Are movies just another form of entertainment?
eh...@my-deja.com
lies?
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sang...@my-deja.com
hard to let arts and entertainment amalgate without losing some key
characteristics. Then again, it all boils down to one's taste. Like
some people were enticed by Kubrick, while some alienated because of
its artistic values. And it seems these artistic values absolutely
entertaining. There seem to be no way of getting around it. Movies are
so diverse these days, it's myopic to just set it just that 2 category,
it's definitely much more.
word...@rocketmail.com
eh...@my-deja.com wrote:
> If not, how does it defy that category and where does the thin line
> lies?
>
My take is as follows: sure, films do, and should,
cause us to emote, but if one is a true master of the
medium--and if Kubrick doesn't fit this description who
does--films can prod us into thinking, too. And there's
nothing wrong with that!
Wordsmith : )
David Kirkpatrick
the art versus entertainment question (if I may interpret the original
post as such)...
Entertainment is to play as art is to work.
Entertainment is defined by the effect it has on an audience, whereas
the artistry of a work of art is defined by the work put into it by the
artist. Another name for masterpiece is masterwork.
Another word for entertainment is amusement, although not every form of
amusement is "funny". People do all sorts of things for amusement,
things like watching soap operas or pornography, in which case their
enjoyment or "amusement" may depend on them suspending their sense of
humour.
Another word for entertainment is divertisement -- something that has
the effect of diverting one's attention from everyday concerns. Art
usually has the intention of focusing the audience's attention on some
themes or issues that the artist believes is worthy of concern.
Entertainment is associated with the dionysian concept of fun; art with
the apollonian concept of beauty (Apollo is the god of the artist).
So entertainment is by default "light" and "non-serious" and art by
default "heavy" and "serious" (which isn't to say that making a movie
fluffy or farcical makes it necessarily entertaining or making it
cryptic or depressing makes it necessarily a work of art).
The artist always has some "cause" to promote, even if it is just to
promote ambivalence with regard to a subject where once there was
certainty. Entertainment is a quality of the "effect" of a work or art
or piece of entertainment. In Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels a
director learns the positive value of being a mere entertainer, while
being embedded in a movie that is both a work of art (which perhaps errs
on the side of preachiness) and a wickedly funny entertainment.
Parallel to the contrast between entertainment and art is the contrast
between aspects of communication. The most obvious aspect of
communication is the transmission of ideas from one person to another,
or from message to the audience. This is the model of communication in
the back of people's minds when they assume that the audience is always
right -- if the they don't "get" what the director intended, then the
director failed at communication. The more they have to work to
understand the film, the worse the film's maker(s) must be
communicating.
But there is another aspect to the communication process, related to the
idea of art more than entertainment: the transformation of the
message-maker's experiences and perceptions into a coherent, insightful,
articulated message. In other words, communication involves not only
getting people to understand what you say, but also discovering
something fresh and worthy to say -- and an appropriate and interesting
way to say it. Thus we may ask of a novelist (like Joyce, say) not only
how well did he get the book out to the readers, but how well did he get
the world into the book.
(I may be wrong, but it seems that nowadays there is greater tendency
for movie reviewers to gravitate toward both judging films by
entertainment criteria alone and to implicitly adopt the "transmission"
model of communication over the "articulation" aspect. In short, some
reviewers seem to see their role exclusively in terms of consumer
advocate instead of artist interpreter. Rarely do I find a reviewer
suggesting how a viewer can better appreciate a film; more often it is a
matter of predicting what a naïve reaction to the film will be.)
Works of art don't have to be difficult to digest, but their aim may
require them to be. Often great work goes into concealing how difficult
the act of creation was. However, even when "art" works as easily
enjoyed entertainment, it usually takes some amount of mental work on
the part of the audience to unmask the "art" hiding behind the
entertainment.
I'm not sure if anything I've said yet is iconoclastic. Perhaps the
following will qualify: typically we associate entertainment with
"low-brow" and art as "high-brow", but the way I interpret the concepts,
both entertainment and art can be either. For example, a farce can be
slapstick or high parody; jokes can be tailored for the amusement of
mensa-types or imbeciles and remain, from an artistic standpoint, at the
level of divertisement. A mystery can be tic-tac-toe like or chesslike
in its intricacy and still be essentially entertainment, not art. A
fairy tale or fable can be as serious in intent and as elaborately
worked-out as a work of Proust, and often the most interesting works of
art might be described as "multi-brow". ACO, for example, seems to be
particularly multi-brow, both in the different ways it entertains the
viewer and in the contrasting ways in which its artfulness is both
subtle and unsubtle.
Sometimes making a film that is both a work of art and instantly, easily
and universally enjoyable is the creative equivalent of a hitting a home
run. However, we should keep in mind that sometimes it is integral to
the artist's vision that the work upset expectations and defy
conventions, that it disturb rather than please. Perhaps after repeated
encounters it can transform perceptions so effectively that it becomes
something beyond a home run - more like the transformation of the game
of "rounders" into a new game called "baseball".
It is much easier to be entertained and to know one is being entertained
than to entertained - that's why the accomplishment of entertainers is
nothing to sneeze or sneer at. On the other hand, recognizing and
appreciating the greatness of a work of art requires a perceptual effort
somewhat proportional to the genius that went into it, and sometimes a
timeframe comparable to the gestation period of the work itself.
David Kirkpatrick
David Culpepper
>Entertainment is associated with the dionysian concept of fun; art with
>the apollonian concept of beauty (Apollo is the god of the artist).
>
>So entertainment is by default "light" and "non-serious" and art by
>default "heavy" and "serious" (which isn't to say that making a movie
>fluffy or farcical makes it necessarily entertaining or making it
>cryptic or depressing makes it necessarily a work of art).
