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In Reply to: Re: hard not to comment art/film without considering sociaty in general...... posted by Victor Khomenko on May 25, 2004 at 06:10:57:
Please forgive me if I put words in your mouth! I was extending the thought of your post's final statement. You said that "anytime art tries to carry political message it fails in the artistic department." Based on that I thought you would consider "Farenheit 911" a failure.Correct me if I am wrong: You do not mind politics in art, per se, just not overtly. You prefer any political comment to be underneath the work, as opposed to being "all over it".
I respectfully disagree with you. "Potemkin" and "Nevsky" have political messages and I personally do not think they are quite so hidden beneath "humanism" or "freedom".
You were silent on Picasso's "Guernica". Perhaps it is the exception that proves the rule?
Thank you for your response. And I agree with you re: comparison of Michael Moore and Sergei Eisenstien. Eisenstien's films WILL be viewed decades after Michael Moore's works are dust. And I say this as a fan of Moore's work. I suspect HE might agree with you too!
Take care and have fun, Victor!
Follow Ups:
***You were silent on Picasso's "Guernica". Perhaps it is the exception that proves the rule?Two reasons. One - Patrick already mentioned it. Two - I am in general not a great fan of Picasso... I feel his monumental nature, but I am not in love with most of his art.
Ah, and perhaps three... it's been many years since I saw Guernica, so I do not have fresh enough impression to comment on it - just to be fair.
But you are basically right - it is the overtness of the message that I object to. One can find messages in all works, if that is his inclination, sometimes it takes effort, but one should be completely dumb to miss it in Moore's work.
And thanks for giving me chance to look once again at Potemkin and Nevsky... however after some evaluation I still feel that the political message in these was not in your face, especially in Nevsky.
Call me dumb, but I must have watched it hundred times before someone told me about its message!
I guess that bring up the question about the type of the message. If it is present clearly in Petemkin, and really sticks out like a sore thumb in Philadelphia, you would never realize it was there in Nevsky - you would need to be told about it.
I would be the LAST person to "call you dumb", Victor! First, I am not the smartest person in the world by a long shot. Also, I do not purposely try to post things to insult anyone. I enjoy reading the different perspectives on film that people have.If I were to chance upon "Alexander Nevsky" without knowing anything about when it was made, what was going on between Germany and the Soviet Union, etc., I too would probably take it for only great film about a leader who leads his people into battle to repel a fearsome enemy. In fact, that is the way I enjoy it 98% of the time when I see it. I allow the context of its making to influence my enjoyment (and it only brings an additional smile to my face) the other 2% of the time!
Perhaps your experience of "Alexander Nevsky" is close to mine with "Citizen Kane". I chanced upon it late one night as a young teenager. My mother just said that it was an old film by Orson Welles about a newspaper publisher. She did not then (and maybe still does not) know anything about William Randolph Hearst,etc.
So I watched this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was another six years or so before I knew the background behind it!I saw "Philadelphia" once. I did not hate it, but I never HAVE to see it again. "Nevsky", on the other hand, I will HAVE to get the Criterion edition! In fact, I am planning to get the Criterion edition of all of Eisenstien's sound films (at least the ones that Stalin's ministers allowed him to make)!
Believe me, I didn't take any offense.I think we are entering an interesting discussion topic here, which is much bigger than Moore, his films and the political undercurrents at Cannes or Oscars.
That is the hidden messages, or hidden baggage if you will.
I think we all can quickly see the overt messages, be it the BfC, Philadelphia (home of the best cream cheese!!!), Erin Brockovich (sp? Who cares!), or some other such film.
It is harder to spot when it is in the background.
These can include many things, like the political and historical situation at the time the movie was made, direct orders from the authorities, and things like important steps in artist/director development - his personal life, etc. etc... who knows, maybe his getting out of closet, having severe emotional trauma of losing loved ones, etc.
For instance, one could not evaluate properly such works as Pasolini's Salo without looking at his biography and the history of his relationship with public - both international and Italian.
But how on Earth could an average viewer be aware of all those underpinnings?
Even the most sophisticated ones probably miss many of them, and the majority of us catches very small proportion.
Often what happens is the movie leaves a profound mark on one's memory, and forces the viewer to look and dig deeper. But how common is that? How many of us, besides clark, that is, come to the theater having done excruciating background preparation? Most of us treat such excursions as recreation, not final exams.
From there one might draw a cynical conclusion - since the messages are not incorporated directly into the movies, they must be simply ignored.
Thus is it really wrong to simply watch Nevsky like most kids would, without even knowing who Stalin was?
I would argue that taken from that perspective that work would still represent a great achievement, and that no message, however strong, would make a bad movie great.
Many of us do enjoy learning about movies and what surrounds them, but the truth is there is so much there we simply can't possibly cover it all, so what is wrong with simply enjoying the work for its artistic merits? Nothing, really. Great art can be appreciated at infinite number of levels, and with more knowledge these levels change, and the work takes new forms, but important thing is it will never look weak, flat and shallow - even if you were to just scratch its surface.
So, if you will, I have no issues with the "dissolved" messages, those that are present in the work without calling attention to themselves. Art is always about subtlety and finesse of means of expression, and the same applies to the messages, I think.
Just a few random thoughs during some idle moment at work.
nt
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