art film vs genre film. and genrart film
hog-skull-boy
art films tend to be personal, uncompromised. they seek truth or at
least to struggle with untruths. they seek, explore, examine. the
artist makes a movie that he wants to make, popular or not.
genre films are necessarily audience oriented. no matter how artistic
or personal, their main purpose is to give the audience what they want.
genres all have formulas. western formula, noir formula, horror
formula, mystery formula, yakuza formula, etc. there may be
variations and deviations from the original or basic formula but the
formula is always there. all genre movies are half-made to begin with.
an art filmmaker starts from scratch using raw materials. a genre
filmmaker works with already assembled parts.
the difference between a mystery genre mooie and an art film can be
demonstrated by comparing silence of the lambs to l'avventura. the
latter is an art film about weighty philosophical stuff. a mystery
thriller is expected to solve the riddle at the end. an art film has
the courage to say there is no final answer or solution to our
existential malady or crisis or whatever. people who saw l'avventura
as an mystery genre mooie booed cuz they felt cheated. they saw it with
genre expectations.
because genre films adhere to formula, they are far more limited in
what they do. western has to have the good guy, bad guy, the tough
guy, the scared citizens.
noir has to have the tough hardboiled detective or the femme fatale.
these are all cool, dazzling, and can be artistically interesting but
it's not art with a capital A.
real deep or substantive art doesn't stick to pat formulas or
stereotypes but treat every person as a mysterious complex individual,
every situation as filled with endless possibilities.
in a genre film, A lead to preordained B or C. in an art film, we know
that A can lead to anything from B to Z. art films understand that
human psychology is deep and complex and there are simple patterns as
to how life turns out.
steel magnolias is a genre movie about a family and friends. all the
characters and situations are familiar, and we wouldn't want it any
other way. there's nothing wrong with basking in a good movie with no
surprises. but, don't expect to learn anything new or deep about
humanity.
fanny and alexander, on the other hand, is an art film about family and
friends. every individual is unique and complex.
now, art film doesn't necessarily have to be about characters. the
real main character can be the director's vision; think of last yr at
marienbad or andrei rublev. their characters are not fully realized
but the vision is powerful, complex, labyrinthine, personal.
now, we must be careful when we label something as a genre film.
for example, is goodfellas a gangster mooie? i'd say no. it's really
an art film about gangsters. now, scarface and public enemy are
gangster films; these two films give us what we wanna see. we see the
formulaic rise and fall of gangsters. goodfellas shows us gangsters as
they really are; it's full of surprises, revelations,
social/psychological insights.
also, taxi driver is not a genre film like so many genre thrillers
about psychopaths. taxi driver is not interested in giving us yet
another variation on the psycho killer; instead, it explores how a
realistic person can lose himself to lunacy and violence.
still, there is no perfect boundary between art film and genre film.
in some ways, one can argue that genre films can go beyond art films
cuz reality or life itself is limited. if a movie always has to be
faithful to reality, it's limited by the real world. but, art often
heightens or exaggerates reality, and sometimes genre film serves this
better than art film. take 2001. our current technology doesn't allow
what we saw in 2001, but does that mean all our movies about space
travel should stick to realistic technology?
why can't we use genre possibilities in creative ways to explore new
territories: not only beyond what previous works in the genre had done
but beyond what today's reality allows.
take solaris. it is sci-fi but it's also an art film. indeed, without
the genre format, it couldn't have been conceived. because it goes
beyond our known reality, it opens doors to new psychological,
philosophical, and spiritual insights.
now, this seems to be more the case with sci-fi than any other genre.
because science is so revolutionary and really creating new worlds,
sci-fi is justified in imagining far out stuff.
but, most genre works are limited to the human world. because they
must stick to humanity and reality as we know it, they run out of
possibilities fast.
in a western or a noir film, people must operate in the human world.
you can't just create totally outlandish possibilities. a cowboy can
be a superduper sixshooter but he can't suddenly get in a spaceship and
fly to mars or enter into another realm or dimension of space. such
is possible in fantasy and horror and sci-fi.
and, it could be argued that in some ways, a combo of art and genre can
surpass both the best of art and genre film. think of 2001 and vertigo
and stalker and face of another and le jetee and AI and so on.
i think this is perhaps so because art is about irony. and the mixing
of genre and art elements heightens a sense of irony.
even in real life, we like to put on masks. we want to be generic and
socially acceptable and hide our eccentricity, darkness, weirdosity,
and such.
look at most towns with mowed lawns and nicely kept gardens. all seems
nice and formulaic and cliched. yet, within every house is a different
story, often neurotic, strange, and whatever. you know, like in blue
velvet.
