able to continue producing after your film flops, then there ain't much I can say to, as you do not have the assumed shared value in your commitment store. If, however, we may safely presume that producers wish to go one producing (which stands to reason if one identities as such), then this is an ought from an ought. With respect to David Hume, it's a little clunky to unpack the enthymeme in syllogistic form to make the suppressed ought premise perspicuous.



In addition, the Darwinistic frame gives us a practical ought, if not a metaphysical one. It may not be the case the universe really cares about anything, but its processes tend to favor and demand certain things, one of them being profitability in financial enterprises. We can protest and blather on about the integrity of art, and so on, but if we really want to play the game, then we have to play by market rules. And the market demands making a buck.



We can protest and blather on about the integrity of art
Precisely. We can protest and blather about the integrity of art. We can have academic discussions that have no immediate real world application. Those seem like okay things to talk about, yeah? They might not interest you, and that's okay, too. Unless you want to start a companion thread called "So...WHAT are threads supposed to be?" and argue otherwise. But barring some kind of consensus about that, I don't really see the point of throwing the cold water of reality on a question that can be asked and considered as a pure hypothetical (or even just the expression of a desire). Counterfactuals are both interesting and useful.

There's also, of course, the fact that if people actively lobby for something as an ought, it may eventually become an is. People discussing what movies should or shouldn't be is one of the many ways you get what movies end up being.

And the market demands making a buck.
Obviously nobody disagrees, so obviously when people seem to disagree it reveals that they're talking about different things.



Precisely. We can protest and blather about the integrity of art. We can have academic discussions that have no immediate real world application. Those seem like okay things to talk about, yeah? They might not interest you, and that's okay, too.


I haven't argued that we can't bang on about such notions. I have spent years discussing such issues at great length. However, whatever else a movie is, it should entertain and make money. If we get our heads so far up our backsides that we hold the audience and the market in contempt, we may blame both for our failure, but a failure it will be.
Unless you want to start a companion thread called "So...WHAT are threads supposed to be?" and argue otherwise. But barring some kind of consensus about that, I don't really see the point of throwing the cold water of reality on a question that can be asked and considered as a pure hypothetical (or even just the expression of a desire).
The point is quite simple. If we are to discuss this question, it is helpful to place it within certain parameters. Whatever else a film does, it should entertain and make money. These are serious considerations. Just ask Carolco films. We have book ends for discussion with such parameters, even if there is a lot of range within the bookends.
Obviously nobody disagrees, so obviously when people seem to disagree it reveals that they're talking about different things.
I am not so sure that everyone disagrees. There are some hardcore "art for art's sake people" who hold the audience and profits in contempt.

And if they don't, then it should not be controversial to set this out as a grounding parameter of discussion. Whatever else they may be, they must make people happy in some way (i.e., people must have some preference to watch them) and the watching of them must be profitable. This reminds us that our "art" is quite practical at bottom. It reminds us that we must serve, we must please, we must play a part in a greater dance (and not blast the world with unintelligible prophecies and visions of our muse).

We should not forget the three maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. "Know thyself", is immediately followed by "nothing to excess" and "certainty brings ruin." Film serves the community. It is not and cannot simply be a pure exercise in self-knowledge and self-expression (nothing in excess). And as much as we may climb the beanstalks of artistic abstractions to steal aesthetic treasures from some giant's castle, we must remember that such pillars are uncertain (certainty brings ruin).



You won't make it as a producer. It's an industry. An expensive and risky one at that. Whatever else we condescend a film to be, it had better darned well be profitable. Otherwise interests associated with it will be slotted for extinction. Darwin rules all.






I define entertain broadly. Whatever it does, some audience must have a preference for it. It has to do something for the people for which it is made.

Even with the bottom line concern in the movie industry, there are producers who recognize that they don't have the magic ingredients that only inspired artists have, and that they have to navigate a murky in between area where hopefully they can recognize an inspired artist, or if they can't, they sometimes have to gamble on one. But the point is, in a business that also involves art, savvy producers know that they have to deal with an X factor that they can't fully control, and which may involve some risk. This process has a lot of leeway and depends on the personality of the producer in question, some being more open minded some being less. Robert Evans for example, seemed to have a good sense of knowing when a gamble would pay off, apparently to a large extent by intuition, as when he trusted Roman Polanski and his project Chinatown.



