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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 30, 2018 20:30:22 GMT
Well, it's not just that he's a "good" filmmaker - it's that he is a feminist filmmaker specifically that's in question. Chinatown, Repulsion, Knife in The Water, Rosemary's Baby were all made before he was a rapist so if say I wrote that a week before the Geimer case would it have then been true then but then one week later wouldn't be? How would Chinatown been a stronger movie if he wasn't a rapist? You lost me there. He wasn't a rapist when he made it, it's the same film now as it was then? Who's changed? What's changed? The film or the audience? What changed is that the director of the film turned out to be a rapist, and the (attempt at a gut punch) ending of Chinatown depicts a rapist getting away with it. That ending sure seems a whole hell of a lot less sincere knowing who made it. How could this not change the audience's perception of the movie? I already said in my previous post why the themes in some of his movies do not allow him to ascend the enormous contradiction of being both a feminist and a rapist. He is a good filmmaker, but not a feminist one. Chinatown does not depict a rapist getting away with it, it rather, depicts a feminist heroine killed and let down by men (including Cross and Gittes). It's odd to me that element of his life trumps all other elements to you - i.e. a Holocaust survivor being a feminist seems to fit........a widower of a murdered wife would make sense as a feminist too........but a rapist - which is a one part of his life not his whole life trumps all the other elements? Not for me it doesn't, but we all have our own take on it and I respect your POV.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 30, 2018 23:36:53 GMT
None that I can think of. Mel Gibson? He's my only real answer. The blatant racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and homophobia paired with the savage violence he puts onscreen are beyond revolting. I get that. I don't care much for Gibson either. Nate Parker might be another example, but the lukewarm reception made Birth of a Nation that much easier to skip.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Aug 31, 2018 0:56:12 GMT
this is extremely poor justification for most things and nobody has talked about blatant censorship of art so a) I didn't call for censorship nor called it censorship. b) It was justified being that I was pointing out that a lot of great art throughout history was done so by not-so-nice people. So to be offended by an artist's real life to the point where you cannot appreciate the work they put forth is asinine. Hell, the NFL is full of great players who are absolute garbage people. I can appreciate their talents on the field while also think they are trash people at the same time. Appreciation of work/art =/= endorsement of person. everyone thinks this. everyone has problematic faves. i love kubrick's films even though he was a colossal asshole. you can still take this stance and not separate the art from the artist; i have no idea why anyone would do that. what does it accomplish? it lets you see art on a more shallow level that requires less thinking, i guess, and if you don't care about depth then i could see it being a good reason, but i thought most people on film forums were at least tangentially concerned w that sort of stuff
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Aug 31, 2018 1:06:05 GMT
i have 0 reason to i already don't care much about acting, so actors who are scumbags doesn't make much of an impact there, but yeah directors being assholes can certainly impact their art. consider nate parker, who probably raped a girl in the 90s and, if not, harassed her about going to the authorities about it, and got his friend who was convicted of rape to do his screenplay for Birth of a Nation. in that movie, it's a biopic with a fictitious scene where nat turner (played BY nate parker) saves a woman from rape and kills her rapist, which like, when it's shit like that i have no idea how you can not be impacted by his personal life. or consider, for example, when there was that abusive footage from A Dog's Life or whatever. would knowing that something sketch went on behind the scenes, in a movie that's supposedly about loving dogs, not fuck w your ability to enjoy it? is polanski using sexual assault as a plot device for so many of his films not somewhat off-putting? is tarantino saying Kill Bill is a feminist film about a successful independent woman, while he treats uma thurman like actual shit after he literally injures her and endangers her further, not kind of going to impact how one views that film? is griffith's Intolerance somewhat diluted in its message because griffith made a KKK propaganda film before it and said multiple white nationalist things after it? does knowing that Fitzcarraldo's major feat of pushing the boat over the mountain was done by slave labor that herzog used not somewhat alter how you see the picture? does the Last Tango butter scene, considering it was live, recorded, literal rape, not kinda change how you might see the scene and also the movie? how about the actresses of Blue is the Warmest Color repeatedly saying how they hated their experiences on set and would never work with the director again change how you see the film's sexuality and ideas about sex? lars von trier abusing bjork in Dancer in the Dark? ooh or how about obvious shit like Manhattan being about, largely, an underage romance, around the time allen was writing about hooking up with teenagers all of the time? like does none of this shit impact your ability to see these films at all? i would hate to be so narrow-mindedWell, you must separate. You don't have to exclude. For example, I consider Roman Polanski a feminist filmmaker - so his moral failings