This here is my term paper for my Critical Writing class. I feel pretty good about it, so here it is. I hang it on the fridge before the grade comes. I expect to get an A on it...
Note that this is pre-edit.
According to Plato, art is a representation that is two steps removed from reality. An artist uses her skill to manipulate words and materials to create a desired image. A viewer must remember that the art is an illusion produced from the own mind of the artist, and not a true depiction of reality (Stumpf and Fieser 52). Further more, art is to be experienced. It is a sensual, visceral experience that can shape the way a viewer may interpret an aspect of humanity. By examining my own and Plato’s ideas on aesthetics, I will discuss how I apply these aesthetics to film. Also, I will explain how artistic quality is often sacrificed for financial success in movies today, in light of my aesthetic criteria. We will see that establishing one’s own artistic theories allows a viewer to fully experience a film as a work of art.
There are some films that may be considered standards from which other films are representations of. Citizen Cane and Casablanca are considered by some to be two of the best American films ever made. These can be considered, in Plato’s terms, as being ultimate Forms from which other films copy the techniques, styles, and format. Every so often, viewers are lucky enough to experience something new, such as an innovative technology that allows for more possibility or creative idea. Because new ideas are becoming almost continually, the general concepts of ultimate Form are always in flux, too. Today, it may be difficult for a young viewer to understand the quality of 1942’s Casablanca because of the evolution in acting, writing, and filming styles. Because our realities have changed drastically since 1942, our understanding of representations of realities is different as well. Still, there must be some sort of example that these classic films have set. Filmmakers may or may not look to these films as an example. Just like a modern free verse poet must know traditional forms in order to break them, a good filmmaker must understand the traditions and standards of film in order to break them and be able to create their own.
While the filmmaker may understand universal standards, the viewer must understand her own. It may help for a reviewer of film to know why Casablanca may be considered an ultimate example of film. However, in forming one’s own aesthetic a viewer must keep in mind her own Form of Beauty. Each individual should find their own preferences and beliefs on what makes a good film. Plato reminds us that when a viewer does not separate representation from reality, then the viewer is acknowledging an illusion of reality and not art. One must see a film as art and question what characteristics it has that makes it art. Also, one must keep in mind that what a filmmakers considers good art may not agree with the viewer. My personal aesthetic is based on what I find to be original and truly beautiful. I keep in mind Plato’s theory of art and ultimate Forms as a basis for producing my own argument on art. More importantly, I keep in mind what stimulates me personally when viewing a film.
Quality over quantity is a virtue that not many current American films follow. It seems that the more a movie cost to make, the more attention it gets. Films that attract little public attention tend to be the ones that had little money to work with. When a smart and talented filmmaker has little resource, she will use the cheapest and most abundant resource an artist has, her creativity. This tool is responsible for unique and interesting results in any artistic media. Just as Einstein quoted, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” a cheaply produced film states that “Imagination is more important than Hollywood businessmen hitting the jackpot at the box office.” I often leave a movie theater feeling that I would have rather wasted my eight dollars on a fast-food dinners for the rest of the week. It seems that most movies that come out today that have a large advertising budget have three of the following characteristics: confusing gratuitous sex and lust with sincere love, conventionally attractive and grotesquely thin actresses, and predictable plots involving prototypical and monochrome characters written with mediocre talent. There are other characteristics involving the blandness of a film’s score, cinematography, and actors’ abilities. All of these are problems that can be solved by committing to making a piece of art rather than a product to sell and make sickening amounts of money off of. Filmmakers who do such things are mocking the idea of Beauty, to which art is meant to represent. They are concerned with the quantity their product consumes rather than the quality that it gives to viewers.
Fortunately there are filmmakers who are apart from the business of Hollywood. Their films are original, creative, and thoughtfully pieced together to please or contest a viewer’s desire for beauty, whatever her definition of beauty is. A few examples artistically motivated filmmakers include, Darren Aronofsky who directed Requiem for a Dream and Pi, the writer and director of Donnie Darko known as Richard Kelly, and writer / director / producer Wes Anderson who is known for Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums. All three of these men have fashioned unique and evocative films that represent a form of Beauty, one that has heart and, simply said, one that really wants to make something great. Money clearly was and was not an issue in making these films. Requiem and Pi together had a budget under five million dollars and received much critical acclaim (by 1997) while the most recent film adaptation of Godzilla in 1998 cost almost $125 million to make and received negative critical acclaim. Donnie Darko, a confusing yet entertaining time travel-teen hero film set in the late 1980s, cost under five million to make, and still had to work on charity to produce some of the flawless special effects. Since its limited release in 2001, it has been gaining a cult following. While The Royal Tenenbaums cost about $28 million to make, the heart and creative quality of this film overshadows its contemporaries (budget data from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia). In 2001, the year of its release date, Tenenbaums did not make it into the top twenty highest grossing films in the year (“Business Data for The Royal Tenenbaums 2001”). It did, however receive critical acclaim like the other films mentioned. Anderson, Aronofsky, and Kelly are fine examples of quality filmmaking today.
When I see a film I want to be impressed by original and skillfully crafted imagery, plot, and characters. I expect to be interested in the story and characters, no matter how detestable or unattractive they may be. If I find myself still thinking about the film hours later, and even talking about it days later, then I feel that it has successfully affected my emotions and my questioning of Beauty. In this case, the film is a true piece of art in that it has manipulated human interactions and tendencies into a story that clearly comprehends the mysteries of human interactions and tendencies. Sometimes it is more appropriate to watch a slapstick comedy for the sake of laughing one’s ass off, and if its intention is to make one laugh then it is successful if the experience lingers and has probed one’s standards of comedy. A quality film is to be an experience for the viewer and not a passive, unconscious accident. Also, the filmmaker’s intention must be to produce a creative work of art. This is apparent when the piece stands out from others, when it stands apart from prototypes, predictability, and oversimplification of human emotion. While Plato states that art is two steps away from reality, the farther away from reality a film is lessens its artistic quality, thus taking it farther away from the ultimate form of Beauty. The close a piece of art is to Beauty, Plato states, the more perfect it is (Stumpf and Fieser 52-3).
Being partial to Wes Anderson movies, I tend to use them as standards that other films should meet. It is an example of what fits into my own aesthetic of beauty involving quality cinematic storytelling. Tenenbaums is a dark comedy or a “dramedy,” but this does not keep it from being compared to other genres of film. This film clearly probes the human condition by objectively presenting various human relationships from father-daughter to sweetheart-sweetheart. It is a story that does not clearly solve problems around melancholy and disillusionment, but it does present it beautifully through the perfection of art. All of Anderson’s movies are charming and full of heart and meaning. They meet my criteria for quality film that is evocative and interesting and where the filmmaker’s passion is evident in every aspect of the film.
It is difficult to find a film today that meets this criterion. However quality films must be few and far between in order to be appreciated for art. Plato’s theories of Beauty and art apply to film in that, to be considered a respectable art, it may be judged up against ultimate Forms or examples. Understanding these ideas can help a viewer establish stronger opinions and personal ideas of what can be a standard in Beauty and art, but especially what stimulates her sensations and emotions. This way, art can be more of an experience.
