The Nature of Art, Part 2, as well as other things

By Paul "The Good-Looking One" Goldberg

If you click to get to our home page, and scroll down a few stories, you'll see that on May 23rd, I wrote "Part 1" of this essay, in which I discussed what art is, what all art aims at, and very briefly, a method by which one one can evaluate how well a particular artwork achieves its goal.  This article concludes the essay.

And I also have a few things on my mind, which I'll share at the essay's conclusion.
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The Nature of Art, Part 2

My critical method is tripartite--split into three parts.  These parts are:

1. Argument
2. Theme
3. Form

Boiling it down, what I do is extract the essential argument of the artwork, and evaluate its soundness; then I look into how the artwork's themes support the argument, and evaluate how well they do so; finally, I analyze how the forms employed by the artist evoke the themes supportive of the argument, and evaluate how well these themes are evoked.

The best works of art have (a) sound, profound arguments, (b) consistently supportive and non-detracting themes, and (c) properly evocative, non-muddled forms.  

The worst works of art have certainly (a) unsound arguments, and also might have (b) inconsistent and detracting themes, and (c) muddled forms.

Works of art that are in between have sound arguments that are lacking in profundity.

My point is this: it's absolutely crucial for an artwork to have a sound argument--as in, it makes an ultimate statement and has good reasons for making the statement.  If the artwork fails in this regard, it must necessarily fail as a whole.  That is because since the ultimate goal of a work of art is to embody truth, it must then embody a statement that is true and arrive at this statement from true and relevant reasons.  Thus, if the artwork embodies a false statement, it has irrevocably failed at reaching its goal; also, if an artwork embodies a true statement but on the grounds of faulty reasoning, it thus only embodies a true statement by pure accident, and embodies it in an untrue manner, thus this artwork irrevocably fails as well.

Analyzing themes and forms simply allows one to understand how well--e.g., how consistently, how powerfully--an artwork expresses its argument.  In other words, the argument is the 'what' of the piece--i.e., the substance--while the themes and forms are the 'how' of the piece--i.e., the ways that the substance is expressed.

To further express how my critical approach works, I'll use an example from Dead Poet's Society, which is probably my favorite film (bear with my highly simplified analysis here; I do it simply to illustrate my critical method).

Dead Poet's Society (SPOILER ALERT)

Argument: There is an eternal essence to life's meaning, and one comes in contact with this meaning by living passionately, honestly, and compassionately.  The evidence for this argument is that many dead poets wrote about (in their lifetimes) love, life, meaning, experience, loss, etc. in ways that resonate with the characters who are still living, and when the passion, compassion, and honesty are cut-off from one of the protagonists, he no longer has the will to live. MY ANALYSIS: The statement is true, and the evidence is very strong to support it (sound).  Moreover, the statement is about the very nature of human existence (profound).

Themes supportive of the argument: Youth, the eternal nature of meaningfulness, inevitable decay and death in humanity, the importance of new experiences, the importance of love, of honesty, of compassion, the importance of freedom, and courage.  MY ANALYSIS: The themes are consistently supportive of the argument; they detract slightly only because they rely on some cliches about old age meaning unoriginality and grouchiness, as well as tradition meaning arbitrary and stifling rules.  It's slightly inconsistent with the film's other theme of the eternality of meaningfulness in human life.

Forms evocative of the supportive themes: The film employs symbolism: standing on the desks at the end of the movie signifies both the students' courage to stand up for truth, as well as courage and thirst for experiencing life passionately and freely.  Poetry is an art form that is very explicitly about beauty and truth and compassion, all themes that the film intends to evoke.  MY ANALYSIS: Again, the film relies on some cliches here--such as the Romantic authors all portraying beauty, while the Realist authors only portray depravity--but overall, the forms employed properly evoke the themes.

Overall: The film's argument is not only sound, but also ultimately profound. High marks here.  Although the themes and forms are slightly detracting and/or muddled, they are mostly successful.  Thus, due to the soundness and profundity of the argument, and the generally effective themes and forms, this film is highly successful in its goal of embodying beauty, thus it is a great work of art.

I hope this clears up lingering uncertainties about my approach.  Of course, I understand that my approach stems from a worldview anchored in objective truth and ultimate accessibility of this truth to human beings, which is at the very least a controversial philosophical worldview.  But it is one that I believe that not only is true, but also important to realize as true.

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other things

-Since it always seems to be a longer and longer time between my posts, I don't know when I'll post again.  So I'd like to say, in the upcoming months, please see films, open yourself up to the beauty of art in its many forms, and keep a watchful eye out for works of art that only masquerade as profound.

-Isn't it hard to believe we're already halfway into the 2012 Oscar season?  I know The Savant must be excited.

-My list of favorite movies?  I feel like sharing some of it with you (not in any order).