were transcended in his Art - if I didn't feel that way then what would his personal life matter, he either is a feminist filmmaker or he's not, in his Art. I can discuss that without bringing his case up at all or I can prove it in correlation with his case. I consider Herzog's use of slave labor an illustration of the great madness in his Art but what difference does it make who is pushing the boat we can discuss slave labor in his film but we wouldn't be if the scene itself wasn't spectacular - we'd be having a different discussion - ie he killed all those people for a shitty scene................and I consider the Last Tango scene "rape" scene to be a lie - I don't doubt that she felt abused and used by a director but "rape" in the criminal sense didn't occur so now we're fictionalizing the artists behavior as a way to assess the Art? My point there is on film the scenes or themes either work or they don't. It's ok too, Tyler's post was "are there any artists for you that make it hard to enjoy their work" and everyone is different and has to make that call for themselves based on what they know but as I did above we both know the same thing and can assess differently - as I said in my post it's never an issue for me to separate. As long as we keep in mind the playing fields across the viewer too. For example : I think Gaspar Noe makes sick twisted films and probably lives a sick twisted life, but I don't know that, I only know the Art.........I don't define his Art by reading everything about him and then reconsidering all of his work because of what I would come to know about him. semantics etc i personally don't consider a female rapist a feminist, regardless of how their movies pan out, sorry about that one the context of Fitzcarraldo's main feat is usually discussed in appreciation of herzog's insanity, when in reality he mostly just used untrained underpaid native slave labor to do his job and take much of the credit for orchestrating it. this isn't exclusive to film by any means however. the concept of "rape" being a word which gains its use by criminal prosecution is one i wholeheartedly disagree with; if schneider felt raped, then she was raped. bertolucci told brando, who accepted, to perform a sexual act that she had no prior knowledge of, on camera, and left that in the movie. absolutely rape if schneider says it is. the artist and their art are always linked, this stuff is never made in a vacuum. let's say noe is actually some normal dude with an average sex life - that would impact how i see Irreversible because i had believed that the underbelly of the world he portrays might be close to him, but instead it takes on some new form, cinema from the onlooker. if he's actually a super fucked up dude, then i would see it a different light. because these are concrete conclusions that we can make from what we know about the director.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 31, 2018 1:50:56 GMT
i personally don't consider a female rapist a feminist, regardless of how their movies pan out, sorry about that one the context of Fitzcarraldo's main feat is usually discussed in appreciation of herzog's insanity, when in reality he mostly just used untrained underpaid native slave labor to do his job and take much of the credit for orchestrating it. this isn't exclusive to film by any means however. the concept of "rape" being a word which gains its use by criminal prosecution is one i wholeheartedly disagree with; if schneider felt raped, then she was raped. bertolucci told brando, who accepted, to perform a sexual act that she had no prior knowledge of, on camera, and left that in the movie. absolutely rape if schneider says it is. the artist and their art are always linked, this stuff is never made in a vacuum. let's say noe is actually some normal dude with an average sex life - that would impact how i see Irreversible because i had believed that the underbelly of the world he portrays might be close to him, but instead it takes on some new form, cinema from the onlooker. if he's actually a super fucked up dude, then i would see it a different light. because these are concrete conclusions that we can make from what we know about the director. I would dispute that entire post - fair enough we just disagree and that's fine. To me you're making up new definitions for words - "you don't consider a female rapist a feminist" but it is quite logical to assess Polanski's work itself as feminist. There's nothing in the definition of the term as it relates to his films at all to justify your statement. That's ignoring the work. Not only that, you've re-defined the word "rape" to me too. Changed it to the extent that you said "absolutely rape if schneider says it is." That's ok you can do what you like but you're illogically linking it to your critical analysis (which is fine too, also your right, doesn't affect me). The mistake you are making is thinking anyone would be equating "separating" the artist with "excluding" the artist. No one advocates "excluding" the artist and of course they don't exist in a vacuum - you can judge Polanski's WW II experiences in his work with his criminal charges in his work too. But "separating the art from the artist" does not mean "forgiving" the artist or "reassessing the artist" : It means merely that the work is the sole piece to be judged - never and I mean never the creator themselves. Whether I lived in a cave my whole life and never knew about Samantha Geimer I can judge the aesthetics of a Polanski film on that film alone, independent even of his other work actually. There is an aesthetic criteria in films and indeed in almost all Art. You may dispute that, but I don't. Once you move away from that POV of an independent aesthetic criteria, even a little bit, well, it becomes critical, moral and intellectual chaos. Anyway, good talk...........
