A foreign, far east artist is not [insert homecountry] enough or too influenced with western culture, a sort of criticism when there dispute or attempt to diminished work of the aforementioned artist inferior.
Honestly, I don't get it.
While I believe I found this pattern still in particular, not in general - the other I noted was renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami also suffered the same kind of criticism; the other related one was discussed on Borges's essay about writers and tradition as national identity - I think this attitude as kind of oxymoron, defeatist, but sometimes if not more often, become such intellectual perpetuity on the camouflage.
As when I try to track it back to its root:
Since Japanese films appeared on our screens after the war, an aesthetic dispute has ranged the admirers of Kurosawa (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, The Idiot) against those of Mizoguchi. A dispute made even more furious by the fact that both directors have been frequent prizewinners at festivals. Our thanks are due to Jean-José Richer for having cut authoritatively across the debate: "This double distinction awarded in strict equality (to The Seven Samurai and Sansho Dayu [Sansho the Bailiff], Venice [Film Festival] 1954) is unwarranted… There can be no doubt that any comparison between Mizoguchi and Kurosawa turns irrefutably to the advantage of the former. Alone among the Japanese film-makers known to us, he goes beyond the seductive but minor stage of exoticism to a deeper level where one need no longer worry about false prestige" (Jean-luc Godard; Cahiers du Cinéma 40)
Godard's fellow New Wave critic-filmmaker, Jacques Rivette, writes: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself... He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual."
According to these French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa: "There were even suggestions by the influential [French film critic] André Bazin that Mizoguchi represented a more authentic Japaneseness, while Kurosawa was quite obviously influenced by the west, as was Mizoguchi [emphasis added]."
source
Now I don't want to imply that an artist (a great one) impenetrable with criticism. I get it if those intelectual tried to, simply stated as one artist's work is not profound enough compare to others, whether that's debatable or not, I believe in respect it's a different case. I also note that it went according to each perception of other cultures' authenticity, but yeah, Kurosawa's is more western and Mizoguchi's that is more Japanese in the nature of their works. I have nothing but agreement.
However one dares to say here, that there should be little to no correlation that an artist should be judged for not sticking deeply with his narrative tradition, the culture, by rejecting to experiment with the said foreign influences. It doesn't straightly make sense.
Influence is influence, styles, approach, make the richness of creativity. I believe it doesn't instantly put the works less universal than others, just because it perceives less authentic for one culture. It takes another aspect. We shouldn't perceive and boxed artists to such kinds of limitations when we try to appreciate their expression.
"For that reason, I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate - and in that case, we shall be so in all events - or being Argentine is mere affectations, a mask.
I believe that if we surrender ourselves to that voluntary dream which is artistic creation, we shall be good or tolerable writer" - Jorge Luis Borges on The Argentine Writer and Tradition
Honestly, I don't get it.
While I believe I found this pattern still in particular, not in general - the other I noted was renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami also suffered the same kind of criticism; the other related one was discussed on Borges's essay about writers and tradition as national identity - I think this attitude as kind of oxymoron, defeatist, but sometimes if not more often, become such intellectual perpetuity on the camouflage.
As when I try to track it back to its root:
Since Japanese films appeared on our screens after the war, an aesthetic dispute has ranged the admirers of Kurosawa (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, The Idiot) against those of Mizoguchi. A dispute made even more furious by the fact that both directors have been frequent prizewinners at festivals. Our thanks are due to Jean-José Richer for having cut authoritatively across the debate: "This double distinction awarded in strict equality (to The Seven Samurai and Sansho Dayu [Sansho the Bailiff], Venice [Film Festival] 1954) is unwarranted… There can be no doubt that any comparison between Mizoguchi and Kurosawa turns irrefutably to the advantage of the former. Alone among the Japanese film-makers known to us, he goes beyond the seductive but minor stage of exoticism to a deeper level where one need no longer worry about false prestige" (Jean-luc Godard; Cahiers du Cinéma 40)
Godard's fellow New Wave critic-filmmaker, Jacques Rivette, writes: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself... He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual."
According to these French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa: "There were even suggestions by the influential [French film critic] André Bazin that Mizoguchi represented a more authentic Japaneseness, while Kurosawa was quite obviously influenced by the west, as was Mizoguchi [emphasis added]."
source
Now I don't want to imply that an artist (a great one) impenetrable with criticism. I get it if those intelectual tried to, simply stated as one artist's work is not profound enough compare to others, whether that's debatable or not, I believe in respect it's a different case. I also note that it went according to each perception of other cultures' authenticity, but yeah, Kurosawa's is more western and Mizoguchi's that is more Japanese in the nature of their works. I have nothing but agreement.
However one dares to say here, that there should be little to no correlation that an artist should be judged for not sticking deeply with his narrative tradition, the culture, by rejecting to experiment with the said foreign influences. It doesn't straightly make sense.
Influence is influence, styles, approach, make the richness of creativity. I believe it doesn't instantly put the works less universal than others, just because it perceives less authentic for one culture. It takes another aspect. We shouldn't perceive and boxed artists to such kinds of limitations when we try to appreciate their expression.
"For that reason, I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate - and in that case, we shall be so in all events - or being Argentine is mere affectations, a mask.
I believe that if we surrender ourselves to that voluntary dream which is artistic creation, we shall be good or tolerable writer" - Jorge Luis Borges on The Argentine Writer and Tradition
__________________
"Фильм призван вызвать духовную волну, а не взращивать идолопоклонников."
Last edited by resopamenic; 07-11-20 at 05:19 AM.