>
David, as you can see I've decided to post this to the ng.
Dionysios is a tad more complex than what you've given us here. The
principle of ecstasis` that is associated with Dionysios, whether in the
Zagreus form or otherwise runs rather deeper than entertainment, diversion
or fun.
1. I'm not sure how entertained the maeneds were when they were
obsessed/compelled to devour live flesh on the moonlit hillsides of Crete
and Greece. While goats and sheep were the usual subject of these ecstatic
rites, it was not unheard of for unwary passers-by to have been literally
torn apart by a gang of Zagreus obsessed women.
2. While there was much divertissimo thrown at the initiates on their road
to Eleusis, this was primarily done to test their concentration and
commitment, also to further enhance the immediate experience of the primary
regenerative mystery at the heart of the ritual.
3. Dionysios is the archetype of the non-visual experience of
birth-death-rebirth. He is vegetative in essence, yet extends into the
animal world thru water, blood and intoxicants (of all sorts). Most
vegetative/agricultural deities are at their core violently destructive and
Dionysios is a highly developed icon of this sort.
4. Dionysios along with Osiris is a god of death, usually associated with
regeneration, but not always.
5. Interesting to note: Dionysios picks up Ariadne after her abandonment by
the Apollonian Theseus. Their marriage and union was a much storied
celebration.
In brief - The art forms Dionysios is most closely associated with are dance
and certain forms of theatre. I'd carry that one step further and include
most experiential, non-visual, improvisatory arts ie: jazz. That is: fluid,
non-formal processes. Protean metamorphosis while not intellectually
crystallized in the sense of a painting, classical sculpture, or novel
nevertheless goes far beyond entertainment.
It's become fashionable to make polar opposites of Apollo and Dionysios, but
N. Colovos in his excellent "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony" reveals
that these two are far closer than Wilson, et al have theorized.
Hearing Pan's pipes
Tobasco
David Kirkpatrick
David Culpepper wrote:
>
> >David Kirkpatrick wrote:
>
> >Entertainment is associated with the dionysian concept of fun; art with
> >the apollonian concept of beauty (Apollo is the god of the artist).
Yes, this paragraph is rather imprecise and the most disposable part of
my essay. At least it has the virtue of not capitalizing "dionysian"
and "apollonian", to suggest that I merely draw the analogy of "fun" is
to dionysian as beauty is to apollonian. The association I was making
was between the escapist aspect of the dionysian and the abandonment
from the everyday world which we associate with "fun", amusement or
entertainment.
> >So entertainment is by default "light" and "non-serious" and art by
> >default "heavy" and "serious" (which isn't to say that making a movie
> >fluffy or farcical makes it necessarily entertaining or making it
> >cryptic or depressing makes it necessarily a work of art).
> >
>
> David, as you can see I've decided to post this to the ng.
>
> Dionysios is a tad more complex than what you've given us here. The
> principle of ecstasis` that is associated with Dionysios, whether in the
> Zagreus form or otherwise runs rather deeper than entertainment, diversion
> or fun.
>
> 1. I'm not sure how entertained the maeneds were when they were
> obsessed/compelled to devour live flesh on the moonlit hillsides of Crete
> and Greece. While goats and sheep were the usual subject of these ecstatic
> rites, it was not unheard of for unwary passers-by to have been literally
> torn apart by a gang of Zagreus obsessed women.
>
> 2. While there was much divertissimo thrown at the initiates on their road
> to Eleusis, this was primarily done to test their concentration and
> commitment, also to further enhance the immediate experience of the primary
> regenerative mystery at the heart of the ritual.
>
> 3. Dionysios is the archetype of the non-visual experience of
> birth-death-rebirth. He is vegetative in essence, yet extends into the
> animal world thru water, blood and intoxicants (of all sorts). Most
> vegetative/agricultural deities are at their core violently destructive and
> Dionysios is a highly developed icon of this sort.
>
> 4. Dionysios along with Osiris is a god of death, usually associated with
> regeneration, but not always.
>
> 5. Interesting to note: Dionysios picks up Ariadne after her abandonment by
> the Apollonian Theseus. Their marriage and union was a much storied
> celebration.
I wasn't aware of the above details of the myth. Thanks. Was aware
that Dionysian celebrations could have violent results -- it is the
"abandonment" element that I was thinking of when I associated with
"fun" and "entertainment".
> In brief - The art forms Dionysios is most closely associated with are dance
> and certain forms of theatre. I'd carry that one step further and include
> most experiential, non-visual, improvisatory arts ie: jazz. That is: fluid,
> non-formal processes. Protean metamorphosis while not intellectually
> crystallized in the sense of a painting, classical sculpture, or novel
> nevertheless goes far beyond entertainment.
I agree the associations you draw here. In a future post I will outline
my recent thoughts about the concepts of dionysian and apollonian (not
relating them to myth, but in terms of the abstract concepts they've
come to represent). When I present it you will see that I allow for a
mixture of D. and A. elements in any artform, e.g. jazz, but associate
the "in control" aspects with A. and the "taking liberties" aspects with
D. D is like the minute immanence of quantum mechanics, A like the vast
transcendence of gravity.
> It's become fashionable to make polar opposites of Apollo and Dionysios, but
> N. Colovos in his excellent "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony" reveals
> that these two are far closer than Wilson, et al have theorized.
>
> Hearing Pan's pipes
> Tobasco
Thanks for the post!
P.S. I think it's safe to say that Kubrick surprised people with his
"Apollonian" instead of "Dionysian" orgy.
David