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Post by Zeb31 on Aug 31, 2018 3:06:19 GMT
To me you're making up new definitions for words - "you don't consider a female rapist a feminist" but it is quite logical to assess Polanski's work itself as feminist. There's nothing in the definition of the term as it relates to his films at all to justify your statement. That's ignoring the work. I'm sorry, but this is nothing but semantics to me. It has little to no bearing on the discussion at hand unless you're arguing that great work makes the artist's wrongdoings acceptable or excusable. Whether or not Polanski's films can be described as feminist won't change the fact that he's a rapist. It doesn't matter that his protagonists are strong women, because out here in the real world he drugged and raped a 13-year-old. No filmography, however brilliant, erases that. "Feminist filmmaker" is nothing but an abstract concept, and to discuss whether or not he qualifies has absolutely no relevance to the subject of how or if his actions should impact the way we relate to his work. You can choose to admire his films even if you don't condone his character as a human being, that's understandable; but lengthily debating what falls or doesn't fall under the imaginary umbrella of the word "feminism" amounts to nothing but splitting hairs. It's a pointless intellectual exercise because even if his body of work *can* be read as feminist, it still won't undo what he did to his victim, and it still won't mean anyone has to feel comfortable watching a rapist's portrayal of sexual violence on screen. All the willpower in the world won't replace Polanski the real-life abuser with Polanski the sanctified Genius of The Cinema, much as one might want to defend the former by praising the latter. You say people are ignoring "the work", but it's still not clear to me how "the work" or "the Art" shields anyone from criticism.
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Post by Zeb31 on Aug 31, 2018 3:20:24 GMT
I`m guessing the majority of people on here who say they CAN separate the art from the artist are men. Well, yeah. My question is: how can you NOT separate the art from the artist when they are so intrinsically intertwined? This article about the recent "Nannette" has some really good points about the topic. uproxx.com/tv/comedy-after-hannah-gadsby-nanette/2/ That's just one of the reasons why Nanette is so great. Fantastic work from Gadsby.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 31, 2018 10:24:28 GMT
To me you're making up new definitions for words - "you don't consider a female rapist a feminist" but it is quite logical to assess Polanski's work itself as feminist. There's nothing in the definition of the term as it relates to his films at all to justify your statement. That's ignoring the work. I'm sorry, but this is nothing but semantics to me. It has little to no bearing on the discussion at hand unless you're arguing that great work makes the artist's wrongdoings acceptable or excusable. Whether or not Polanski's films can be described as feminist won't change the fact that he's a rapist. It doesn't matter that his protagonists are strong women, because out here in the real world he drugged and raped a 13-year-old. No filmography, however brilliant, erases that. "Feminist filmmaker" is nothing but an abstract concept, and to discuss whether or not he qualifies has absolutely no relevance to the subject of how or if his actions should impact the way we relate to his work. You can choose to admire his films even if you don't condone his character as a human being, that's understandable; but lengthily debating what falls or doesn't fall under the imaginary umbrella of the word "feminism" amounts to nothing but splitting hairs. It's a pointless intellectual exercise because even if his body of work *can* be read as feminist, it still won't undo what he did to his victim, and it still won't mean anyone has to feel comfortable watching a rapist's portrayal of sexual violence on screen. All the willpower in the world won't replace Polanski the real-life abuser with Polanski the sanctified Genius of The Cinema, much as one might want to defend the former by praising the latter. You say people are ignoring "the work", but it's still not clear to me how "the work" or "the Art" shields anyone from criticism. So now we have changed the meaning of "semantics" too. Rather the fact that Polanski is a rapist won't change the ability to assess his films as feminist (or not) is my specific point - it is not a lengthy debate. It is not "to me a feminist means ______________", there is a definition of the word already. Of course if you classify him as a "feminist filmmaker" (not an abstract concept at all) it won't "undo" what he did to his victim, just as it won't bring back his mother from the camps or his wife and baby from the grave either - because that is life, horrible, complicated life and not film - but that definitely is not semantics either. There is an aesthetic criteria in films and indeed in almost all Art. You may dispute that, but I don't. Once you move away from that POV of an independent aesthetic criteria, even a little bit, well, it becomes critical, moral and intellectual chaos.