That said, the movie industry surely can accommodate both styles -- you can have say 90% of your budget going to formulaic schlock that you know will pay off, and then delegate 10% of the budget to risky ventures giving artists a chance to experiment. Again, the savvy producer knows that oftentimes the experimental artist that didn't seem to have a profitable project sometimes turns out to deliver an unexpected hit, which can't be predicted by those who don't have artistic talents.



in a business that also involves art, savvy producers know that they have to deal with an X factor that they can't fully control, and which may involve some risk.
The delicious and dangerous position of the producer is to have a work which shows promise, which inspires, which seems to have intrinsic merit, but also to have to consider how to make the thing work and whether it can be made to work. Film without inspiration is soulless. Film without rhetorical and fiduciary care is impotent.

This process has a lot of leeway and depends on the personality of the producer in question, some being more open minded some being less. Robert Evans for example, seemed to have a good sense of knowing when a gamble would pay off, apparently to a large extent by intuition, as when he trusted Roman Polanski and his project Chinatown.
A great producer is a mediatrix between the audience and the artwork, right? I would think, although I don't know, that a hallmark of a good producer is one who is a lover of film and of profits. I suppose that they should be good at log-rolling (i.e., engaging with the equilibrium dynamics of meeting the many conflicting needs of these massive projects).



No, I am describing how the ought derives from practical conditions. I am assuming that my interlocutor values "survival" and "being able to more of what they set out to do." If, as a producer, you don't care whether or not you are able to continue producing after your film flops, then there ain't much I can say to, as you do not have the assumed shared value in your commitment store. If, however, we may safely presume that producers wish to go one producing (which stands to reason if one identities as such), then this is an ought from an ought. With respect to David Hume, it's a little clunky to unpack the enthymeme in syllogistic form to make the suppressed ought premise perspicuous.



In addition, the Darwinistic frame gives us a practical ought, if not a metaphysical one. It may not be the case the universe really cares about anything, but its processes tend to favor and demand certain things, one of them being profitability in financial enterprises. We can protest and blather on about the integrity of art, and so on, but if we really want to play the game, then we have to play by market rules. And the market demands making a buck.

There is lots of great art that has added tremendous value to people's lives that has never made a profit.


Does money make things easier, yeah, duh, and I wished every artist I loved was making a billion dollars. But, in the unideal world we are living in, those who have things to say that the majority of the population don't care about, or don't know they might care about, have to push forward regardless that they likely won't make a dime. Or certainly not enough to live on.


You always treat the notion of 'art with integrity' as some kind of glib empty statement that only weirdo art extremists like me espouse . But honestly, how much value is there in stating the obvious that money is important (and it should be noted, you have in the past been pretty open about your hostility towards artists profiting off of their work...a weird combination of opinions I've got to say). Again, of course it's important. But it doesn't dictate what matters. What is art. What is a movie.


I also hope you see that you placing a dollar value on profitability in art as primo importance is basically the shit that has turned the world of galleries and modern painting into a pretty overt scam. Its basically made a joke of an entire medium on the world stage, an opinion I would think our two contrary takes on this might agree on. And this was purely the result of too much money, and too many know nothing's becoming the gatekeepers because they have the money



There is lots of great art that has added tremendous value to people's lives that has never made a profit.
Thus, satisfying one of the two criteria I specified. It entertained them. And had it turned a profit, I might have entertained even more people.

Does money make things easier, yeah, duh,
Money is not a mere inconvenience, it is a necessity. It doesn't just make easier; it makes it possible. And if we value the possibility we needs must also value (at least instrumentally) the purpose (that dirty cash).

those who have things to say that the majority of the population don't care about,
Why make a film for an audience if you hold them in contempt? Whatever the intended audience is for a film (it need not be a majority of the general population), that film must serve that audience. It must care about them and what they're interested in. An artist with no regard for reception might as well not ever release the artwork.
or don't know they might care about,
That's an entirely different proposition. If we give an audience what they don't know they desire, in the knowledge that it will entertain nevertheless, that is within the parameters of our prime criteria.
have to push forward regardless that they likely won't make a dime.
Nonsense. Art which is only for the artist is not a cultural product, but private idiosyncratic product which need not be released, because it served no purpose outside the artist. No one really believes this romantic nonsense. Artists want to reach their audiences. They offer up all the pretentious, contemptuous declarations of "not caring," precisely because they know that their is a good chance that they will fail, that they will not reach the audience. Let's stop pretending that art is just for the artist. It isn't. It never was. That which is is just a hobby or habituation, or madness.