so, when we have genre mixing with art, there is a greater sense of the
duplicity of the world and the complexity of real reality. take
chinatown, which has elements of both noir and art. suppose it was
totally noir. we wouldn't be so shocked or upset that the world is so
dark and corrupt; that is a noir staple. or, suppose the movie had
been totally art or realistic; the darkness and villainy would have
seemed much more banal or mundane, like the corruption we see in
'prince of the city'. it's because of the genre element that the
villainy gains mythic proportions. there is reality and there is
psychological reality. our minds perceive the world thru genre
formulations; our brains are like movie projectors(as shown in
mulholland dr). we don't just see a communist but a vile murderous
communist monster. we don't just see a KKK bigot but a vile hideous
monstrous KKK bigot. we don't just see a yuppie dude but a crass,
stupid, shallow, lowlife yuppie who represents everything that's wrong
with our urban landscape.
take Wall Street. it's not so much about reality as how we see reality.
how we sensationalize it, hyperinflate it, romanticize it. how we
inflate and genre-ize it.
so, in that sense, genre elements make us aware of how we actuall
process and see reality. we often don't just see a corrupt politico or
corporate boss as a lowlife human who got caught; we see him as a great
awesome monstrous old corrupt evil dude. like how nixon got to be
portrayed. he became a scapegoat of all that was wrong with america.
our minds inflate and formulate stuff. consider the cult of
personality of che guevara. he was in real life a stupid arrogant
spick but he's seen as some godly hero of progress.
and, chinatown is also very realistic, showing the banality of
corruption and evil as well. so, at the end of the movie, we are torn
between myth and reality. it's this sense of tension that makes it all
the more powerful and sublimelike.
same with AI. on the one hand, it's a sci-fi fairytale, what we usually
get from spielberg. but as the movie goes on, we see the genre facades
peel away layer by layer. it's like a spielberg movie held up to a
mirror. it confronts its own fakery and fantasy. it's like a lucid
dream which turns on itself. it's both genre and a challenge to genre.
it's this sense of both powerful fantasy and powerful reality that
makes AI powerful and sublimelike.
the ultimate truth of reality is that nothing is really as it seems.
we use masks and facades and formulas but the truth is always dark,
elusive, tangential, and so on.
this sense of awareness of the double-layeredness of reality is most
powerfully presented in genrart mooies cuz both the myth and reality
are so present, rubbing shoulders, and then clashing.
take vertigo which follows the formulas of noir and romantic mystery.
hitchcock follows the rules but then tears away one layer after
another. often he tears off one layer while piling on another layer,
which is what stewart does to novack. he removes one layer of her
while replacing it with another layer. what vertigo shows is the
multilayeredness of truth and deceit, one sandwiched atop the other.
and think of it's a wonderful life. a family movie and christmas movie
genre in a way. but, the character of george bailey is so powerfully
conceived and acted, and the twilight zone sequence is dark and
disturbing. it too shows the multilayeredness of reality. there is
nice friendly bedford falls but within every soul is a potential
darkness. bedford falls could easily be pottersville, or maybe even
davidlynchville. a bedford soul can be a potter soul. goodness is
never something to be taken for granted. one must constanlty struggle
both socially and individually.
forrest gump is not an art movie cuz it says forrest gump is nice and
the world is nice for gump cuz nice things happen to nice people. it's
only what we wanna hear. it's simply a genre movie--dog movie with
man--and nothing more.
but, 'it's a wonderful life' has genre formulations and breaks them and
tears them apart before putting the pieces together again. during the
stage of ripping it apart, we see the great discrepancy between myth
and reality, between the generic and the erratic.
and, take seven samurai. on the one hand, it's like western genre
mooie. it's about good guys vs bad guys. but, it's also heavily art,
or very much attuned to reality. in reality, there are no simple good
guys vs bad guys. and good guys don't always get along or always win.
because of this sense of reality, the tension is much greater
throughout the mooie. in a western, we know a good guy is gonna win.
in seven samurai, we sweat and clench our fists til the final scene.
we enjoy the basic genre formula and root for goodness but we also fear
that reality and all its complications will undermine the myth of
goodness uniting to defeat the bad.
and, take once upon a time in america. it too is a great genrart mooie.
its main theme is, again, the deception of reality. noodle's memory
of the past is built on a myth, just like gangster mooies are built on
the myth of the gangster. perhaps, even the american dream is a myth.
the mooie is about national dream built atop a national nightmare, a
personal dream built atop a personal nightmare. while the movie isn't
realistic in the real sense, it's powerfully realistic in the
psychological sense. it's an operatic myth on memory, guilt complex,
love, etc, etc.
same is true of blade runner, and of course, it too is about
instability of surface of reality. what is and isn't human? is it the
same as asking what is and isn't humannessness? can a robot be more
human than human? or, more significantly, more humane than real humans?
the use of genre elements really heightens this theme in the mooie.