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Post by Zeb31 on Aug 31, 2018 15:25:26 GMT
So now we have changed the meaning of "semantics" too. Rather the fact that Polanski is a rapist won't change the ability to assess his films as feminist (or not) is my specific point - it is not a lengthy debate. It is not "to me a feminist means ______________", there is a definition of the word already. Of course if you classify him as a "feminist filmmaker" (not an abstract concept at all) it won't "undo" what he did to his victim, just as it won't bring back his mother from the camps or his wife and baby from the grave either - because that is life, horrible, complicated life and not film - but that definitely is not semantics either. There is an aesthetic criteria in films and indeed in almost all Art. You may dispute that, but I don't. Once you move away from that POV of an independent aesthetic criteria, even a little bit, well, it becomes critical, moral and intellectual chaos.
I fail to see how that addresses the bulk of what I said and throwing Tate's murder into the mix feels like yet another attempt to guide the conversation elsewhere instead of actually responding to the central issue, but I'll leave it at that. We're allowed to have our opinions and we're allowed to disagree.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2018 18:48:59 GMT
I`m guessing the majority of people on here who say they CAN separate the art from the artist are men. How about Joan Crawford? Can you see past Mommie Dearest?
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 5, 2018 19:25:41 GMT
Gender is actually a false component of this equation - to say that really presupposes men don't have the depth of feeling - as if feeling not logic (independent of gender) is what's being debated here.
Or worse even : that females depth of feeling trumps "male" logic (when of course females can be every bit as logical about this discussion as men).
Both are wrong - you've had males take the contrary POV as I have in earlier posts but they aren't taking the "female perspective" right? Once you label it like that, it's condescending to intellect, argument, perspective.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Sept 5, 2018 19:57:02 GMT
you can still take this stance and not separate the art from the artist; i have no idea why anyone would do that. what does it accomplish? it lets you see art on a more shallow level that requires less thinking, i guess, and if you don't care about depth then i could see it being a good reason, but i thought most people on film forums were at least tangentially concerned w that sort of stuff Strongly disagree with this. What about cases where something is alleged about an artist and not provable (Woody Allen), and yet people allow that to influence the way they interpret and derive meaning from the work of art. If it's later revealed that an accusation or piece of information about the artist is false, then that component of one's "deeper" understanding of the art literally becomes invalid. This approach to consuming art is dangerous, unstable, and unreliable in its potential fluidity. In the case of film, I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me and interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context rather than a specific person's life experience... because that layer of meaning that we try to integrate from outside the text itself is often elusive and unobservable. An assumption about an artist that informs one's interpretation can be false and potentially changes the movie for the viewer in the same way if you took a pivotal scene out of a movie. Also, the question of authorial voice is problematized when, say, it's revealed that a director takes over from another director in the middle of production or if it's revealed that a film is ghost directed by someone else... then that layer of meaning that grew out of one's assumption dissolves.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 6, 2018 0:20:05 GMT
you can still take this stance and not separate the art from the artist; i have no idea why anyone would do that. what does it accomplish? it lets you see art on a more shallow level that requires less thinking, i guess, and if you don't care about depth then i could see it being a good reason, but i thought most people on film forums were at least tangentially concerned w that sort of stuff Strongly disagree with this. What about cases where something is alleged about an artist and not provable (Woody Allen), and yet people allow that to influence the way they interpret and derive meaning from the work of art. If it's later revealed that an accusation or piece of information about the artist is false, then that component of one's "deeper" understanding of the art literally becomes invalid. This approach to consuming art is dangerous, unstable, and unreliable in its potential fluidity. In the case of film, I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me and interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context rather than a specific person's life experience... because that layer of meaning that we try to integrate from outside the text itself is often elusive and unobservable. An assumption about an artist that informs one's interpretation can be false and potentially changes the movie for the viewer in the same way if you took a pivotal scene out of a movie. Also, the question of authorial voice is problematized when, say, it's revealed that a director takes over from another director in the middle of production or if it's revealed that a film is ghost directed by someone else... then that layer of meaning that grew out of one's assumption dissolves. this whole paragraph is just "what if your analysis is bad? then you'll have bad analysis!" to which i would reply with "yes, true" if you're only relying on the screen, your analysis will be limited. if you don't have audio on the film, your analysis will be limited. if you open your ears to hear, you can improperly listen to the sound and hear false dialogue, but that doesn't mean that you're experiencing the film in a lesser way than someone who chooses to turn the audio off entirely
