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Re: a few things
I wrote part of this a few days ago, then lost it. I just found it again,
and figured I would finish it and send it, so forgive me if some of these
points have already been raised, addressed, elaborated upon, or refuted.
On Sat, 18 May 2002, Dusty Volume wrote:
> My point was that *everything* is subjective, and for one to label a
> film "bad" or "good" is really a matter of opinion. You can hide behind
> the rules of form, but in the end, you still are subjectively judging
> the artwork within those limits. You can say you didn't like A
> Clockwork Orange, but when you say that it was also brilliant, are you
> not also admitting that you liked it--I mean brilliance in and of itself
> denotes greatness. If you truly did not like the film, then you can
> find no brilliance, or redeeming qualities in it at all. If you can
> find even one, then you did like the film--or at least some part of it.
Hmm. For some reason my thoughts are turning to historical-Jesus studies,
and to N.T. Wright's remark that one of John Dominic Crossan's books on
this subject was "a brilliant work of scholarship -- but brilliantly
wrong." Would Wright say that he "likes" Crossan's scholarship? Maybe,
maybe not -- though Wright does say in one of his own books that, with
foes like Crossan, "who needs friends? May the debate continue."
> > I.e., it's not intellectually honest to even *say* "it's a bad film",
> > because there's no way to determine good or bad as an intrinsic
> > property of the film, independent of observer.
>
> Right, but whether or not it's intellectually honest or not, is your
> opinion.
No, there you're wrong. Don is observing an objective phenomenon --
someone makes an objective statement despite believing it is impossible to
evaluate films objectively -- and reporting what he saw.
Granted, Don may be nitpicking when he observes that the statement is
phrased objectively, since we all know the person in question is stating a
subjective opinion, but his basic observation may still stand.
> I can say a film is good, because it is good to me, and if you ask me to
> prove it, then we have to define what kind of proof you need.
Proof, and/or your terms (i.e., on what basis may a film be judged "good"
for you? is the same film that is "good" for one person also "good" for
another? must we assume that any given person will intuitively know which
films are "good" for him or her and which films are not? etc.).
> If you need emotional proof, then it may be because I cried or laughed.
But what *sort* of tears or laughter did you emit, etc. Some movies are
not meant to be laughed at, and yet people laugh, because they find the
film tacky or pretentious or whatever -- in such cases, we might suppose
that laughter is not a "good" thing. Similarly, when I cry during a
movie, it often has little to do with the artistic value of the movie in
question and a lot to do with the personal stuff I bring to a film. I
don't think _American Rhapsody_ is a good film, overall, but boy, did I
get choked up and shed tears during some of the earlier scenes.
> Anyone can learn the rules and identify the infractions, (in a sense
> becoming a robot,) but is it not also true that to learn the rules and
> intentionally break them often produces a masterpiece?
Yes, one must learn the rules in order to break them intentionally. To
quote something I said in a similar discussion recently (I was thinking of
the Ebert line in particular, but figured I'd quote the whole thing,
except for one extremely tangential remark about Napster):
http://novogate.com/board/3322/65005-1.html
: There are absolutely objective criteria. If the camera's
: wobbling - it's a bad shot. If everyone suddenly jumps
: 1/2" to the left, it's a bad edit.
Says who? If you answer this question at all, then you admit that there
is a subjective element to these criteria. In what sense are these
criteria "absolutely" objective?
In my 'intro to film' class, many years ago, we were taught that there
are three questions the art critic must ask: (1) what is the artist's
intention, (2) how well has the artist achieved his or her intention,
and (3) was the artist's intention worth intending or achieving in the
first place.
So, in order to say "wobbly cameras are bad", you have to make one of
two arguments. You can say that the artist wanted his or her cameras to
stay still, in which case a wobbly shot would be pretty bad. But if the
artist *wanted* his or her camera to wobble, then you would have to
demonstrate that there was something wrong with the artist's desire to
make the camera wobble.
I am reminded of the following comment from Roger Ebert's review of
Battlefield Earth: "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from
better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has
not learned why."
BTW, what about "accidents" that directors incorporate into their films
because they are better than what the directors originally had in mind?
The police line-up sequence in Usual Suspects was supposed to be a lot
more serious than it is, but the actors kept laughing, and the director
and editor chose to use some of the blooper footage, because it helped
us to sympathize with the characters, and it helped us to see how they
might have bonded. Then there is the famous "crimitism" scene from
Citizen Kane. Objectively, we might argue that the actors in these
films screwed up -- "If an actor can't recite his lines properly, it's
a bad performance." But those errors remain in the films, because the
directors were willing to take advantage of them. Errors of that sort
are, in a sense, "intentional" -- not in the writing or directing or
performing, but in the editing.
