Today I watched the last episode of an awesome series called “The Prisoner” (1967). I won’t tell you what it’s about, but it’s pretty mind bending and makes you think about new and interesting concepts. Unfortunately, as the series progressive, it becomes more and more “arty” and begins to stray into allegory. The finale called “Fall Out” turns out to be a total mess with the entire episode seeming like a disjointed nightmare. The worst of it was that this episode was hailed as a major accomplishment and a testament to the skills of the director.
Now let’s get one thing straight. I’m a barbarian. I like things to be straightforward and have a clear meaning. Movies should have good and interesting plots – otherwise they’re pretentious crap. Those who praise “Artistic” movies that rely on “style” and “technical accomplishment” should, in my opinion keep their views to themselves. And for good reasons. There are a class of people (I’m sure you’ve met them) who need to feel superior, and when they’re told that such and such a thing is “classic”, will harp on about it even if it bores them to death – perhaps because it bores them to death.
Image Credit: emurray
Here’s a powerful illustration of what I’m saying. You know how “sophisticated” people talk about wine? They’ll drone on and on about how each wine is unique and reflects the vineyard it came from. Then they’ll taste it and pretend to pass judgment on its quality and talk about its “history” etc. I’ve always itched to do a proper randomized double-blind test on these pretentious snobs who just want to look “cultured”. Well, we recently found out that the notion of “minerality” – being able to taste the soil of the wine is a complete and utter myth. And people have been believing this crap for centuries.
I can find similar examples of people claiming to be able to distinguish between good and bad art. There is no such thing as good art and bad art. If people didn’t know they were supposed to appreciate Van Gogh, almost everyone would say his paintings are childish and immature. But because they know it’s a Van Gogh painting, they’ll ooh and aah over it and find hidden mysteries that only their eyes can see. Coming back to movies, there are similar tides flowing here as well. Movies that are crappy as hell are praised by critics merely because they’re supposed to be praised. Once again, I would love a randomized double-blind test to be done to weed out these phonies.
Citizen Kane is one such overrated movie. The American Film Institute however, thinks it’s the greatest movie ever made and has repeatedly put it at the top of its list of best 100 movies of all time. The truth however, is that it’s one of the most mundane movies I’ve seen. And if a movie is boring, it deserves not to be seen. I’m throwing down a challenge to whoever reads this. Watch “Citizen Kane” and tell me if it’s interesting. I don’t care about how groundbreaking it was in 1941 and how much it’s affected film making since then. I want to know if you think you can stay riveted on the plot and whether or not you can bring yourself to give a shit about a boring rich man who says “Rosebud.”
How a movie can be called the greatest of all time when it’s like watching flies fuck (to borrow a quote from the immortal George Carlin) is something I can’t understand. Movie connoisseurs who cream their pants thinking of Citizen Kane feel that just because a boring movie introduced new techniques in 1941, it has a right to be called the greatest.
Next in line is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another movie that’s as interesting as watching paint dry. Nothing happens until half an hour into the movie. We actually have 20 minutes of watching a space ship fly through space (and nothing else) with Beethoven Strauss music playing in the background. Mind, I enjoyed watching Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” immensely. It has a plot. But A Space Odyssey is an exercise in frustration. The only reason I forced myself to watch it was because I was waiting for the supercool computer villain HAL 9000. But even that wasn’t enough to make up for the sheer boredom of the experience. And the ending is confusing as hell. You don’t know what happened!
Of course, we see the same trend in literature and poetry too, where snobbery is the norm and a means of showing superiority. It’s so pervasive and frustrating, that it’s more noble to take a stand on the opposite extreme. So here’s my message to the “sophisticated” ones: I’m a philistine. I don’t understand all the “arty” stuff. Give me movies and literature with proper plots, paintings that are easy to understand and don’t expect me to know better. I’m sure you don’t really understand either.
For those interested, humerous article on why Citizen Kane is overrated.
