The purpose of art film?

I believe that the term is so much more broader than it sounds. any expression on film is kind of like art, moving pictures in general. to honestly express yourself visually is art to me no matter what the story is about. I'm not usually into the cookie cutter films that come out of Hollywood where it seems like several companies pass the same script around and change the names but make the same film.

originality... films that don't really fit into any one genre I find to be the most interesting.
 
you can relate film to literature a bit - we have our catcher in the rye's and farenheit451's as well as our catch-22's (which honestly, was totaly the wrong book to read at the wrong time... im pretty sure you need to have a far more intimate understanding of war and its influence on your mind than i had) so while it IS all subjective, art does have a common theme at a common time - it tends to strike a chord with people at a certian time (like catch-22 was amazing back when it came out...during the world wars...but its lost part of its releveance now)

"great" literature is defined by the people who read it - "great" film is defined by the people who see it ... it just depends on which group of people you ask at which time how they see it


you can also relate it to music, my sister loves emo-punk-rock, but i find it a bit to whiney for my tastes. when an "art" matures enough to grasp a group of people and hold a following - it becomes truely an "art" otherwise, its a past-time for the creator

right?

haha :) its late, i hope that came out right
 
what is an artsy film?

I have come to noticed that art films are usually films that take a calculated risk to sacrifice some realism for the sake of expressing an idea using visual images.

1 easy example I have come across recently is Full Metal Jacket. Towards the end of the movie when they patrolled the abandoned city, you will notice that there were these paddles of small fires... the city was abandoned, there was little or no fighting, where did these fires come from? When they were inside that building where the sniper was, there were paddles of fire everywhere inside that building (didn't really notice them before from the outside)... rather silly to be hiding inside a burning building. Then finally, the last scene of the movie with the Mickey Mouse chant, the soldiers march on with rows and rows of burning buildings in the background.... there is no fighting here, where did all these fires come from?

Kubrick was creating an image of hell from the rubbles of the Vietnamese city. As Pvt Joker gets deeper and deeper involved in the war and of killing people, something that he tried his best to stay away from, his surroundings got bleaker and more hellish (and more fire). FMJ is not a particularly artsy movie, but Kubrick did alot in here that gets uncredited from the general movie viewing population.

If anyone has time, go check out Roman Polanski's 2 shorts when he was a film student, "Fat Man and Lean Man", and "Two Man and a Wardrobe". The first is a metaphor for totalitarian dictatorship, the second is alienation felt as immigrants. They are be found in the Criterion release of his first feature, Knife in the Water.
 
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Knife In The Water itself is a fantastic film. Two Men and a Wardrobe, while I see your summary as being correct, I also see it as falling a bit short of the film's overall elasticity -- it can mean any alienation, not just that of immigrants. The wardrobe itself has many potential meanings -- and it is this sort of abstraction that makes "artsy" films so potentially enduring. As you grow, they grow with you because they allow room enough for you to project yourself onto their imagery.

I appreciate your other comments. Thanks for keeping this going.
 
and it is this sort of abstraction that makes "artsy" films so potentially enduring.
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very much like poerty - although a good 95% of the famous poets i can think of tell a metaphorical story with a followable plot - or they cohearantly portray their idea (think The Odyssey for story, or Poe's stuff - or think Dickenson for idea)

i will say i am not a fan of modern art (painting) - and experimental film that can fall within the same area is not somthing i enjoy reguarly to say the least .... thats me though (perhaps its just i dont understand it yet?)


EDIT - do different medimus (literature, poetry, art, film..ect) have differnt strengths for ideas conveyed? you could aruge that poetry for example is better suited for conveying abstract ideas than a book ... can this be said for film? for art (painting and whatnot)


its hard to keep "art" and art defined with everyone throwing the term around :)


robert
 
chromeboy007 said:
what is an artsy film?

I have come to noticed that art films are usually films that take a calculated risk to sacrifice some realism for the sake of expressing an idea using visual images.

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I agree with you here. But I think that the line should be drawn when a film becomes so abstract that it fails to engage the audience sufficiently to deliver its message. Art for art sake is usually watchable only by the people who makes them.
 
Everyone seems to have their own definition of art or art film. Why not hit the dictionaries... actually even the dictionaries are unclear.

miriam webster - art film - a motion picture produced as an artistic effort. (wow that was helpful)
dictionary.com - art film - a film intended to be a serious artistic work

so it all goes down to this - what is the definition of ART? What is a serious artistic work?
my dictionary says "art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power"

So art is something that holds beauty or emotional power? Isn't that purely subjective? I guess films that are beautiful to YOU and stir YOUR emotions are art.
So no one has the authority to label films as art, and expect other people to think likewise, let alone create a whole genre titled "Arthouse" and include certain films/directors, exclude others.