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Sept 6, 2018 1:40:16 GMT
Strongly disagree with this. What about cases where something is alleged about an artist and not provable (Woody Allen), and yet people allow that to influence the way they interpret and derive meaning from the work of art. If it's later revealed that an accusation or piece of information about the artist is false, then that component of one's "deeper" understanding of the art literally becomes invalid. This approach to consuming art is dangerous, unstable, and unreliable in its potential fluidity. In the case of film, I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me and interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context rather than a specific person's life experience... because that layer of meaning that we try to integrate from outside the text itself is often elusive and unobservable. An assumption about an artist that informs one's interpretation can be false and potentially changes the movie for the viewer in the same way if you took a pivotal scene out of a movie. Also, the question of authorial voice is problematized when, say, it's revealed that a director takes over from another director in the middle of production or if it's revealed that a film is ghost directed by someone else... then that layer of meaning that grew out of one's assumption dissolves. if you're only relying on the screen, your analysis will be limited. if you don't have audio on the film, your analysis will be limited. if you open your ears to hear, you can improperly listen to the sound and hear false dialogue, but that doesn't mean that you're experiencing the film in a lesser way than someone who chooses to turn the audio off entirely I don't disagree with any of this.... which is why I said in my last post that "I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me [AND] interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context" rather than the life experience of its creator. To build on my earlier post, I like to think of it like this: We sometimes say that "nobody else could have made this film" or "this film is uniquely their vision" but we also often we say "_______ could have been made by the Coen brothers/Scorsese/[insert famous director]. We recognize a certain degree of artistic cross pollination and influence in terms of style, aesthetic, thematic concerns, worldview, etc. If we acknowledge that a film with a particular artistic sensibility could have been made by another person or many other people separately (whether or not that's actually the case or plausible at a given point in time is irrelevant), then in an abstract sense it opens up the possibility of authorial ambiguity and the idea that a work of art isn't ontologically defined by the person who made it, but rather achieves its artistic resonance based on its internal construction and its interaction with a broader social/cultural context that extends beyond a single individual.
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Post by countjohn on Sept 6, 2018 3:21:07 GMT
In cases where someone did something particularly morally egregious like raping children it makes me a bit uncomfortable. Particularly when stuff like that comes up in their movies like with Polanski and Nate Parker. I'm not going to make a moral thing out of it like some people in this thread have, though, if you want to watch that stuff go for it. I do rewatch Chinatown. Some of that may be I saw it when I was 15-16 and first getting into classic movies and didn't know about Polanski at the time.
When I get depressed I always like over the top glam rock ballads and seek out obscure artists for it, but whenever Gary Glitter's name comes up I just can't bring myself to listen to him. Michael Jackson's music makes me uncomfortable sometimes for similar reasons (the story got buried at the time but child porn was found at his house after he died)
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Sept 6, 2018 3:42:38 GMT
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chris3
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Post by chris3 on Sept 6, 2018 4:50:08 GMT
Thank you for everyone's opinions and insights in this thread. For many years I've been on the side of "separating the art from the artist" whenever a new celebrity controversy pops up, but things have gotten so crazy post-MeToo that now is a really necessary time to sit back and listen to all points of view.
Basically, I'm going to be totally honest here and admit that for me, it really depends on how much I like the art. For example, All You Need Is Love was written by a wife-beater. That adds a level of absurd hypocrisy to the lyrics of many of Lennon's best songs, but I love The Beatles and I love John Lennon so I "separate the art from the artist". However, I think Chris Brown is a shitty rapper that makes terrible music, so whenever his music comes on the radio I think, "I can't believe people still listen to this Rihanna-beating asshole". But then he popped up on the Kanye track Waves and his vocal performance was amazing, so I gave him a pass on that. Also: I grew up loving Michael Jackson, and I personally believe that he did in fact molest several children at the Neverland Ranch. But that doesn't mean I don't still love the album Thriller. I do love it and I always will. On the other hand, I think financiers are disgusting for letting Victor Salva keep making movies, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that he's a terrible director so it's therefore easy to let my morality win that battle. Yet Polanski is a (mostly) good director, so I don't let the fact that he's a rapist influence my decision to go see stuff like Carnage or The Pianist in theaters. Bryan Singer is most certainly a creep and probably a pedophile, but I still love X2, etc.