because the genre formulas are so artificial, there is a great tension
with the mooie's striving for the real, the personal, the private, the
human.
and, the shining uses horror formulas to great profound effect.
so at least when dealing with themes of the deceptive nature of reality
or psychological instability, incorporating genre elements into art
elements or vice versa can cook up a potent brew of real powerful
sublime stuff.
in such films, genre elements are undermined to expose the harsh
reality at the core of the mythic fog. but, they also demonstrate that
people don't live in real reality but in their mythic perception or
exaggeration of reality. they exist in the physical world but their
minds are a 24 hr movie projector which processes reality into a
personal mooie. yes, mulholland dr. and persona, both very great
mooies.
persona, to be sure, is a total art mooie. mulhol dr. is hard to
categorize. it's an art movie that is inconceivable without genre
formulas. it says that diane selwyn's--and your or my--mind has been so
extensively colonized by popular culture that our lives are both
private/isolated and public/collective.
le...@my-deja.com
you learn to use the friggin' SHIFT KEY!!!!!!!!!!
And make it a little shorter next time.
blue
Every film has a genre. Art films just tend to emphasise the existential
over action or plot. A lot of film's have both - it's just what the
director gets you to focus on which is important. Either way 'genre' is
not the word to use and strangely films that empasise realism (like the
works of Ken loach) are often seen as arty.
Would you consider the Matrix trilogy as an 'art film'? A lot of the
shots are designed like paintings and it does deal with a lot of
existential issues. I personally wouldn't but I'm not exactly sure why.
Maybe it's just a question of pace and not allowing the audience to
think whilst they are watching because of having to concentrate on the
plot, art films are often very sparsely plotted.
Al Smith
The first one may have been an art film. The second two were
exploitation pictures.
hog-skull-boy
blue wrote:
> I do see your point but I think the word you use: 'genre' is wrong.
> Every film has a genre.
no, it doesn't. a genre film is one that adheres to a set of built-in
formulas, cliches, or conventions. it may experiment with or even
somewhat subvert those conventions but the conventions are sacrosanct.
persona is not a genre film. now, it could have been a genre film if it
had followed the rules of a 'woman's mooie'. instead, bergman used
cinema to express his personal thoughts and view of human relationships
and psychology. he was exploring new ground, not corraling within
established ones.
now, one may argue that art films have also developed a set of
conventions over time, and this is sadly true--at least for pseudo art
mooies. alot of so-called avant garde or independent films are just as
slavish--in predictably contrarian ways--as any hollywood mooie. but,
those are not art but wanna-be-art.
> Art films just tend to emphasise the existential
> over action or plot. A lot of film's have both - it's just what the
> director gets you to focus on which is important. Either way 'genre' is
> not the word to use and strangely films that empasise realism (like the
> works of Ken loach) are often seen as arty.
'...JUST tend to emphasize existential over action..." ? that makes
all the difference. it fundamentally changes the nature of the work in
question. in a genre film, we know that the director or his characters
are bound by the rules of the game.
when those are cast aside, it's a whole new ballgame.
it's the difference between Rambo and born on the fourth of july. now,
where the latter fails at the end is it falls back on genre-ism, with
its uplifting 'social message movie' cliches. but, much of the movie
questions alot of things we--and previous mooies--have taken for
granted--about society, nationalism, war, negroes, etc.
there may be surprises in a genre movie but they are within genre
expectations. a horror or mystery movie may shock us but it's what we
expect. a real art movie surprises us in a deeper way that has
implications beyond the art; it says something about lifey.
>
> Would you consider the Matrix trilogy as an 'art film'? A lot of the
> shots are designed like paintings and it does deal with a lot of
> existential issues. I personally wouldn't but I'm not exactly sure why.
> Maybe it's just a question of pace and not allowing the audience to
> think whilst they are watching because of having to concentrate on the
you're confusing arty with art. something can be arty and be trashy
crap. suppose i sell ice cream by using some renaissance painting as
illustration on the box and cover. is the ice cream container a work
of art?
anything can be made arty. alot of music videos are artsily
surrealistic. but, it's entirely superficial. at the core is total
moronosity. matrix movies are, at the core, just video game action
spectacles. the filmmakers decided to load alot of artsiness onto
empty crap. there's also alot of new age mumbo jumbo added to the mix,
and fools might even regard it as a form of spiritual awakening. but,
it's a shallow caca.
STILL, i admire parts of matrix 2 and much of 3 cuz great special
effects, production designs, and action choreography are nothing to
sneeze at. some of it is excellent entertaiment material. and a few
images and ideas are genuinely provocative and striking, even awesome.
it attains something close to popular art, which is better than pompous
bad elitist art which is what you mostly find in alot of art galleries
these days. you know, junk piled in the corner or some other
installation crap.