Whoever created the genre Arthouse should be punished.
This genre is a label that is stuck on so many films. I'm sure Ingmar Bergman, Truffaut, Tarkovsky, and Rohmer, Antonioni, and others hate the fact that their films are compartmentalized into the genre Arthouse.
The word "Arthouse" and the process of including and excluding, spawns so many pretentious filmmakers and a whole culture of elitists.

I guess the art debate will continue on forever because nobody has a clear definition of what art actually is, and they never will. I guess that's why art is art. It has no boundaries, it's limitless, abstract - it carries no single definition.

And also, I wonder why American stores like Barnes and Nobles and Borders, always put the foreign and arthouse section together. Now that's a whole other debate.
 
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I guess that's why art is art. It has no boundaries, it's limitless, abstract - it carries no single definition.
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Very true. We apprecaite art, becuase we are able to connect somthing within ourselves with somthing, or someone else. Art is what makes us human.
 
Art intends to convey feelings and mood beyond word, something that we can subconciously identify with, and feel, yet not necesserily understand or be able to express in words.

When films are "artsy" they attempt to get at those feelings, and when not successful, just arrive at a bunch of imges that make no sense.

There is no "right or wrong" art but I believe that all films should strive to be understood. Not everybody is an artists, and hence "levels" of art within a film help. There is the basic plot at the most upper level where even a person that has no art experience can atleast understand th basic plot. Then people who want more from a film try to make sense of the metaphors, and then the people who literally scrutenize the film will try to make sense of everything including the colors, lighting, composition and so on.

Art films (or experimental) CAN be mainstream. Natural-Born-Killers was as experimental as it gets. It was an art film (in the words of the director himself) and it was obviously mainstream. It was also IMHO a masterpeice. Everybody that watched it understood the basic plot. Yet, a more artistically mature audience understood the deeper meanings as well. If you want to really see an art-film, then go watch NBK.

Some directors prefer to make arti-films with no straightforward plot. Thats fine, only that a smaller audience will understand it. I only wish that the directors actually told us before hand it was meant for an elitist arstistic audience only. Perhaps there should be an Art rating as well now...
 
"I guess that's why art is art. It has no boundaries, it's limitless, abstract - it carries no single definition."

There is one catch. Art must have quality. It's not a boundary so much as an expectation. If you make shite, and you know it, some one else will too. Many artist get pissed at the fact that people call things "art". Meet some one who does art for a living. Some one who actually wakes up and paints or whatever for the entire day. They'll tell you what art is. The one who stares at a canvas or monitor for an hour trying to fix a brush stroke or an edit. When decisions are made for the self in order to better the work. Art has a boundary and it is simple..."don't make shite".
 
That's very right, art MUST have quality. As you said, "if you make sh*te, and you know it, some one else will too." But the word "quality" is also someone's opinion.

I think it's unfair to call something sh*te when the artist himself regards his own work in the highest standards. History is filled with forgotten artists and musicians who were discovered decades later. I'm sure that people of his time called his work sh*te. [i mean both male and female artists]

Some works even caused riots, such as Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring".

"The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd, and there were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work, and were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky himself was so upset due to its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene." - Wikipedia

Now the Rites of Spring is regarded as one of the most influential, cutting-edge ballet works. It's funny how the composer actually fled the performance.

Another example: Most critics call Orson Welles and Godard geniuses of the past century. And Ingmar Bergman is also regarded as a European master of film and storytelling.

Here are some Ingmar Bergman quotes, taken off imdb:

[on Orson Welles] "For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting. It's dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of- is all the critics' darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie's got is absolutely unbelievable."

[On Orson Welles] "I've never liked Welles as an actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that's when he's croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely overrated filmmaker."


[On Godard] "I've never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a f*cking bore. He's made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin, féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring."

Back to me:

Everyone has their own view of quality and art. It is an endless circle of personal opinion, mixed with personal feelings of contempt, jealousy, lack of confidence, and disrespect. The things that people are uncomfortable with, they regard as trash. When a critic steps up to champion the film, people flock to it.

Therefore, the word quality is also abstract, without boundaries or expectations. I don't even know myself what a true quality film is, because I am so influenced by critics, peers, and public opinion.
 
