Films/DVD Asylum

I can appreciate your admiration of his work,

67.42.182.38

tinear

In Reply to: RE: I take Noe's work seriously.... posted by afilado on December 04, 2008 at 09:39:40

it's just that it is beyond mine.
I don't know about your explanation for revulsion. I really cannot picture myself taking part in the Holocaust or other such acts.
It's not that they shock me it's that they're so deliberative, purposeful, vindictive, and pointless.
Like all people, I have my horrific personal thoughts but I think the explanation for disliking Noe is simpler than that.

Follow Ups:

I didn't say I admired his work... - afilado 14:53:57 12/04/08 (3)
Not particularly. And I prefer Haneke of the two.
I was saying I am open to expanding my understanding of art as a reflection of personal nature, even deeper perversity. I don't run away from it because it is difficult. I take Noe at his word that he is seriously exploring, in his own way, the same territory as Haneke - contemporary human condition.
Is Noe's butcher any more repellent than the monster in Vampyr, which I've seen you praise here? What is your standard of sympathy/antipathy for film? Mine is: Is the tale well told? I don't avoid art/film because I fear it will reduce me by raising problematic emotions. Quite the contrary.
Your Holocaust remarks notwithstanding, of course you know there is ample legitimate evidence to support a contention that you have it in you to perform the most heinous acts given conducive personal circumstances. That is precisely the case that both Noe and Haneke are making.

Edits: 12/04/08 12/04/08
- I think you hit upon it. Haneke appears to try, in his editing, - tinear 15:39:51 12/04/08 (2)
  to give a reason whereas Noe just depicts incredible violence and hatred. We sit and watch, like some spectator outside numbly watching and not interceding in some prolonged violent assault.
  We all know the depths of human behavior, we have seen it. Merely to show it, therefore, isn't intellectually rigorous, demanding. It is easy. I'd argue art never can be. Noe's films don't challenge the viewer, unless it is to sit still for the visual assault. We are victimized as much as the character and I, frankly, don' like the feeling.
  "Vamypr" is highly stylized and the violence serves the purpose of the story. All crimes are different and, yet, the same. Noe only shows the latter fact.
  - Real people do real violence ...... - afilado 17:31:07 12/04/08 (1)
    ... for no apparent reason, no easily understood reason. In real life.
    
    How will the observer ever understand seeming meaningless acts of destruction if the protagonist himself doesn't? Somewhere there is that germ of motivation, that intersection of action and "reason" however demented it may be.
    
    The film artist, as imaginative thinker/creator is as capable, maybe even more so, as the scientist in plumbing unknown depths of human behavior. In the simple showing of it, in exposing it in honest, cinematic ways the filmmaker gives opportunity for the viewer to expand on the original imagination.
    
    It may be that the artist who produces easily accessible work is the one doing the greater disservice to his most ambitious viewer. His ideal viewer?
    
    Noe has discipline. He shows so much and no more. What is HIS standard for sympathy/antipathy? Is he gauging his work with viewer tolerances in mind or is he just masturbating.
    
    Giving him credit for artistic restraint/management in any degree requires one to take him seriously. Not only a masturbator, a shockmeister. One must then ask where is the artistic relationship between violence and service to story, not if it exists at all.
    
    Who is the more meaningful artist? The one who produces the piece with readymade reasoning or the one who provokes broader opportunities for insight not otherwise available if the showing were never made, however perverse?
    
    I doubt Noe is so crude an artist that he wants simply to shock. What about someone like Damien Hirst?
    - If Hirst were Noe he'd throw people into the live shark's aquarium and THEN - tinear 22:41:02 12/04/08 (0)
      preserve them for viewing. ;-)
      It's hard to explain why Noe is exploitive and Haneke isn't. It's like pornography and the old definition: you know it when you see it.

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