When we go to a movie, we know we’re watching entertainment, but are we watching art?  Big Hollywood readers should take a look at Abraham Kaplan’s 1966 essay, “The Aesthetics of Popular Art” if they are interested in a set of criteria that distinguishes popular art from what some might call “high art.”

Kaplan’s essay is too detailed to summarize here, but there are a few criteria that crystallize exactly why most films don’t resonate with audiences.  So if you’ve ever wondered why it is that a movie just didn’t do it for you, even if it was entertaining, this may help explain it.

By the way, Kaplan is quick to point out that this is not an exercise in snobbery.  “Popular art” does not necessarily mean “bad art,” and “high art” doesn’t have to be boring and pretentious.

Shape vs. Form

When we watch a movie, we are usually focused on the movie itself, and not on our experience of the movie.  We are interested in outcomes as opposed to the unfolding of events.  We are engaged by curiosity, but not by suspense.  It’s like looking at a sketch of Michelangelo’s David as opposed to beholding the sculpture in all its glory.  We have traced a shape but not experienced a form.  In other words, we don’t have to do any work as a viewer.  It’s all predigested.

Think about the difference between Little Miss Sunshine and Mulholland Dr. I enjoyed the former, curious about how it would end, and let it happen to me.  With the latter, the experience of the mystery unfolding is itself the purpose of the film.  I was engaged entirely by suspense.  We impose ourselves and our perception onto Mulholland Dr., whereas we merely recognize and acknowledge Little Miss Sunshine. (more…)

That Robert Duvall is one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen is incontestable. His roles as Gus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove” (1989), Sonny Dewey in “The Apostle” (1997), and Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies” (1983), are simply unforgettable. In addition to these characters, Duvall gave us famous lines that have literally worked their way into our nation’s lexicon over the years. In particular I’m thinking about his lines, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” (“Apocalypse Now,” 1976) and “It’s a pretty day for making things right” (“Open Range,” 2003).

Although Duvall has received an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards, among other recognitions, I concur with film maker Lionel Chetwynd in saying that Duvall has not been “elevated to the unique place he [deserves to occupy] in American art.”

So why hasn’t Duvall been elevated to that unique position? Generally, it’s because he’s not your run of the mill Hollywood personality: he makes his home in Virginia instead of Los Angeles or New York City. And specifically, it’s because of his politics.

By his own admission, Duvall “[tends] to be conservative,” which is better that being a leper, but alienates just as many Hollywood elitists nonetheless.

And Duvall isn’t just talking when he says he tends to be conservative. For instance, not only is he open about the fact that he didn’t vote for Obama in 2008, but he laughingly told Mike Huckabee that, “if given the chance, he wouldn’t vote for him again.“ Keep in mind, Duvall not only attended a McCain/Palin rally in Albuquerque during the 2008 election cycle, but also introduced Palin to the crowd there and held a sign reading: “Drill Here! Drill Now!” (I’m sure Robert Redford is pleased as punch about this.) (more…)

Rather than proceed with the more obvious examples of Hollywood Left … as I had promised, films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Reds and Inside Man, I’m drawn to a much subtler message in the great classic Casablanca.

Perhaps every movie buff has tried to write – if only in his or her own imagination –  a sequel to that great film classic, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Rick’s advice to Ilsa in the last scene of the film, that the problems of two little people don’t amount to much during World War II?

How could true love be defeated by an obviously Communist father-figure such as Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo?

“That’s a hefty charge, Mr. Moriarty.” (more…)

27 July 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

Afghanistan as seen from Washington and London.

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