I think it's unfair to call something sh*te when the artist himself regards his own work in the highest standards.
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If you make shi*e, and you know it, some one else will too.
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he was saying if you know its bad - someone else will too ... he was speaking of people who create "nothing" out of "nothing"


and your totaly right about quality's definition. read zen and the art of motorcyle matinence - that whole book tries to define quality

robert
 
Robert! My man! Thank you. After reading "Zen and the Art..." that is the one part of the book that has always stayed with me.
Quality, baby, quality!

Robert, you made my afternoon.

"Therefore, the word quality is also abstract, without boundaries or expectations. I don't even know myself what a true quality film is, because I am so influenced by critics, peers, and public opinion." Quote from dcho787

Dude, you know more than you think. You have done the thing most don't do and have lifted up the corner to see what is under the rug. What I'm saying is you have thought long enough to site examples and reasons. That's way farther than most would go.
 
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jade8472 said:
I agree with you here. But I think that the line should be drawn when a film becomes so abstract that it fails to engage the audience sufficiently to deliver its message. Art for art sake is usually watchable only by the people who makes them.
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Yes. It's a matter of degree. Art is a representation of real life; therefore, the more you stray from realism, the more your work moves closer to the representation of the thing and away from the actual thing. And the representation is only the artist's subjective representation, it may or may not jive with the audience's thought process. Therefore, the more artsy a work gets, the fewer people can understand it.

I have a new personal definition for the art film:

An art film is a film that takes a calculated risk to sacrifice some realism for the sake of expressing an idea through manipulations of the film's audio, visual and temporal arrangements, away from realistic depictions and towards the filmmaker's metaphoric vision.
 
Would you classify new agie type montage TV commercials that compel me to buy a gas guzzling SUV in order to experience a personal transformation into a rock climbing fitness freak with a wife and daughter who spend their days in fields of wild daisies blowing petals into immpossibly blue orange and grey sunsets while a youthful--but not too youthful late middle age announcer tells me what my life is really all about or at least would be about if I succumb to buy said SUV experimental? or would that be regurgmental? Some of those pictures are darn purty.

I dunno, I think I lack depth enough to enjoy a good art film from time to time.
 
PUNCH said:
Would you classify new agie type montage TV commercials that compel me to buy a gas guzzling SUV in order to experience a personal transformation into a rock climbing fitness freak with a wife and daughter who spend their days in fields of wild daisies blowing petals into immpossibly blue orange and grey sunsets while a youthful--but not too youthful late middle age announcer tells me what my life is really all about or at least would be about if I succumb to buy said SUV experimental? or would that be regurgmental? Some of those pictures are darn purty.

I dunno, I think I lack depth enough to enjoy a good art film from time to time.
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I think those kind of commercials are true sh*t. Unlike film, a commercial actually have a set purpose, which is to promote a product to the average audience. I get angry everytime I see a commercial that has nothing whatsoever to do with the product/service they're supposed to be advertising except for the logo at the end. I can't believe there are marketing people out there who are actually getting paid big bucks for these kind of crap (or that someone actually filmed and aired it). Artistic visions are fine and good, but when you actually got a job to do, indulgence is unacceptable.
 
dcho787 said:
I don't even know myself what a true quality film is, because I am so influenced by critics, peers, and public opinion.
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Actually you do know. You know when you see a film whether you liked it or not, and that's quality. I don't really think there're such a thing as "true quality." It all depends on people, but public opinions and critics can give you an idea of whether a film suits you or not. For example, even though I always check out what the critics have to say on a film I'm interested in, there are certain characteristics that I've learned to flag in a review that'll tell me that a film is going to be boring (even if it's a glowing review):

1. I read the review from beginning to end and still don't have a clear idea of what the plot of the film is (I call this a "non-review" where it feels like the critics are just trying to come up with empty words to fill their quotas).
2. 90% of the review is devoted to praising such things as "the director's brilliantly captures the theme of yadda, yadda, yadda."
3. The reviewer attempts to justify some of the style used in the film i.e. "the long, static, shot truly captures the isolation of yadda, yadda." That kind of things doesn't need justification, if it's good, i'll know it. I just know it's going to be boring when critics starts analyzing the hell out of it.

But my point is that plenty of times I found a film to be great when critics everywhere hated it, and vice versa. Quality is what you decided.
 
In my previous post, I said that the word "quality" is subjective and that everyone has their own definition. You further reinforced my assertion.

From your post, I'm assuming that this is what you think quality is...
"You know when you see a film whether you liked it or not, and that's quality... Quality is what you decided."

This is why discussions on what is art and true art and true quality can go on forever, in a circle, until the end of time.
 
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