World Enough and Time

I would have to disagree with this. It's predicated on the Romantic notion that "it's all about self-expression, man...!" Earlier generations of artists, for whom it was a trade, learned through apprenticeship, and who worked to commission, would not have thought so.

If Fellini is talking primarily about his own art, fine; but one can't extrapolate from that to the general level.

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Basically it's truth; but what is art? Is, for example Kingdom of Haeven art? And is it autobiographical? I' m speaking about movies here because movies are the art of our time.

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wijsgeer.livejournal.com

If you stretch the word "autobiographical" untill the meaning becomes vague enough this might well hold a bit of truth. (Like, every artist makes art from his, her position in time and space, when reading/listening/watching/looking at the art you can get some notion of this background.). But consuming the art and finding in the core true knowledge of the artist, no I agree with

silverwhistle that is a romantic notion.

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Film is a difficult art to fit to Fellini's definition, even though it is his own: so much of it is collaborative. If it were to be taken as "autobiographical", then whose autobiography? The scriptwriter's? The director's?

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Yup. It panders to the Romantic notion that what interests the audience is "getting to know the artist". I find many of the Romantics appallingly egotistical, as a result.

It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people, the idea that approving of the artist's life is essential to enjoyment of his/her work. I recall, in my teens, some of my father's friends tut-tutting at him "allowing me" to read Pound. Now, first of all, my parents have never seen it as their job to censor my reading; secondly, the fact Pound was an odious Fascist creep doesn't stop him being a great poet; thirdly, his best work is non-political; and fourthly, I have never been so stupid as to buy anyone else's secondhand political opinions, anyway. But these people had clearly bought into the idea that the art was irrevocably 'contaminated' by the artist's politics.

If "all art is autobiographical", we should not hate Mary-Sue so much...

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As with many quotes, I think there's truth in it and falsehood too, depending how you interpret it.

I see it as meaning not that "all art is about the self" but that "all art is filtered through the mind of the creator". Not literally autobiographical, but the mark of art (as opposed to craft) is the unique vision of the artist, the aspect that could not be created by anyone else.

So I wouldn't take it literally at all. I'd see it as a metaphor for the intrinsic uniqueness of creative process.

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but what is art?

Ah, now, there is one of the big questions.

I would define it as... hm... "creations that make a personal vision perceptible to another observer".

Is, for example Kingdom of Haeven art?

Another way to phrase that question is: is bad art still art? does the word 'art' imply a certain basic level of quality? If I use my definition, I think I would say that if a creator's work fails to make a personal vision perceptible to others, it has failed, and isn't really art. And I think Kingdom of Heaven failed on a lot of levels. But to be fair, it wasn't the craft of making the movie that was the failure, but the vision itself - it was a bad story, badly conceived and written, even more badly researched. So. Is it still art? Darned if I know.

And is it autobiographical?

Yes, I think so, but this question becomes trickier when a work is the product of more than a single mind. By which I mean: Ridley Scott was only partly responsible for Kingdom of Heaven. However tightly the production was controlled, it is also the work of innumerable actors, costumers, scriptwriters, and so on. Art by committee, like television and comic books. I don't know if this makes it something of a different order, or just a variation on a theme.

movies are the art of our time.

Yes. We're lucky in that there are so many arts around us, so much to choose among for our attention.

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It is a romantic notion. I like romantic notions. I like the idea that individuals are significance, that individual heroism can affect the course of history (as can individual evil), that art and the artist are inextricably entwined.

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Film is so much less personal than books. More and more we are surrounded by creations of collaborative arts - the music industry (where the singer is often not the songwriter, where any number of people may work on a recording or a live performance); television, films, comics, magazines.... I think there is more and more scope for 'art by collaboration' as the products of these industries get better and better.

In my opinion, it works best as art when the collaboration (in whatever medium) is spearheaded by a strong creative mind. Joss Whedon with "Buffy" and "Firefly". Russell T. Davies with "Queer as Fold" and "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood". Ron Moore with "Battlestar Galactica". Warren Ellis or Neil Gaiman or Jeph Loeb on any of the comics they work on. You can tell the difference between a work done by a sharp talent and work done by committee.

So Ridley Scott and Kingdom of Heaven is a case in point, where the creative power that should have pulled it together and made it shine, failed to do so. (Ditto Oliver Stone with Alexander, though for different reasons.)

It doesn't need to be the director or producer or writer who provides the spark of brilliance that raises a work above itself. Look at Pirates of the Caribbean - it was Johnny Depp's vision, wisely backed by Jerry Bruckheimer, that raised the movie from the level of a mediocre Disney adventure to something remarkable.

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Ah, here we're overlapping with an interesting conversation I was having on a mailing list with various people (including

commodorified) regarding and Auden quote she was reading about the artist as witness who must not perjure himself.

Different metaphors work for different people.

What I was getting at (and I can't say if it's what Fellini) meant is that art is a function that depends on the creator and his vision to exist, but which is not based, and cannot be based, on the ego of the creator - if it does that, the creator and not the creation becomes the focus, and that is being untrue to the nature of the creation, and the process fails.

That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.

Art cannot be self-conscious and still be effective.

It's also the cause of the notion that you shouldn't enjoy artworks by bad people,

I enjoy works by bad people all the time. Yet in other cases, I can't enjoy works because of the creator's thoughts or actions, so obviously the emotional censors can bypass my intellectual reading on this. I have no problem with Pound - perhaps because he's a figure of history for me now, as is Knut Hamsun - another Nazi author I admire. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written. The difference? Card is alive, the matter affects my life, and it strikes too close. If I were living in 1941, my attitude to Hamsun or Pound would no doubt be different. The buffer of time gives me tolerance.

