Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Victor Khomenko (M) on January 16, 2004 at 10:39:40

In Reply to: Maybe not "cosmetic and sugar coated", but... posted by vocalion on January 16, 2004 at 09:55:21:

And for a good example - not quite a pile of dogshit, but close - a rotting dog carcas - see Mikhalkov Konchalovsky's segment in the Lumiere and Co - his "framing" of that disgusting thing is art.

I was going to say something along these lines when you posted. Framing, or in other words, just pointing, is what the director does. Without that pointing we would miss to look at that seemingly insignificant item in the huge picture of the surrounding world.

However... all that presumes the viewer willing to do this study, once pointed.

The viewer who will not start shifting restlessly when Greenaway concentrates on some rotten apples for five minutes. Someone who is willing to try to understand WHY the things are shown, and willing to appreciate HOW.

And THAT is what largely is missing today.

To the viewer conditioned to see quick draws and perfect unaimed shots, space bugs being blown to pieces with a ray-gun, all in very rapid progression, all that beauty is not simply unimportant - it is irritating.

We all have seen kids being tortured at Hermitage while their parents are admiring another Corot - all their thoughts are at the ice cream stand.

Today most movie audience here simply sees the movies as the video game extension - hence the idiotic talks about the "future" of the film, where some "interactive" thing will start happening.

So every teenager, who can't even tell Van Gogh from Vermeer, will be able to improve the works of Rembrandt with his interactive joystick and 3-D glasses.

THEN we will enter the era of true and limitless sugarcoating.

So.... is all art sugarcoating the reality? Absolutely NO.