You always treat the notion of 'art with integrity' as some kind of glib empty statement
I disagree. I am all for art with integrity. However, the art must be adjusted to and for audience. It's integrity lies in playing a part in a cultural dance, not in claiming mastery, control, and ownership of itself as a hermetically sealed process that holds the dance in contempt.

how much value is there in stating the obvious
Given how much you protest, deflect, and even deny the necessity, I would say quite a bit.

your hostility towards artists profiting off of their work...a weird combination of opinions I've got to say).
I am fine with artists making a fair amount of money for a fair amount of time with the work then entering the public domain as a cultural product. However, corporations are now people and they never die. What matters most about art is that it belongs to us all. Its about the dance, circulation, and not the constipating restrictions of anyone's assertion of final ownership.

But it doesn't dictate what matters.
It does so instrumentally. It points us in the direction of what matters--pleasing audiences. If the audience is not happy, the project does not make money. It is the stick.
I also hope you see that you placing a dollar value on profitability in art as primo importance is basically the shit that has turned the world of galleries and modern painting into a pretty overt scam.
This cannot be the case by your own analysis. You grudgingly admit of its necessity (if only in the attempt to dismiss its significance as a consideration "Of course we all know this!"), but this admission means that it is a universal consideration. Your admission establishes that there is no world in which this interest does not intrude, thus it cannot be the uniquely corrupting feature of art.



Victim of The Night
Well, I'm happy to have ZERO action or FX or they can have zero dialogue or zero drama or whatever.
Movies don't have to take me to a place I cannot go in other ways... but they do. A play is not a movie. I've been to lots of plays and I know, they are very different mediums. There is never the sense that what you are seeing is real and that's actually part of the fun of them. Movies are different in that way.
When I watch My Dinner With Andre, which I love, which is about 2 men sitting around a table in a restaurant talking, I am transported to the actual scene, the restaurant where they are and eavesdropping on a conversation I would never be able to hear even if I were sitting right next to them, and it's fascinating and wonderful and I love it. Neither reading it nor seeing a play of it would be quite the same. Even a pure drama with no action whatsoever can give us points of view we would never get and evoke emotions that some other medium could not.
On the other hand, something like Underwater, which has precious little dialogue or drama and is nearly all action and FX, transports me to its world and is also perfectly enjoyable in its way.
Both are movies, by the way.



Thus, satisfying one of the two criteria I specified. It entertained them. And had it turned a profit, I might have entertained even more people.

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 movie with no more than ten fans is still just as much a movie as one with an entire industrial complex behind it. But okay, yeah, sure.





Money is not a mere inconvenience, it is a necessity. It doesn't just make easier; it makes it possible.
Yeah, 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.


Why make a film for an audience if you hold them in contempt?
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.



Whatever the intended audience is for a film (it need not be a majority of the general population), that film must serve that audience.
It doesn't have to serve a ****ing single soul. But people might still like it regardless. What is your obsession with artistic obedience? Things can still matter if they aren't subservient to your particular needs.




An artist with no regard for reception might as well not ever release the artwork.
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. 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.


Nonsense. Art which is only for the artist is not a cultural product, but private idiosyncratic product which need not be released, because it served no purpose outside the artist

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".



He creates out of belief. He creates out of hope that someone else, hopefully lots of someone elses, are looking for the kind of thing he's creating. He's not catering to an audience, because he is only theoretically hoping it even exits. He doesn't know until he puts it out there.




And lucky for him they do exist. And lucky for them that he is trusting his gut. Otherwise these movies that matter to these audience members wouldn't even exist. You don't get a Jarmusch film by reading the wind or conducting surveys. You take a chance. Hope someone gives a ****.


This is the vaccuum that most art is created out of. They create their own cultural product because it didn't exist before them.


