The Art of Moving Pictures

Misconception about art

It is meant only for those with refined tastes
History suggests otherwise – eg. Shakespearean plays,
operas of Giuseppe Verdi
 Author’s idea
• Art of the moving image – the only art of our
time
• It is our universal art – comprises all others,
dance, music, literature, acting, stage design,
beauty of nature and the use of light and color
 Why is the moving picture art
• Always about us
• Uniquely modern
• Everybody can understand it 9like the
religious art in the church)
• All age groups like the experience
• Appeals to all social and economic classes
 The essence of art according to Bettelheim

• Not art with a capital ‘A’ - art that appeals to everyone

• That wich creates a uniques, blissful spiritual experience
• That which creates an awareness of an overarching, and a
larger, important cosmos
 The detriment to the healthy devt. Of the art of
Moving Pictures
• Efforts by aesthetes and critics to isolate the art of film from
popular movies and television
• Is contrary to the true spirit of art
• Reason – whenever art was vital, it was popular with
everyone
• Eg. Medieval pageants, mystery plays of Shakespeare,
Michelangelo’s David
 Art in disparate terms
• Should not think of art in varied terms
• We need both – visions that lift us up and entertainment that is down to
earth
• Art should speak to common men and elites alike
• Different ones would tear society apart and not lead us to the idea that
we need visions that bind us together, which, in turn gives the feeling that
life is a worthy expereince.
 Examples of three films
• Kagemusha – the Japanese film – the story is set in 16th century, but the
hero is of all times – of a petty thief who becomes an impostor, grows into
greatness – a false existence is turned into a real existence – his sacrifice
becomes meaningful at the end
• Laugh (original title: the Last Man) – story of a doorman of a hotel
demoted to cleaning washrooms
• Patton – hero at the highest level of society
• All three films affirm man and life – a celebration of life
 The purpose of using the three examples

• Choice – arbitrary
• Purpose – to illustrate their celebration of life
- in a form that is appropriate to the age
 The problem with our society

• Absence of consensus about what it should be, and what life in

the consensus ought to be
• Such consensus cannot come from society’s present age or
from imaginations about what it should be
• Reason – present - too close, too diversified, future too
uncertain
• It can come only from a shared understanding of the past
 Consensus
• Consensus – derived from a long history, one’s own language, common
religion, or common ancestry – these contribute to the myths by which
societies live
• The USA – country of immigrants
• Has a personality that is asocial and narcissistic – this prevents the society
from achieving a consensus
• Thee is widespread distress – at the declining of national morale and the
loss of the earlier vision and purpose
 Individual diversity in the USA
• The Americans need consensus about some overarching
vision
• It must be based on a myth, - a vision – about a common
experience (like the conquest of Troy for Greeks)
• A common myth offers relief from the fear that life is
purposeless
 Myths
• Myths are based on certain core values
• They are shared fantasies that form the tie
• Myths bind the individual to other members of his group
• They lead us to introspect our place by comparing it to a
shared idea
• Myths help us in keeping away feeling so isolation, guilt,
anxiety and purposelessness
 R W B Lewis’ idea of American Myth

• A new glorious world given by God - with a land that was

vacant, fertile
• Inexhaustible natural resources
• People who came to this world had a special energy, self
reliance, intuitive intelligence and a pure heart
• The mission of this land – to serve as a moral guide (The Great
American Dream)
 Myths and the Western movies
• The westerns – transmitted this myth
• Presented the challenge of bringing civilization to places where there was
none
• The dangers involved
• The wagon rail – symbol of the community that men must form on a
journey to an untamed wilderness (symbol of all the untamed within
ourselves)
• The western taught us the need for cooperation and civilization
• The rail road – link between wilderness and civilization
 Myths and the Western movies
• The hero of the western – the gunfighter – symbolizes man’s
potential – to become an outlaw or a sheriff
• The role of the sheriff – a myth for Americans – experiencing
victories and defeats, which made him wiser, learning to
accept the limitations imposed by civilization
 Myths and the Western movies
• This was a wonderful vision of man – made the American’s
life meaningful – served as a consensus
• But now it has lost most of its vitality, yet the nostalgic
infatuation suggests our need for a myth – that could
enlighten us about what it means to be an American today
 Myths for the growing -up
• The child – needs myths to provide the ideas about difficulties involved in
adulthood
• Fairy tales – can do this to a certain extent
• Disney films fail in this respect
• The child needs something that deals with the world of the child, the
problems that the child has to face in the process of growing up, to be
free from all bonds and test his/her strength
• The present shows for children talk down, insult the child’s intelligence,
and lower his/her aspirations
 Analysis of popular shows for children

• Some provide fantasies that relive anxieties

• Example – Superman, Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman – stimulate
the child to be strong and invulnerable
• The Incredible Hulk – confrontation with destructive anger – the Hulk
attacks only bad people
• Such shows have a certain value, but do not help in leading them to a
higher level, as myths do
 Science Fiction Movies
• Serve as myths about the Future
• These present man’s powers in the future
• They assure us that man would always emerge as the winner – man or life
cannot be destroyed
• Man’s basic concerns – that of overpowering the evil – to remain the
same
• Struggle of good against evil – not to have lost its importance
 Vision about the Future – based on the past

• Past and future – lasting dimensions of our life – present is a fleeting

moment
• The visions about the future contain our past – examples from Star Wars
and the Western
• Modern myths about the future cannot go beyond the search for life’s
deeper meaning, which is the choice between good and evil- if this
conflict is permanently resolved, then the world has no place for man.
 What do the Americans need today

• A consensus that includes the idea of individual freedom, and acceptance

of various ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs
• Such consensus must rest on moral values
• Art can do this – as it binds together disparate elements
• While for other countries, it is their ancient art, for the USA, it is the art of
moving picture
 Why –the art of moving picture
• A visual art – based on sight and provides us
with visions that connect us to the past
• Gives insight into our lives
• Tolstoy’s and Frost’s ideas
• The mythopoetic idea of delight and wisdom –
suitable to our modern life