It isn't the art that's contaminated by the poltiics sometimes, it's my perceptions of it.

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Yes: and I think the fact that collaborative art can be so successful is partly because it is not merely "autobiographical". It's a coming-together of lots of people's visions. There may be one voice that comes out of it the strongest, but s/he still needs the other people's input.

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...but which is not based, and cannot be based, on the ego of the creator - if it does that, the creator and not the creation becomes the focus, and that is being untrue to the nature of the creation, and the process fails.

That's why the mary sue always fails - the writer's ego becomes the focus of the story, and any other point to the story is lost.

However, I think the creator's ego is a very large factor in Romanticism.

On the other hand, I can't bring myself to read Orson Scott Card any more, ever since I once read an offensively homophobic essay he had written.

I can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?

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The buffer of time gives me tolerance.

The buffer of time and lack of experience...I'm not older than you but after my family and my country suffered extreme from nazis I'm very alergic about nazi authors even if other said their art were beautiful.

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I wonder if there's a word that means "an autobiography written by a bunch of people all at once as if they were one psyche"?

No?

Huh.

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I think "bad art" is still art, it's just poor quality. And I do believe that quality matters. I detest the justification that some people make for bad art - especially in fiction - that "it's all x audience wants/is capable of understanding". When I look at some sections of paperbacks in Borders, I wonder, how many trees died for it? Yes, it sells - lowest-common-denominator writing does - but it's still rubbish.

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I think the creator's ego is a very large factor in Romanticism.

I don't, but I don't know which creators or which artists you are thinking about. I'm not sure why Romanticism would be different in this respect than other writings. Do you think the writing of the Romantic is more likely to be subject to the demands of the ego than other types of writing?

can't say I've ever head of this writer before; but what about his other work? Unless the homophobia informs the rest of his writing?

He's a popular American SF writer. I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.

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Yes: I didn't have Nazis tramping all over my country, thank goodness. Though my father and every man I know of his generation fought in World War II in Europe, they went there, the war itself didn't come here, and we were never even bombed. My personal 'experience' of Nazis is almost entirely from books.

So yes, place has a strong effect there, as well as the passage of time. By chance and luck, homophobia is something that has affected me more personally than Nazism. (Not that they are unrelated concepts: the Nazis were homophobic, too.)

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I detest the justification that some people make for bad art - especially in fiction - that "it's all x audience wants/is capable of understanding".

Bad rationale. Art reflects its creator, not its consumers.

When I look at some sections of paperbacks in Borders, I wonder, how many trees died for it?

Bad thought! That way lies depression and overawareness of the futility of life and the chronic stupidities of man. When I get a spell like that I go wallow in Shakespeare for a bit, and it cheers me up.

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it was a bad story, badly conceived and written, even more badly researched.

There was a statement on the imdb that the "artistic license" is essential for the movies. I've answered it would be still the story which is essential for a good movie. But now I really don't know. I only know that so called "aristic license" could be a very dangerous thing to the historical truth. It's all a little of topic, but how do you think about it?

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but what is art?

Ah, now, there is one of the big questions

Yes, it's a big question - I also haven't a clear answer. I began to think about it at the time I've listen to the rock music (and loved it, and considered the composers of it to be genius-how is the plural to "genuius") and there were people (and still are) saying it weren't art at all.

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femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com

Amen to that

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I grew up in my mother's home town, Hull, which was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the UK, and still showed it (as previously remarked, any old buildings which had escaped the Victorians were flattened, as was much of its Victorian architecture). One great-uncle was killed there, when he left a shelter to get a glass of water for his pregnant wife; and other family members on Dad's side of the family were killed in the Clydebank blitz. My paternal grandfather was permanently disabled in service, but that was because of gun-runners in Palestine. (Yes - Outremer took its toll on my family...)

But I see no reason for this to make, say, a Pound lyric written in 1912 inspired by Arnaut Daniel, out of bounds because of the poet's later politics. It's not a proselytising piece. I know I'm pretty much everything the poet would have hated, and vice versa, but hell, I'm not going to have tea with him. If a writer is proselytising in a way I dislike, yes, I'll either not read it, or read it in order to construct a counter-argument. But if they're writing something non-ideological, no problem. It's not contaminating.

We can choose to be restricted by the past or by place - or not. Putting on a self-imposed set of blinkers ("I will not allow myself to like x because of y"), deliberate self-limitation, seems to me absurd. It gives the bad guys a kind of victory: they may not have achieved full domination, but they have made you restrict your life.

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the Nazis were homophobic, too.)

Yes, they were but as I've read their beginning has sort of gay nuances...there was the SA - they were openly gay - ok. they were murdered by the SS because of it, but those adoration for the Führer ...

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I'm not sure why Romanticism would be different in this respect than other writings. Do you think the writing of the Romantic is more likely to be subject to the demands of the ego than other types of writing?

Yes. I think it was part and parcel of Romantic ideology: the cult of the "suffering artist", and the personality-cult of the artist.

I'd read a few of his short stories - one in particularly that I very much loved - before I read the essay. After the essay, I couldn't bear to read any of his works, so I know nothing about the content. It is probably very good and probably the homophobia doesn't show. (He's a Mormon, so his homophobia is motivated by religion. As is so often the case.) The thing is, he put me off so badly, I can't motivate myself to read his subsequent works.

I think this is a good reason why it's better for artists to stay in the background, and not push themselves forward as 'personalities'.

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