: Even outside the purely technical standards, it is
: entirely fair to say - 'This film had a weak plot, and
: poor resolution.'
It is fair to say this, but it is not always relevant to say this.
: Certainly critique has it's fads and golden boys/girls of
: the moment, but a proper historical perspective can help
: cure some of this.
No argument there.
I prefer to say that criticism is "objective" in the sense that it
focuses on the object of one's criticism -- that is, the work of art
being critiqued -- and does not allow itself to fly off on tangents
that have more to do with the critic's pet peeves than with the work of
art itself.
[ snip ]
: Well, you might not be able to just say 'These movies
: suck!' but you could certainly say, 'Compared to even
: other films in their particular genres, these films
: accomplished nothing new, and were in fact cynically
: condescending in their recycling of cliches.' which is
: proveable by observation.
Maybe, maybe not. Was the kitchen gag in The Sixth Sense a cynical
recycling of the kitchen gag in Poltergeist, or was it a respectful
homage to that earlier film? Or was it an accidental similarity? How
would we "objectively prove" this, either way?
Yikes. Looking further down the thread, I see a couple of other posts
that may have some bearing here. I wrote all this over a month ago, and
I'd forgotten about some of the arguments I made until just now, e.g.:
: If truth is beauty and beauty is truth, then logically
: subjective beauty means subjective truth. Are you willing
: to own up to that?
Sure, why not? Your formula here sounds like rhetorical sleight-of-hand
to me, but I've always said truths are subjective, so I've got no
problem with this whatsoever.
Then again, I suppose there may be a sense in which beauty is
"objective" -- for example, I have heard people discuss whether the
destruction of the World Trade Centre towers was "beautiful". In a
certain sense, it probably *was* beautiful, objectively speaking.
Similarly, a religion columnist I once interviewed said there was
something "beautiful" about avalanches, even though they killed people
and were thus in some sense "evil". So if beauty is objective, then
there may be beauty in evil -- and I'm not talking about cases where
beauty is used as a cover for evil, but cases where beauty is to be
found within the evil itself. Are you willing to own up to *that*?
And then this:
: I am using the beauty=truth assumption.
So you admit this is only an assumption.
: If Truth is objective, and I believe it is because
: relativism doesn't have a logical foot to stand on . . .
Absolute relativism doesn't have a logical foot to stand on, no. For
example, no matter how different our opinions might be on any given
subject, there would be nothing relative about the fact that you exist
and I exist.
But relativism does make perfectly logical sense in other contexts. And
because I prefer not to confuse "truths" with "facts", I prefer to say
that truth is not "objective", but is, rather, "inter-subjective".
: . . . then beauty too is objective.
See my earlier comment about sex. If sex is a subjective experience,
and I think in many ways it is, then is it simply another form of
mutual masturbation, as your comment equating subjective criticism with
intellectual masturbation might imply? Or is there some "objective"
sexual experience that we should all strive for? What about the many
different turn-ons and fetishes that people have?
I would prefer to say that sex, like beauty and truth, is an
"inter-subjective" experience. Yes, it is an objective fact that the
participants in any given sex act actually exist. But it is also an
objective fact that each person approaches the sex act from a
subjective point of view, and that the process of becoming "one"
through the sex act involves a fusion of sorts between these two
subjective realities.
As with sex, so with art, and so with art criticism -- the point is not
necessarily to cajole anyone into accepting your definition of
"objective beauty", but to connect with a work of art, and with others
who appreciate art, and to encourage some sort of meeting-of-the-minds
that produces an artistic appreciation greater than any single
participant. This might lead to some sort of "public" truth, but it
would not be an "objective" truth, in the strictest sense, nor would it
be an "absolute" truth.
Of course, this is a very abstract discussion right now, partly because
I don't think you have even tried to define "beauty" itself yet. You
say beauty is objective, but objectively *what*? What's the point in
debating this subject, if we haven't got some concrete examples to work
with? For example, what are your thoughts on the "beauty" that some
people see in avalanches and collapsing buildings, as I mentioned in an
earlier post? Are those things objectively beautiful, and if so how, or
are they not beautiful, and if not why not?
Perhaps, if we talked about actual beauty and not just theoretical
beauty, we might get away from this "intellectual masturbation" that
you refer to. :)
Okay, that's enough of that.
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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