Cracker: Wallywood
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But that point - analysing the film is an incorrect response - has come up time and again on PAS as well.
But only on PAS, interestingly. Out on the wider internet, you couldn't move in December and January for analyses of Avatar. From a green perspective. From a socialist perspective. From a Native American perspective. From a SF genre perspective. From a Christian perspective. From a Hindu perspective. And then all those reviews that complained it was anti-war and anti-American.
Last year, David Bordwell, the American film scholar, talked about how amazed he was at the amount and the quality of the analyses of Inglourious Basterds that he found online, as an internet-age phenomenon. It used to be that you would wait months for that stuff to turn up in journals. But that was dwarfed by the responses to Avatar.
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"Quality," or "value," as described by Pirsig, cannot be defined because it empirically precedes any intellectual construction of it.
I think part of the impetus to critique with this much passion is somehow affected by the fact that film is a team assisted sport, heavily reliant on finance. There's an equation we run through in our heads in which we ascertain how much of the production process we understand, we divide the budget by our going rate, subtract the hype and evaluate whether with the same amount of resources we could do better.
If Avatar were an indie costing $2m, reactions may be very different. I don't think it really qualifies as bad, just average Hollywood fodder.To break things down such as focusing simply of Cameron's imagination and vision of another world, one would be hard pressed to say justify a 'crap' rating.
Like Michael Jackson in his dancing prime, who could justify calling that dancing anything other than quality? But the film Moonwalker on the other hand...I love it, but not everyone's cup of tea.
At least something like this, no time to think it out carefully, work awaits.
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But isn't that marketing? It's marketing that tells you that the correct response to an arthouse film is reflection
Well, depends on the film. In the case of L'Humanité, the film is very skillfully made and forces you to reflect on certain aspects and unanswered questions.
I've also sat through some gawdawful arthouse guff where the only thing I've been minded to reflect on is whether I can get my money back. It's failed both as entertainment and as an aid to reflection.
If you take 2012, for instance, that's what the film is overtly about, it stops just short of making the characters wear t-shirts that say "this film is stupid, don't bother analysing it". Avatar is different, though, it tries to be deep and meaningful; so does The Matrix. Both Cameron and the Wachowskis have made explicit claims in this regard. Cameron even spoke Na'vi at an award ceremony for heaven's sake.
A fair point, but possibly a case of 'Emperor's new clothes'?
After the release of 'Matrix:Revolutions', I suspect people weren't so much sniggering up their sleeves as guffawing openly in the faces of the Wachowski brothers.
The appropriate context for the Hollywood 'community' is success. It's all they care about. And since Avatar was successful, no-one is going to call Emperor Cameron on it. But despite the deluge of articles analysing Avatar from a thousand different perspectives, is anyone outside Hollywood and The Internet really taking it that seriously?
So on the one hand it's the films themselves that claim to be about big ideas and Truth and not just the spectacle. But then if you do try to examine those big ideas, you get shot down pretty much right away. People take actual offense. And that's really the extent of my objection to Avatar and the Matrix - not that they're bad films, but that they're bad films that narrowly define how you're allowed to feel about them. I think that from a cultural point of view this is not harmless but actually quite unhealthy.
A thought: Perhaps part of the problem is the reaction of the forum/community that you are attempting to discuss this within?
Cameron/The Wachowski brothers almost certainly don't give a monkey's whether the world outside Hollywood think the films are good or not. They were successful, and that's all their peers care about.
You/I/we don't head to 'Yourviews' for a detailed discussion on...well, anything, really.
But you did come here and raise some points about Avatar - to a community you perhaps anticipated would be more receptive to an in-depth anaysis? And you didn't get the reaction you expected. Is that perhaps part of the frustration? Hope that's not out of line.
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Make of that what you will. He's losing me a little because I tend to think that quality is entirely contextual, something he has only mentioned in passing so far.
He is losing you, Rich, because he is talking bollocks. Pirsig is claiming that aesthetic values are objective truths; more than that he wants these values to be accepted as elementary and natural. His aim is anti-intellectual, to prevent discussion. We must accept wisdom instead: that the wise (people like him) can detect this quality and we must accept their wisdom.
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it did suggest that the book [Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance] was a bit of a gyp in its grandiose title.
Well, to be fair to him, the 'author's note' on the very first page says:
[this book] should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either.
It was also written in 1974, when field-stripping and repairing more or less the whole of a bike using just the tools you carry with you was quite possible. And knowing everything about computers, from code to hardware was probably possible, too.
Field repair of a modern fuel-injected bike? Not so easy. But they do tend to go wrong a whole lot less....