So basically I'm admitting that (like a lot of people) I'm fairly hypocritical on this issue, and I simply compartmentalize my moral reservations on a case by case basis, entirely dependent on how much I love the artist's work. It might not be right, but it's honest. There's a line from those Game of Thrones books that states, "The bad act does not wash out the good, nor the good the bad." I can think Kevin Spacey is a vile scumbag and still enjoy his acting. I can think Mel Gibson is a racist psychopath and still enjoy The Road Warrior. But I recognize that a lot of this comes from the privilege of being a white (half-Hispanic) male who has never been sexually assaulted. If I was Black or Jewish would it be more difficult for me to ignore Gibson's insanely racist comments? If I was an abuse survivor would I ever be able to watch Chinatown again?
It's these contradictions that make the issue so difficult in my mind. So once again, thank you all for your opinions on the subject.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 6, 2018 5:59:04 GMT
if you're only relying on the screen, your analysis will be limited. if you don't have audio on the film, your analysis will be limited. if you open your ears to hear, you can improperly listen to the sound and hear false dialogue, but that doesn't mean that you're experiencing the film in a lesser way than someone who chooses to turn the audio off entirely I don't disagree with any of this.... which is why I said in my last post that "I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me [AND] interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context" rather than the life experience of its creator. To build on my earlier post, I like to think of it like this: We sometimes say that "nobody else could have made this film" or "this film is uniquely their vision" but we also often we say "_______ could have been made by the Coen brothers/Scorsese/[insert famous director]. We recognize a certain degree of artistic cross pollination and influence in terms of style, aesthetic, thematic concerns, worldview, etc. If we acknowledge that a film with a particular artistic sensibility could have been made by another person or many other people separately (whether or not that's actually the case or plausible at a given point in time is irrelevant), then in an abstract sense it opens up the possibility of authorial ambiguity and the idea that a work of art isn't ontologically defined by the person who made it, but rather achieves its artistic resonance based on its internal construction and its interaction with a broader social/cultural context that extends beyond a single individual. i think that analyzing the possible motivations, contradictions, and curiosities of the creator and their art is at least a fruitful task. i mentioned the "bad" stuff, but godard's marriage troubles inform greatly how i feel about some of his mid 60s work, ferrara's conversion to buddhism has influenced how i interpreted 4:44, knowing blair is a computer scientist changes the way i view Wax, etc. all in pretty positive ways that make me appreciate the films more. the rest of your para is kind of going off of the deep end, challenging auteur theory in the same way we've heard for the past 60 years. yes, we all know film is a collaborative process, no i couldn't identify a frame of a hitchcock vs a frame of a tourneur, this has already been beaten to death in the past several decades. i'm still an auteurist to some degree, other people are bigger on kael which is fine. no idea how this relates to separating art from artist.
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 6, 2018 6:02:20 GMT
Thank you for everyone's opinions and insights in this thread. For many years I've been on the side of "separating the art from the artist" whenever a new celebrity controversy pops up, but things have gotten so crazy post-MeToo that now is a really necessary time to sit back and listen to all points of view. Basically, I'm going to be totally honest here and admit that for me, it really depends on how much I like the art. For example, All You Need Is Love was written by a wife-beater. That adds a level of absurd hypocrisy to the lyrics of many of Lennon's best songs, but I love The Beatles and I love John Lennon so I "separate the art from the artist". However, I think Chris Brown is a shitty rapper that makes terrible music, so whenever his music comes on the radio I think, "I can't believe people still listen to this Rihanna-beating asshole". But then he popped up on the Kanye track Waves and his vocal performance was amazing, so I gave him a pass on that. Also: I grew up loving Michael Jackson, and I personally believe that he did in fact molest several children at the Neverland Ranch. But that doesn't mean I don't still love the album Thriller. I do love it and I always will. On the other hand, I think financiers are disgusting for letting Victor Salva keep making movies, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that he's a terrible director so it's therefore easy to let my morality win that battle. Yet Polanski is a (mostly) good director, so I don't let the fact that he's a rapist influence my decision to go see stuff like Carnage or The Pianist in theaters. Bryan Singer is most certainly a creep and probably a pedophile, but I still love X2, etc. So basically I'm admitting that (like a lot of people) I'm fairly hypocritical on this issue, and I simply compartmentalize my moral reservations on a case by case basis, entirely dependent on how much I love the artist's work. It might not be right, but it's honest. There's a line from those Game of Thrones books that states, "The bad act does not wash out the good, nor the good the bad." I can think Kevin Spacey is a vile scumbag and still enjoy his acting. I can think Mel Gibson is a racist psychopath and still enjoy The Road Warrior. But I recognize that a lot of this comes from the privilege of being a white (half-Hispanic) male who has never been sexually assaulted. If I was Black or Jewish would it be more difficult for me to ignore Gibson's insanely racist comments? If I was an abuse survivor would I ever be able to watch Chinatown again? It's these contradictions that make the issue so difficult in my mind. So once again, thank you all for your opinions on the subject. self crit bro i think putting yourself in these peoples' shoes can be especially useful. it wasn't until i had met people who opened up to me about their abuse and talked to me about this subject specifically that my mind started to change.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 6, 2018 9:59:46 GMT