Dead Poet's Society

Crash

Friday Night Lights

Annie Hall

The Purple Rose of Cairo

Garden State

Wings of Desire

The Departed

Gladiator

The Seventh Seal

Little Big Man

Edward Scissorhands

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Disney's the Hunchback of Notre Dame

Crimes and Misdemeanors

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Phantom of the Opera

-Until this half jew posts again, this is The Good-Looking One, saying have a great life and enjoy the arts, audience members of the world.

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The Nature of Art, Part 1

By Paul "The Good-Looking One" Goldberg

Today, I’m going to write very briefly on a topic that requires an extensive discussion.  But it seems to me that in writing this short article, I’ll be able to gain greater clarity on this topic—really, the topic underlying Alex’s and my blog.

What is the basis for evaluating art?  That is to say, why is good art good, and bad art bad?  Now, many months ago I wrote an article entitled “What Makes a Good Movie ‘Good’?”, and while it had some decent insights, I think that really, I missed the big picture.  In that article, I identified several aspects that viewers typically say helps to make a movie ‘good’, but I failed to say how these several aspects can be unified under the term of ‘good’, and also how movies are subsumed under the larger category of art.

My task in this article is to briefly explore both the nature of art and a method by which, I believe, one should critique art.

First, the all-important question must be asked: what is art—what is the overall definition by which all things come to be known as ‘art’?  Although this is a question requiring tireless effort, I’ll simply state the conclusions that I’ve reached thus far in my short life.  Art is any thing whose meaning is inherently invested in its medium of expression.  Now, that’s a confusing and convoluted phrase, so bear with me.  By “meaning”, I mean whatever evocations are essentially important to the thing under discussion.  By “inherently invested”, I mean that this meaning is inextricably tied to this thing’s medium of expression.  And by “medium of expression”, I simply mean the way in which this thing expresses itself.  For instance, let’s consider as our piece of art Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”.  This painting’s meaning might be as simple as a statement on the physical beauty of women, or something more complex, along the lines of the mysteriousness many people hold behind their faces.  Now, what makes this a piece of art is that the meaning one may get out of this painting is inherently invested in its medium of expression—that is, the various techniques that da Vinci employed in order to create the image, the various aspects that make it a painting.  Essentially, what I’m saying is this: the meaning of the painting can most fully be found in analyzing its nature as a painting.

Another example might be, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  The meaning of this novel might be that human interaction is largely determined according to the social class in which one grows up.  But what makes this novel a piece of art is that its meaning can most fully be understood not only in analyzing the expressed philosophy of the book, but also the techniques Fitzgerald employed to express it, its method of expression.

I know this is still somewhat unclear, but if you’re still reading, then you’re either related to me, vaguely understanding what I’m saying, and/or hoping this article gets better.  So I’ll move on from the nature of art itself to how art may properly be critiqued.

Critique is essentially an evaluation, a statement on the merits and/or flaws of something.  So if we’re trying to develop a basis for critique, then we’re trying to understand the criteria according to which something can be said to be better than another thing.

What’s perhaps most important in developing a basis for critique with respect to any category is the goal that all things in this category aim at.  For instance, since all sports players aim (or at least, should aim) to above all else win games, therefore the best sports players are those who most contribute to wins.

In aesthetics (aka the study of the nature of art), it is typically said that art aims at the beautiful.  Not only do I agree with this statement, but I’ll go one step further: all art aims at the beautiful.  Of course, this begs the question: what is beauty?—yet another discussion that requires a lengthy treatment.  But I’ll give you my shorthand: beauty is profound truth.  This might seem counterintuitive to some, but I believe with deep thought on the subject, it will become clear that things are more beautiful as they embody deeper and deeper truths.  Thus, for me, all art aims to embody profound truth, and thus the best art embodies the most profound truths.

Now the question is: how does beauty manifest itself in art?  Once again, (A) considering the nature of art as a thing whose meaning is invariably tied to its mode of expression, therefore (B) beauty must manifest itself in an artwork's mode of expression.  Thus, the profound truth at which some work of art might aim must be expressed both as a result of its mode of expression and within its mode of expression itself.  That is to say, there must be a harmonious link between the truth an artwork expresses and the way in which it expresses it.  And that is to say, the particular aspects that make this thing a work of art and not simply a philosophical verbal statement must combine to make this truth more fully expressed in the former than the latter.  For instance, if the truth of the “Mona Lisa” is, stated verbally, ‘people hide great mystery behind their faces’, then if the “Mona Lisa” is to be considered a great work of art, then it must, as a painting, embody this stated truth more fully than the simple verbal statement of it.

This is much of the preliminary work to my coming discussion (in part 2) of my critical approach to art.  But it seems to me that, in brief, there are three aspects of any work of art:

1. Argument
2. Theme
3. Form

In a great work of art, the argument must be sound and profound, the themes consistent and contributory to the argument, and the form/style properly evocative of the themes.  The greatest beauty in art, therefore, might be said to be the profound and harmonious interrelation between these three.

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What Makes a Good Movie "Good"?

By Paul "The Good-Looking One" Goldberg

Think about your favorite movies.  Just the top few, maybe.  Now, why do you like these movies so much? 

