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In Reply to: Re: Well, no... posted by jamesgarvin on March 17, 2005 at 09:26:56:
Regardless of what 'level' the work is at, I think it's the work itself that makes a claim on its status as art. All of the supplementary baggage plays a role, but the role the supplementary baggage plays devolves upon a consensual undertanding that the work itself makes some claim upon judgment. I don't doubt that you weren't sitting in your chair keeping a running tab on the relationship between Mystic River and other films or other works of art, but I don't believe that you're sitting there understanding that film, or anything else, as some sui generis experience that's incomparable to any other film or work of art. We understand things only through reference to other things, implicitly or explicitly. The very tone that Mystic River takes comes equipped with historical baggage. Film is as historically bound a medium as anything else, and there's certainly nothing in Mystic River that is genuinely original (in the sense of technique or plot development, characterization, etc.), as I think even its strongest defender would concede. So never mind Eastwood's 'motives' as something independent of the film. The film situates itself relative to other films via its aesthetic choices; those choices make some claim on a status relative to the cinematic tradition. Agreed?Maybe you're right and I'm wrong about its pretensions to high art, and maybe that's the wrong way to frame what I'm trying to say. My problem with the film is its overseriousness, on the one hand, and then an issue that may be extrinsic to the film itself: the idea that overseriousness is supposed to be the province of 'high art,' and that's what legitimates popular disdain of high art...
Er, I've gotta go to lunch but I'd be happy to continue this discussion, as I think it's interesting and you've made good points.
______________________________
Stranger than that, we're alive!Whatever you think it's more than that, more than that.
-Incredible String Band
Follow Ups:
"Regardless of what 'level' the work is at, I think it's the work itself that makes a claim on its status as art."I guess this is where we agree to disagree. I do not see any creative product, whether you call it art, entertainment, etc., in any media, that makes a "claim" for anything. I think the work is an extention of the creator of that work, particularly in a medium such as film. If Eastwood says that his work is designed to accomplish some ideal, then he should be judged accordingly. Unless he holds his work out as an example of something, then who are we to tell him that his work stands for some idea, theory, what have you, that he never intended, and we would judge his work according to whether his work accomplishes our idea of what he was trying to do. I suspect that in two hundred years we will not be making these judgments about Eastwood's films (if that is what we are doing) just the same as I do try to attribute "claims" made by painters who painted six hundred years ago.
I never asserted that Eastwood's motives were independent of the film. Only that I do not know what his motives were, and I would not presume to guess what his motives were by the tone of the film. Nothing I have seen posted attempts to provide anything more than fact masquerading as conjecture. I know the motives of Unforgiven, because Eastwood told the public what he hoped to accomplish. Therefore, it is fair to judge him accordingly.
Maybe if we just threw out those terms like "high art", "middle-brow", etc., we could do away with what they are supposed to represent, and instead deal with the merits of the film. Or lack thereof.
I am judging the film. I'm not judging what I think Eastwood's motives originally were, I'm making judgments about the effects made by the film. You seem to be assuming that an artist has total control over his/her product, and that an artwork is a transparent window onto his/her intentions. I don't buy that. The film itself makes demands upon its audience, and it situates itself in the course of a tradition. Once a piece of work is out in the world, it 'belongs' to the audience, not its author, and it's up to them to figure out how it fails or succeeds. And the primary relationship which defines its function in a society is not a three-way relationship between author, work, and public, but between the work itself, other works, and the public.But, whatever. Very basic disagreements here, no point in our waging a war of deliberative attrition, I think we each know where the other is coming from. I'm just glad we steered the conversation back towards cordiality and substance. Nice talking to you.
______________________________
Stranger than that, we're alive!Whatever you think it's more than that, more than that.
-Incredible String Band
I mean both critics' opinions and whatever we can say that Eastwood's 'intentions' may have been.
______________________________
Stranger than that, we're alive!Whatever you think it's more than that, more than that.
-Incredible String Band
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