So basically I'm admitting that (like a lot of people) I'm fairly hypocritical on this issue, and I simply compartmentalize my moral reservations on a case by case basis, entirely dependent on how much I love the artist's work. It might not be right, but it's honest. on the subject.............. But I recognize that a lot of this comes from the privilege of being a white (half-Hispanic) male who has never been sexually assaulted. If I was Black or Jewish would it be more difficult for me to ignore Gibson's insanely racist comments? If I was an abuse survivor would I ever be able to watch Chinatown again?It's very honest and I'd say common and gets to the core of this issue too - people can't reconcile morality - "facts"/opinions and feelings - and that's ok you don 't have to - but you then can't then overrate everyone else's POV over your own (in this case a hypothetical abuse survivor who we're assuming wrongly would speak for all). It's a fine line between being "woke" and turning your brain off entirely. You don't have to compartmentalize based on how much you love an artist's work but rather merely the individual work itself. Chinatown is a great work of Art. I could tell you my POV on that from the film itself.........you can argue based on the film itself and we can have a discussion. But when as was said earlier in this thread someone says "I would also argue that Chinatown would be a stronger movie if Polanski was not a rapist" - that is an entirely different argument because that very wrongly brings you into the Art by looking outside of it. There is an aesthetic criteria in films and indeed in almost all Art. You may dispute that, but I don't. Once you move away from that POV of an independent aesthetic criteria, even a little bit, well, it becomes critical, moral and intellectual chaos.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 6, 2018 18:38:10 GMT
good thing Chinatown is ass anyways
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 6, 2018 20:12:32 GMT
"Chinatown is a great work of Art. I could tell you my POV on that from the film itself.........you can argue based on the film itself and we can have a discussion." "good thing Chinatown is ass anyways"THAT'S what I'm talking about. You don't get discussions like that just anywhere yanno
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Sept 6, 2018 22:37:39 GMT
I don't disagree with any of this.... which is why I said in my last post that "I prefer to rely primarily on what I see and hear on the screen in front of me [AND] interpret how it might relate to a broader social or political context" rather than the life experience of its creator. To build on my earlier post, I like to think of it like this: We sometimes say that "nobody else could have made this film" or "this film is uniquely their vision" but we also often we say "_______ could have been made by the Coen brothers/Scorsese/[insert famous director]. We recognize a certain degree of artistic cross pollination and influence in terms of style, aesthetic, thematic concerns, worldview, etc. If we acknowledge that a film with a particular artistic sensibility could have been made by another person or many other people separately (whether or not that's actually the case or plausible at a given point in time is irrelevant), then in an abstract sense it opens up the possibility of authorial ambiguity and the idea that a work of art isn't ontologically defined by the person who made it, but rather achieves its artistic resonance based on its internal construction and its interaction with a broader social/cultural context that extends beyond a single individual. i think that analyzing the possible motivations, contradictions, and curiosities of the creator and their art is at least a fruitful task. i mentioned the "bad" stuff, but godard's marriage troubles inform greatly how i feel about some of his mid 60s work, ferrara's conversion to buddhism has influenced how i interpreted 4:44, knowing blair is a computer scientist changes the way i view Wax, etc. all in pretty positive ways that make me appreciate the films more. the rest of your para is kind of going off of the deep end, challenging auteur theory in the same way we've heard for the past 60 years. yes, we all know film is a collaborative process, no i couldn't identify a frame of a hitchcock vs a frame of a tourneur, this has already been beaten to death in the past several decades. i'm still an auteurist to some degree, other people are bigger on kael which is fine. no idea how this relates to separating art from artist. My post was only saying that it’s possible to imagine a hypothetical scenario where a film could conceivably have been made by another person other than its actual creator in the same way, and yet the text wouldn’t change, in which case the life experience of the artist is peripheral to my engagement with the art. The fact that an artist has some sort of personal stake in their art perhaps gives it an interesting added dimension, and my knowledge that the their life is intertwined with the expression of that art could shift my response to the film to a different emotional register, leading me to appreciate it more on some level……… but it doesn’t fundamentally reshape the way I engage with the movie or how I interpret the way the film’s internal properties interact and create meaning on their own. I’m just pushing back against the claim that my analysis of a film is somehow “incomplete” without importing what I may think I know about the artist. I’m not going to assume I can mindread the artist or claim to have knowledge of their intentions and how their life may have informed their art. It’s not a shallower way of interpreting art, it’s actually a more precise and cautious way of engaging with it. To me, the dangers outweigh the positives in not separating the two because you're potentially playing with truth in a flexible way.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 7, 2018 1:47:24 GMT