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He is losing you, Rich, because he is talking bollocks. Pirsig is claiming that aesthetic values are objective truths; more than that he wants these values to be accepted as elementary and natural. His aim is anti-intellectual, to prevent discussion. We must accept wisdom instead: that the wise (people like him) can detect this quality and we must accept their wisdom.
I'm starting to suspect you're right. But at least I'll be able to say I've read it. Next up in Essential Reading for the Modern Masochist: Finnegans Wake!
But at some point, you have to accept that some things actually *are* artistically 'better' than other things
So which is better artistically Hamlet or Lear? Tolstoy or Dumas?
I guess I'm reiterating your point another way Danielle. That is that only analysis and criticism can provide a satisfactory answer to this question.
But if some things are 'better' than others, that implies there is a way to 'measure' the 'betterness' of them.
So who sets the rules?
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The day that analysis and criticism provide a satisfactory answer to an aesthetic question will be a memorable day. I am not making space in my diary.
We set the rules. Our aesthetic values are subjective and communal - they are arrived at by discussion. It is easy enough to drop the names of great masters, while avoiding the fact that often their reputations went through long periods of neglect. They were not so good, in an objective sense, that people always recognised them as good.
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He is losing you, Rich, because he is talking bollocks. Pirsig is claiming that aesthetic values are objective truths;
I couldn't be sure on that point. It came across to me that he was trying to say that the aesthetic value was in the quality of the way you interacted with the object. He was fond of the word "gumption". Which suggests that a stone wall can be a great work of art if you look at it the right way.
But perhaps I was reading in a little too much Zen - IIRC there is some parable about one of the Patriarchs staring at a wall for years, that it was a deep and profound thing to do. But the lesson in such parables may not be at all what one thinks, particularly in a ... practice? philosophy? tradition? method? ... such as Zen Buddhism.
My own opinion is that it's not clear either way, whether aesthetic truth is objective. It could be objective, but impossible to know, or nobody does know, or it is known, but it is not known that it is known. Or it could be subjective. I'm not sure that exhausts the possibilities.
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Reading for the Modern Masochist: Finnegans Wake!
look out for this forthcoming transport of delights
~ Finnegan's Bike by Steven Joyce... -
3410,
We set the rules. Our aesthetic values are subjective and communal - they are arrived at by discussion.
We don't arrive at an answer to whether something is factually true by discussion (though we may discuss it, no discussion has any influence on the answer). How is aesthetic value different?*
*Note: not necessarily disagreeing; just testing your claim. -
Totally, and I get that. It's precisely the fact that he did use a translator that, to my mind, nixes the suggestion that Avatar trivialises native languages. If he'd stood up and delivered a flawless, untranslated peroration worthy of MLK or Winston Churchill, that would be a trivialisation.
Whether or not he could have spoken the speech in fluent Nav'i after three months, for the purposes of the movie, the makers clearly want the speech delivered in English to the audience can hear it and feel inspired by it and whatnot, rather than have to do that via subtitles.
All due respect, but without the 3D... I dunno... hard to say whether I would've said anything positive about the film...
My partner and I rewatched it on Friday night having seen it a month or so ago in 2D (and enjoyed it), now that Dunedin has 3D. We were both underwhelmed. I'd never seen a 3D movie before, but it really didn't add much for me. The effects were kinda cool, but the things that I thought might be really cool (arrows, missiles coming out of the screen) seemed to be way too fast for me to catch.
I taught myself how to do this when I was a kid, sitting in our dining room and staring at the wall opposite.
A kindred spirit! I used to find this terribly annoying when I was a child, I couldn't make my eyes focus on things properly so there were always two of them. It didn't seem to be until I was an adult that I could control it. Now I have to consciously make it happen, haven't even thought about it for months.
Both Cameron and the Wachowskis have made explicit claims in this regard. Cameron even spoke Na'vi at an award ceremony for heaven's sake.
I made the decision quite some time ago to enjoy movies and the people in them, regardless of whether those people are foolish twits or not. Case in point, I like watching old Christian Slater movies (Heathers, Pump up the Volume, Kuffs), yet I know he has on occasion beaten his partner. I'd probably also watch a Polanksi movie, despite him having done something pretty bad in the past. I'm vaguely aware that Cameron has an ego about the size of Pandora, and says things about his movies that are somewhat stupid. I'll happily disconnect that from the actual movie however.
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But you did come here and raise some points about Avatar - to a community you perhaps anticipated would be more receptive to an in-depth anaysis? And you didn't get the reaction you expected. Is that perhaps part of the frustration? Hope that's not out of line.