So first of all, I think it’s important to set aside movies you like for purely accidental of coincidental reasons; like “it’s OUR movie”, or “it’s the movie my grandma used to show me before she died”.  Those kinds of movies aren’t good on their own merits.  But so think about the purely great movies you’ve seen.

Here are a few commonly given reasons:

1)      It’s entertaining.  The movie is purely fun/thrilling/enjoyable to watch.
2)      It’s relatable.  There is something about the movie that was very easy to identify with.
3)      It’s profound.  It makes you think about something in a new way, or it just says something so true and tough-to-articulate about life.
4)      It’s amazing to look at.  The movie was visually stunning.

 Of course, there are more, and these categories could be broken out into a million subcategories (which it’s a critic’s job to do), but I think these are the main ones which we can now unpack.

Here’s my take:

 

If a movie is entertaining, but that’s about it, then it’s something that I may enjoy watching once, but likely never again.  A movie’s really gotta have something enduring about it, or it won’t stick with me and give me a reason to go back to it.  For instance, I was watching “Source Code” (directed by Duncan Jones, starring Jake Gyllennhaal) tonight, which was genuinely fun and compelling to watch, but that was it.  There was very little depth or ingenuity, the characters weren’t very empathetic or complex, and there were what seemed like a million things that broke the rules of logic or science, or just flat-out left stuff unexplained.  So while it gave me an hour and a half of amusement, I’d never watch it again.

On the other hand, though, there are some movies that seem like fricking social treatises, and are boring as hell to watch.  So being profound or intelligent isn’t enough.  “The Seventh Seal” (directed by Ingmar Bergman, starring Max von Sydow) is about the most brilliant film I’ve seen in my life, and although it’s still mostly interesting to watch, there are times when it can be just too dry.

At the other end of the spectrum are tired, cliché movies.  If any film is too-filled with hackneyed, trite moments that seem false and calculated, like a politician’s worst slogan (most romantic comedies[1] or slasher-horrors fall into this category), then I know I’ll roll my eyes in disgust.  A movie’s got to have the integrity and ingenuity to venture out on its own ideas if it wants any sort of substantial respect.

 Of course the worst cliché movies are the ones that think they’re so absolutely brilliant and earth-shatteringly profound, when in reality, they’re just one more load of already-been-said BS.  “Revolutionary Road” (directed by Sam Mendes, starring Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) comes to mind, as does pretty much anything written by Charlie Kaufman.

Being relatable means more than “I could identify with the main character”.  It actually is more along the lines of, “Could I suspend my disbelief?”  Any movie can be as fantastical as it wants, can break any Earth-bound laws of nature that it wants, as long as it’s true to the rules it sets up for itself.  Think “Harry Potter”, for instance.  Sure, none of us can relate to really being in a wizarding world with magic spells and cloaks and wands and such.  It’s not real, and as far as we know, it’s not possible.  But the reason “Harry Potter” still works for us is that it follows its own rules.  The way that things work in the world of “Harry Potter” is logical and consistent; every character casts spells the same way, and flies the same way, etc.  If a movie consistently breaks its own rules (e.g. If Harry could fly like Superman and cast spells out of his hands in one scene, when in the scene before he flew on his broomstick and pointed his wand) then our spell of “suspended disbelief” will be broken.   We’ll see the falseness behind the contrived, fantastical world. 

Another thing having to do a movie’s relatability is whether it has the courage to follow through with the course it’s been taking; does a movie that seems really sad and tragic bail itself out with a Disney-esque happy ending?  For instance, think about how in “The Adjustment Bureau” (directed by George Nolfi, starring Matt Damon), even though the point of the whole movie is that this secret organization that runs the universe won’t let Matt Damon and Emily Blunt get together, in the very end, just when the two of them should get caught and separated forever, the evil organization magically says ‘Oh, well, we can see you guys really love each other, so it’s ok.  You can be together now.’  See, crap like that just doesn’t fly.  Even though we all like happy endings, if a director appears to contrive a happy ending just because he wants one, or wants to appease his audience, I’ll resent it.  I can’t relate to it, because in life, magical happy endings just don’t happen.  Yes, Billy Costigan really did get shot at the end of “The Departed”.

Personally, whether or not a movie is visually stunning really doesn’t matter much to me.  If a movie is pretty, but its story sucks and so does everything else about it, then I’ll still think it’s awful.  Take “Avatar” (directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington); the effects, and some of the shots are just breathtaking.  But the unbelievably clichéd storyline, the wooden dialogue, the 1-dimensional characters still overwhelmingly, in my opinion, make it a mediocre and forgettable movie, despite the visuals.  Still, when attached to an already decent film, spectacular visuals can make a movie that much more enduring.

 So I suppose, what makes a movie good is having one, or maybe two of the traits listed above in moderate degree.  But what makes a movie really great is when it has multiple of these traits, to a high degree.

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[1] Or “Rom-Coms”, according to my pal Heisman.


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