FILM IS NOT ART ?

[ThomasB]

My definition of art:

Something (made/created by a living being) that creates lasting, positive emotions when you look at it, listen to it, watch it, read it, smell it, feel it or taste it.

However, I don't call it art if it fits the above description but was only made for the purpose of gaining money with it.

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ThomasB
http://www.biennavista.com

[Spoon boy]

Film can be Art.

Art is inherently bullshit for people
with there heads rammed firmly up there
arse(The cheese and wine brigade, London
breeds these twats by the bucket load)

So if Film can be Art, and Art is by
it's nature bullshit what does that
make Film?

Answers on a postcard...


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Black Frog Productions <--- NEW LOOK NEW SHITE!

[hairbrain]

I'm with spoon boy. Art is anything which demands that the viewer have his head up his arse to appreciate it. Instead Film plugs directly into the human beings nervous system, bypasses the bollock-filled critical capacities, and just gets to work in a raw, emotional, and real way.

Art has to fake this with little catalogues explaining why, even though you were more moved to tears by a film you saw last night, this crap infront of your eyes is actually in some way deeper and more indicative of the human condition.

But of course film can be art. Or in other words film can be a pile of crap too. Yeah get Warhol behind the lens and I'm sure some ineffectual crap will come pouring out the other end which critics can applaud.

I'm glad film isn't art.... it's sooo much better than that. As long as those art critics all crowd together in their little galeries patting each other on the back and discussing the latest in neo-non-post-faux-expressionistic-realism-ism then we're all the better off.

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ART IS DEAD, LONG LIVE FILM!
(now there's a truism if I ever heard one. After all Mozart and Rembrandt were just the David Lynch's of their day.. entertaining and yet pushing forward into new creative realms. Art never did recover after the invention of the camera so no wonder they don't see film as art. Film is Arts arch-enemy. Film has wrangled all the power from art and left it bereft and ineffective.)

Matthew Collins can stick that where it hurts.

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[wageslave]

what a load of crap.

I have never seen a truly surreal film, in the way that Max Ernst and Dali and plenty of others have created with still painting/images.

I dont think it works in moving pictures, it turns out contrived, pretentious and foolish for some reason.

A moving image is different from a still image.
Thats all - and the differences have a different effect on you.

To say that
Film has wrangled all the power from art and left it bereft and ineffective.
is about as pretentious as the people you supposedly think have their head up their arses

To say


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[StudentBoardMember]

Matthew Collins needs to get out more.

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[hairbrain]

Ok wageslave I'll put it in simpletons terms for you.

Contemporary Film works on peoples emotions and touches them... Contemporary Art does not.

Contemporary Film works so well in drawing people into it that it has a mass audience... Contemporary Art does not.

Contemporary Film tackles deep and important subjects and brings them into the minds of a huge number of people... Contemporary Art does not.

When people see Contemporary Film it makes them think... when people see Contemporary Art it makes them want their money back.

If you were taught the History of Art you would have learnt about the catastrophic effect the invention of the Camera had upon Art. As a result of the camera artists were forced to investigate new ways of depicting reality. This was the only way they could compete with the superior mechanism of reality capture known as the camera. From Picasso to Warhol great leaps forward were made in the meaning of Art and the way it depicted the world around it. But since Warhol Art has become more and more retarded, inward looking, ineffective in getting its audience and thus its point across. Until today Artists don't really give a monkeys about anything but tricking some dealer somewhere into giving them a couple of grand for a pile of actual crap. Interview the artist and what do they say? `I got a couple of grand for a pile of crap` Everyone sniggers, oh its so cynical and funny, but ultimately the artist is being absolutely honest.... it is a pile of crap and he/she is fleecing idiot critics pockets for it.

Of course the real post-modern value of this kind of art is that it's showing how the art world is eating itself. But I don't see why such a pile of rubbish should be given the accolade of `ART` as if it was something special. No, compared to it, Film is just so much more effective, thought provoking, breaking fresh boundaries, and visionary.