i think that analyzing the possible motivations, contradictions, and curiosities of the creator and their art is at least a fruitful task. i mentioned the "bad" stuff, but godard's marriage troubles inform greatly how i feel about some of his mid 60s work, ferrara's conversion to buddhism has influenced how i interpreted 4:44, knowing blair is a computer scientist changes the way i view Wax, etc. all in pretty positive ways that make me appreciate the films more. the rest of your para is kind of going off of the deep end, challenging auteur theory in the same way we've heard for the past 60 years. yes, we all know film is a collaborative process, no i couldn't identify a frame of a hitchcock vs a frame of a tourneur, this has already been beaten to death in the past several decades. i'm still an auteurist to some degree, other people are bigger on kael which is fine. no idea how this relates to separating art from artist. My post was only saying that it’s possible to imagine a hypothetical scenario where a film could conceivably have been made by another person other than its actual creator in the same way, and yet the text wouldn’t change, in which case the life experience of the artist is peripheral to my engagement with the art. The fact that an artist has some sort of personal stake in their art perhaps gives it an interesting added dimension, and my knowledge that the their life is intertwined with the expression of that art could shift my response to the film to a different emotional register, leading me to appreciate it more on some level……… but it doesn’t fundamentally reshape the way I engage with the movie or how I interpret the way the film’s internal properties interact and create meaning on their own. I’m just pushing back against the claim that my analysis of a film is somehow “incomplete” without importing what I may think I know about the artist. I’m not going to assume I can mindread the artist or claim to have knowledge of their intentions and how their life may have informed their art. It’s not a shallower way of interpreting art, it’s actually a more precise and cautious way of engaging with it. To me, the dangers outweigh the positives in not separating the two because you're potentially playing with truth in a flexible way. i agree with that to some extent; nobody other than pure auteurists who are probably memeing would dispute it. then you see it to a different degree. i don't think the acting quality of a film impacts the final product much at all, but that sound design can be extremely important. everyone interacts w art differently. it is a shallower way to interpret art, and also, if you think about it in certain ways, a more precise way. those aren't mutually exclusive terms.
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Post by no on Sept 7, 2018 6:11:45 GMT
The initial question here is a little boring to me but I'll post my thoughts on what I read here and there on this thread... ---
As a proponent of "death of the author (dota) as an analytical approach, I still find the notion of separation discussed to be shortsighted... I will try to explain.
There are many ways to approach a film... dota, auteur, structuralist, feminist, religious, et cetera... so yeah there is room for analysis outside of the artist's mindset. Just using one approach is really lame way to analyze art.
Now, yes, one can (sort of) approach a film and analyze the text alone, as I sometimes attempt to, but that is still stripping it from its overall context. I think art can stand on its own, but surely authorial vision can make it much more interesting, whether one's intentions are conscious or not.
Likewise, auteur theory can be a big meme to some extent, especially when mindlessly applied by the pseudo-enlightened laymam as some sort of measurement of objective quality or end-all, be-all definitive approach to film criticism.
Film is a collaborative process and auteur theory only goes so far, but collaborative processes open up room for a multitude of possible visions running parallel with the conventionally defined main auteur (can we just say author? We speak English after all...). Surely an actor could have more vision to a project than the director. Also plenty of producers these days have more direction than their hack-to-hire directors on big Hollywood projects... Charlie Kaufman can be surely be considered the author/auteur of his non directorial projects right? George Lucas had significant creative and visionary direction for the fifth and sixth Star Wars movies he didn't direct. He'd be the main author behind that, right?
On that topic, we value books by their authors, which can be analyzed in many ways films can. We don't really think to separate those from their authors, I mean would anyone care if someone made another sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird that isn't Harper Lee, or a followup to Lord of the Rings that isn't Tolkien? No, why be that way for film?
TL;DR: you can separate it but that is one of many ways to analyze film so don't be a tool and embrace multiple approaches.
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