What is this part of the discusssion board for and why is it unused until now?

Probably because no one on this site looks at film as a true art. Or they just dont know how to look at it as an art form.

1clue3

Way to go. Weve got the discussion board moving. Now I put it to the people, what is your favourite Ernest movie?

Ernest Goes to Africa. Pure artistic cinema right there.

I dont know. I'd have to say that Ernest Scared Stupid was probably better. The makeup was brilliant.

The reason there's not much in this area is they updated the boards. There use to be a lot more activity here before, you know, if they had kept the old posts.

However, Jim V. (Ernest) died and I think we should try to respect his character and films as it was tragic that he got cancer. Although, it wasn't art it was still better than Mulholland Drive.

- Eric

We are respecting Jim V and his movies by not forgetting them. Just because he has passed away (and what a tradgedy it was) does not mean he should not be remembered. I think he would be happy to know that his films are still bringing joy to people.

Lets put this part of the site to use. What movies shall we speak of in the discussion of "art"? Crutching Tiger Hidden Dragon? Do The Right Thing? E.T? Coming Home? Maybe something I've never seen and should go see? Someone start a conversation about the "art". Get my mind rolling!! plz!

~Don't Let BUSH Exploit 911~

I am assuming (maybe incorrectly) that an "Art Film" would be very subjective. The first thing that comes to my inexperienced mind is some discombobulated indie film that makes no sense and everyone sits around and drinking coffee, smoking European cigs and nodding their heads.

Seriously though, for me - there was a little UK indie flick a couple or three years ago - BILLY ELLIOT. A simple little movie about an 11-year old boy living with his rough-neck family, who decided to ditch his boxing lessons in favor of ballet lessons and the crisis it caused in the family! Well made, well written and well acted. No special FX. Just a simple story, well told.

Very well made film (cost about $6M - made about $100M!). Just my two cents worth.

Mark M
Scooter Productions

I would have to say that is doesn't matter if you are making "Triple(Lets make some money)X" or "Slackers",you are still making art.
Film is art and art is film, as is anything you put your hands on with intentions to create. I've been involved in art mostly drawing and sculpture my whole life and have come to realize that most people only see art in few things, for example, painting and pencil drawings..."ART(experimental) Films. But I feel that much more than those few mentioned are forms of art. Of course I'm not saying that everyone feels that art is only in few media, or that it is a hard concept to grasp, that all films are art but in the same sense many people can't see passed the "ART" hype, or main stream thought of art.
You could look at certain films and say "that director of photography, seems to have a great concept of art" or "that director see shot that film with little concept of art". I believe that many directors out there and DPs and producers would be as narrow and...well...kinda stupid to say that their own films aren’t art.
But most definitely all films are art and some are more based on that fact than others.
The French back in the 20's did a lot of work with "art" in mind, almost too much in some people's opinion. Like the experimental film “Un Chien Andalou” a man slashes a women’s eye ball in two for shear shock value and interest in the audience’s reaction . The director was a surrealists and loved f*cking with the viewers.
But if you look at the Germans and Russians in the same time area they were doing many films with “art” in mind and pushing the envelop, with new editing techniques and stylish dramatic lighting that influenced directors like Hitchcock, who obviously changed the film industry for ever. So no matter how you look at it...film is art no mater what, and some more than others. Anyways that's my blab, hope it made sense.

~Don't Let BUSH Exploit 911~

I agree.

This is my take on "art" in film

-each person that views a film has their own interpretation of the "art" of it. A director might think one thing but the viewer might apprehend it to mean something totally opposite (exaggeration). So in this sense, "art," in terms of concepts and designs is solely established by the viewer.

First of all, if you're going to define "art" and have an intelligent conversation about it, you can't be subjective. I don't mean that everybody can't have his own opinion about what art is, what art is supposed to do, and what is and what is not art. What I do mean is that you're free to hold any view you want, but you can't just say "I liked this" or "that shot was beautiful" or "that film was profound." These are impressions, and while valid and valuable, don't say anything about what filmic "art" is. You have to decide, first of all, what you believe the function of art is, barring its actual definition. Is it supposed to have a deep meaning? A moral? Just simply be a beautiful and creative use of the medium? All these ideas have been forwarded and accepted at different times in history. Then you have to decide which works fulfill your purpose, study them, and formulate some set of rules about what you think makes good art. Only at this point can the idea actually be discussed, because the merit of different purposes and different ideologies can be debated and weighed against each other to arrive at some conclusion, whereas no one can argue the merit of "I liked that movie, therefore it is art."