Art is just a sausage sat on a stool somewhere in some museum.

I hope this new post hasn't contained such long and complex words as `wrangled` `bereft` and `ineffective`. I wouldn't want you to think I'm up my arse. Or do you just say that to anyone who says something other than `did yer watch the footie?`

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[wageslave]

Be that as it may -

There are some things that a still image does better than a moving image (one of which is it doesnt take up 90 minutes or so of your time to see) and some things that moving images do better than still images.
I can go into details if you really want.

Film hasnt made art (by that I mean still images, sculpture and so on) ineffective, its just more fun sitting being fed a movie than the seemingly highbrow alternative. which needn't be highbrow, and usually really isnt as complicated as people might lead you to beleive.

And if you find that you dont 'think' after coming out of an (any) art gallery then that is your failing.

How do you know I havent studied History of Art?
Dont come over high and mighty about your History of Art Education simply because you dont 'get pictures hanging on a wall' the way you 'get films'.

I do agree with most of what you said, but I dont agree with what you seem to be implying: that Film is the Majesty of art. The big mother of them all, and is sweeping the rest away.
I think you probably need to visit a local art cafe somewhere or look at a sculpture in a local place, and rethink.

By the way, what does Bereft mean?



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[hairbrain]

Sorry the hist of art statement was more of a presumption/question and not an attempt to be condescending. Bereft means taken from and left alone in this context, a bit like somebody left lying on the street alone after having their kid stolen from them.

My argument is that, on a comparitive scale, film is a far more effective communication and philosophical force within the contemporary world. What's more film has successively left us with haunting visual imagery and tear-wrenching soundtracks which talk to the human condition far more than any image or sculpture since Warhol. The only reason why film is not seen as the latest and greatest manifestation of art is because the art world (Matthew Collins and friends) insist that film isn't art. David Lynch is like a modern day crazed VanGogh. His imagery disturbs us, whether it is a still frame or a moving image. I suppose if we took one frame of Blue Velvet hung it on a wall then it would be `art`. But that's just stupid.

The art world is busy wrapped up in the debate as to whether painting is dead or not. The debate claims that oil and acrylic are old technologies and that computer data and video is more contemporary and valid. But this is exactly the same argument we can use on art. Art is dead. It uses out moded materials in an out moded 2 dimensional way.

The real problem the art world has with film is that it is FAR more complicated than painting, sculpture etc. You could write ten books on the meaning, form, and social context of star wars and still only begin to broach the subject. Because art critics can't neatly frame a film and say `it's about this` and because ultimately nobody would really care what they said about a film anyway.... because they can't cage film, and tame the beast, well then it can't be art can it.

As for surreal cinema. I suppose `Last Year at Marienblad` was the nearest thing I've seen to it. Buneul's cinema is also very odd but plays far to much with symbolism to be truly head mash material. Film is finding its feet and starting to loose itself from the shakles of realism. Films like `Lost Highway` and `What Dreams May Come` are starting to reach into new cinematic fields and one day we may see great works of surrealism in the cinema.

Also in the history of art there was a period at the end of the 19th century when the art world decreed what was art and what wasn't. It is odd to realise that the `salon` artists of this time (artists whose work was accepted as art) are mostly forgotten today. However the artists whose work was condemned as `not art` were the impressionists... i.e.

Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Manet, Renoir, Seurat, etc

Could it be that the art world is just as stupid today?

Don't get me wrong I like a bit of sculpture and the odd painting, hey I even paint myself, but Film IS the king now.

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[miker]

this is not a pipe

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N305UDB M173UBM
(B55VOR)
(WGO963W)

[Ralph Snart]

If five people are standing in a field and all look up at the same time, to the clouds moving overhead.

1 sees a dragon.

1 sees a puppy dog.

and

3 see a "Whatever."

Who is right if any?

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