More or less. I wrote elsewhere about the reaction of Herald readers to Calder's critique of Avatar and was very surprised to find it echoed here.
But despite the deluge of articles analysing Avatar from a thousand different perspectives, is anyone outside Hollywood and The Internet really taking it that seriously?
Yes. The print press has spent litres of ink on Avatar, Zizek reviewed it no later than last week in the New Statesman. And Philip is right that there has been a lot of critical attention, but whenever it has occurred in a generalist forum rather than in a film or political forum, I'd argue that the reaction has been similar to the one that has occurred here and in Your Views.
And The Matrix, deservedly or not, is one of the most studied and written about films in academia and the film press.
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3410, the discussion may not cause the truth to be made, in the case of objective truths, but it could help for some of those truths to be discovered and/or communicated. But for subjective truth (depending on the context of the subject - is it an individual, or a group?) it's not so clear. Perhaps the individual or the group does set their own reality by some form of discussion?
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We don't arrive at an answer to whether something is factually true by discussion (though we may discuss it, no discussion has any influence on the answer). How is aesthetic value different?
Because we are not arriving at an objective truth, but at a value . Citizen Kane is not a great film objectively, but it appears in most people's lists of great films and the qualities it possesses in abundance are those qualities by which greatness in films is judged. The Beatles are not the greatest pop group by any measurable quality, but their greatness could be shown by the influence they have had on subsuequent musicians.
These values can change. There are many composers and artists who were well-regarded in their day but whose reputations have suffered since. There are others - Johannes Vermeer is an example - who were little known in their day, forgotten after it, but rediscovered much later.
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3410,
Citizen Kane is not a great film objectively, but it appears in most people's lists of great films and the qualities it possesses in abundance are those qualities by which greatness in films is judged.
Equally, there are certain films which possess almost none of those qualities. The high level of general agreement over whether or not Citizen Kane is a better film than Robot Monster (1953) would seem to suggest that there is some objective basis for value, no?
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It came across to me that he was trying to say that the aesthetic value was in the quality of the way you interacted with the object
That may well be true of some forms of aesthetic experience - possibly of Avatar. Discussion of the film is part of the experience for many who have seen it, as is attributing meanings to the film. It seems to be an allegory without an obvious meaning, so intepretation becomes part of the experience of the film.
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The high level of general agreement over whether or not Citizen Kane is a better film than Robot Monster (1953) would seem to suggest that there is some objective basis for value, no?
So long as you are judging the films by those values, those values appear objective. However, in some respects, Citizen Kane and other classics set the values by which other works are judged.
It is also noticeable how other values can come into play - someone said earlier that Avatar would be thought of better if it were a low budget indy. Values of authenticity - independent film-making auteurship - have come into Cinema, since Kane's day. Authenticity is not really an aesthetic value - it is an ethical one, but it often serves as an aesthetic value: think of all those sincere singer-songwriters suffering for their art. Think of The Hurt Locker for that matter: it seems to have beaten Avatar not because it is an aesthetically better film, but because it is perceived as a more sincere film. -
3410,
So long as you are judging the films by those values, those values appear objective.
Which "those values"?
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The high level of general agreement over whether or not Citizen Kane is a better film than Robot Monster (1953) would seem to suggest that there is some objective basis for value, no?
Or it suggests that we have a homogeneous view on the matter. Perhaps people from other cultures might think Robot Monster kicks some arse. Kids might too. Robots and monsters think it's an assault on their dignity, of course.
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3410,
Have you seen it? The robot monster is not even a robot (?!).
Or it suggests that we have a homogeneous view on the matter.
Okay, but why?
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Which "those values"?
The values by which we consider films like Citizen Kane to be great. I agree that Robot Monster is unlikely ever to be regarded as a better film, but a more serious film of the period - The Man with X-Ray Eyes say, might.
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The robot monster is not even a robot (?!).
By what values?
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Okay, but why?
Well, in my case, having seen neither film (Fatso hasn't got Kane to me yet), I'd go with "because people rave about it". Which I don't think is a small matter, when it comes to aesthetic value.
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3410,
I agree that Robot Monster is unlikely ever to be regarded as a better film, but a more serious film of the period - The Man with X-Ray Eyes say, might.
Sure, but if you're trying to prove that it's all subjective, then you must accept that Citizen Kane is no better than Robot Monster.
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3410,
The robot monster is not even a robot (?!).
By what values?
Okay, you got me. There Is No Such Thing As Meaning. I submit. ;)
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