That being said, I'll throw in my own thoughts on the subject. Art in any medium is a work that explores a quality and worthwhile subject in a creative and original way. The purpose of art is to put man into contact with the transcendent - with God, with Beauty, with Truth, with things that are just a part of the universe and part of being human, common to all people and all parts of the world. Now, I don't think art need have a moral dimension. You can write a book or shoot a movie or sing a song about whatever you happen to think "love" or "truth" happen to be - there is no rule about WHAT you need to say about these things, only that it be honest and that it strive imaginatively to put your reader or viewer into contact with something greater than himself, give him opportunity to weigh and consider your point of view. It needs to express, in essence, that which I cannot say in a simple statement of experience or fact, what science cannot write an equation to describe, what nothing but the contact of one soul with another can provide.

A note on the "proper" subject for art: You could argue that, in fact, any subject is worthwhile to be treated artistically. I think this point is flawed, in that history proves you wrong. Look at the greatest works of art in every medium, those that have become the biggest part of common experience and have most profoundly influenced our culture (not in the pop-culture sense), and I think you'll find a rather restricted category of subects.

That brings me to the second part of my personal definition: Just because somebody has a profound idea about, say, death, doesn't mean that whatever he says about it is necessarily going to be "Hamlet." Oscar Wilde said, and I think it's appropriate here, that all bad poetry is sincere. For your work to be art, the subject matter you're dealing with has to be expressed creatively, originally, in a form suitable to the content, with methods that are just as profound as your idea. In my view, art strives to express the otherwise unexpressible, and the only way that this can be successfully achieved is through craft, talent, and passion in the medium. Now, what you think constitutes an artistic expression depends on what critical school you adhere to. My background is more in literature than film, but I think the principles are universal, so I'll use some examples from there. In poetry, there was an idea that poems needed to adhere to strict classical forms of rhyme, meter, composition, etcetera, in order to be considered legitimate or artistic or beautiful examples of the genre. Then there was the idea of free verse, or poetry that was still rhythmical but could be highly irregular, not rhyme, etc.... and still be beautiful. In novels, if you've ever read Mark Twain or Jack London you know about the idea of literary realism, the concept that the proper way for a novel to tell a story was through strict representation of objective reality. Then there's the Henry James school of thought, wehre the focus is on crafting the subjective reality of perceptions, and then the modernist idea that novels should have no plots at all. Now, you could tell a story about, say, love, in any of these forms, objective reality, no plot, classical poetry, modernist poetry, etc.... What differs is the approach to expressing the idea. All of them are valid, and my personal opinion is that to be truly artistic and profound one should choose the form that best represents the manner of his thinking about the subject he wants to treat. There is no "right" way to express oneself, but a work can be objectively judged on how well it adheres to the rules it (consciously or not) sets for itself, and how well, in comparison to similar works, it achieves mastery and profundity in its methods.

Simply "being a film" does not make a film art, unless you adopt the most liberal of definitions. You are, of course, free to do so, but I would venture to guess that the majority of critical theories of all artistic media would argue quite convincingly against you. The "art house"film that features angst ridden quirky characters gravely sipping coffee is not, by any stretch of a definition, entitled to be called art simply because it is strange, experimental, or otherwise not Hollywood mainstream. Every work needs to be examined critically to determine if its merits warrant such a distinction.

But this is venturing too far into the abstract. The purpose of all this theory is to come to a greater appreciation of the creative process and of the beauty of any given film, to understand what makes great films great. I think the greatest disservice we can do to ourselves is to say - if somebody created it, then it is art. What profit can we reap from such a simplistic generalization? There are rules that govern how we as humans perceive things, what we think is beautiful, what speaks to the soul and puts us in contact with the universal themes of life. Films that know these rules and work by them to create a genuine experience should be appreciated and studied. Those that don't - well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being "merely entertaining". It just isn't art.