It just makes me wonder exactly how many artists you've ever personally known. Or even, for the lack of anything else, how many books on art or biographies of artists you've read. Because that above comment it staggering in its ignorance. And it's one your repeat over and over again, no matter how many different posters try and correct you on. Stop embarrassing yourself with this. If you want to continue these conversations, at least try and grasp the process where creative people create.



No one really believes this romantic nonsense.
Do you really want to get into belief? Do you have no concept at all about the value of belief or faith? Give me a ****ing break.



Artists want to reach their audiences
Hey, a breakthrough. Yes. Being seen as an artist has a lot of value (not all the value, but it is certainly a good portion)




They offer up all the pretentious, contemptuous declarations of "not caring," precisely because they know that their is a good chance that they will fail, that they will not reach the audience.
Some probably do this. Artists are notoriously insecure, for very good reason. Because they take enormous chances with what they put out there, having no idea if anyone could possibly give a shit. At having people like you look down on them like they are some parasite that dared to express themselves in a way that they hoped would matter.



But also, stop talking for what artists think. You are a terrible ambassador.







Let's stop pretending that art is just for the artist. It isn't. It never was.
It's for both. And if they don't happen to find an audience, they missed and they didn't connect. Stop claiming that artists should stop doing what artists have always done. What the **** are you so upset by when someone you don't even know dares to express themselves they choose to. Honestly, what is wrong with you? Just don't watch what you don't like and move along.





That which is is just a hobby or habituation, or madness.
Yeah, it can be all three of these things. And those three things have probably supplied a good deal of everything even your milquetoast taste has enjoyed.


I disagree. I am all for art with integrity. However, the art must be adjusted to and for audience.
The audience isn't you. The audience isn't consensus. The audience is any person who may enjoy or find meaning in their work. Some people don't happen to find art other people respond strongly to to have any meaning. Are they just supposed to adhere to whatever dogshit principals you designate as being proper art so they at least have something? Honestly, **** off with this shit.




It's integrity lies in playing a part in a cultural dance, not in claiming mastery, control, and ownership of itself as a hermetically sealed process that holds the dance in contempt.
For someone who doesn't like masturbatory art, you sure love to felate yourself with this crap you write.




Given how much you protest, deflect, and even deny the necessity, I would say quite a bit.
Okay, whatever. Or maybe you just don't understand what I'm saying and so we have to go through this 'dance' over and over again (is this going to be the part where you claim we are at a stalemate and there is no reason to continue the conversation?)


I am fine with artists making a fair amount of money for a fair amount of time with the work then entering the public domain as a cultural product. However, corporations are now people and they never die. What matters most about art is that it belongs to us all. Its about the dance, circulation, and not the constipating restrictions of anyone's assertion of final ownership.
This is an extremely complicated matter that I certainly don't have an entire handle on...so I definitely know I shouldn't be trusting anything you have to say about it. Yes it belongs to the people. In some ways. But it also definitely belongs to the artist, certainly for as long as they live. But...it's complicated.



This cannot be the case by your own analysis. You grudgingly admit of its necessity (if only in the attempt to dismiss its significance as a consideration "Of course we all know this!"), but this admission means that it is a universal consideration. Your admission establishes that there is no world in which this interest does not intrude, thus it cannot be the uniquely corrupting feature of art.
Clearly I'm too dumb for this academia speak you continuously flop around in like pig shit, so I'll just say, sure, whatever you say. Now read a ****ing book about art and get back to me.



Nonsense. Art which is only for the artist is not a cultural product, but private idiosyncratic product which need not be released, because it served no purpose outside the artist. No one really believes this romantic nonsense. Artists want to reach their audiences. They offer up all the pretentious, contemptuous declarations of "not caring," precisely because they know that their is a good chance that they will fail, that they will not reach the audience. Let's stop pretending that art is just for the artist. It isn't. It never was. That which is is just a hobby or habituation, or madness.

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. 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. 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.



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. One of them being, that 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?



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, then unless he's a deluded narcissist or coked & drunk out of his gourd, he will feel a gnawing existential angst of an abyss in the realization that he's a phony. Come to think of it, if he felt pain about that, that would be a good sign, since if he were a perfectly vacuous narcissist, he wouldn't care that he's a complete phony.