@lostonthestreet
I hear you. Some examples of such books in my experience are:
1. The Great Gatsby
2. Ulysses
3. Heart of Darkness
All of these are supposed to be classics, but I found them ridiculously boring with hardly any good plot. I tried reading Ulysses twice but couldn't.
In reply to bhagwad
Gotta disagree on Heart of Darkness.
haha.I wrote the same thing about citizen kane,though in a totally different concept.
http://lostonthestreet.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/welcome-to-my-lesbian-paradise/
I often wonder how some books manage to stay on the “must read” list for ages,when most people would rather read the back of a shampoo bottle than proceed beyond 10 pages of said masterpiece.
@tp
I agree. Live and let live. To each their own.
I agree with Sraboney here Bhagwad, Art is a subjective thing, one guy’s art art is another one’s trash.
In 1980s when I knew nothing about paintings or painters I bought some chana from a DTC bus, it was wrapped in a glossy paper, and the paper had some bright coloured paintings – I liked the paintings and saved the paper (and still have it). I even copied the paintings and the style (very badly) – I was of course atrociously uninformed – those were photographs of MF Hussain’s paintings. My sister, who studied art, insists MF Hussain creates ‘saleable’ stuff and I tell her I prefer saleable stuff not ‘real art’ :)
And I, like you, prefer easy to understand styles, but I have seen people sit through Spicmacay and enjoy pure classical music which bores me to tears… so long as they try to put others down – it’s fine.
Sraboney had posted about how a highly talented and renowned musician played at a railway station and no one stopped or appreciated … I also feel give me an AR Rehman or Beatles any day :)
I totally agree with your statement about pretentious crap that flood in our world, especially the wine-crap. Im actually reading about "Michel Foucault" books right now, and I must said he is one pretentious cocksucker (quote from George.C), people like him should just burn and throw in a gay pile and raped by them. (In Foucault case he may like it)
in a lot movies books, art, music, there is a lot more going on than just the plot or main action.not trying to be pretentious, but the elements beyond the plot are more interesting to some people, myself included, but not all people. and there are naturally many ways to tell a story, convey a message, or do anything, art included. dont knock a pretty description that lasts for 40 pages as a piece of crap that someone wrote because they love hearing themselves in their head, or an “uninteresting” panorama of almost random clips, a 8 hour movie of just a field, silent movie with videos of the city, timelapsed, a 20 minute droning song, etc.. because most of the time, if not all of the time the artist, just by virtue of being one because if you really dont have anything you want to say or feel needs to be brought out of the inner depths of your soul, you would not become an artist, there is a reason for it to be done. even the most meaningless of things, if labeled art, or presented at all, has something beyond the surface. like if i presented a picture of just one pixel of my face, the fact that i did it could show that i have no respect for photography, want you to blow it up, that im just one thing among a sea of others, or that as the pixel blurs elements of yourself blend into the surroundings, millions of things, but i do understand that those types of things arent interesting to everyone, and try not to be a jerk about it when i get frustrated that no one else seems to think like i do about things. i also try not to hate on those who watch things only for the plot elements even when theyres a lot of stuff that I see going on beyond that, but ill occasionally get heated about it and sound pretentious but it happens to everyone when theyre frustrated, clearly whatever inspired this article got to you pretty good, and for showing the same type of closed thinking as these so called pretentious art wannabes,just in the other, better direction, you shouldnt condescend to them just like they apparently have to you.
what do you have to say about all the people who start watching action movies and jump on the bandwagon and love certain complex plot stuff, deep down because its cool, and dont want to say they watch alot of “art movies” for fear of being labeled pretentious, are they also pretentious? or is there a bit of a double standard going on here?
In reply to jim wilson
I guess there are lots of ways to to say something. Most people, don’t want to hear anything other than a good story. They’re not looking for hidden meanings and self improvement. Of course, the two are hardly exclusive. Good story tellers can easily weave their message into the plot.
Naturally I can’t have anything against those who want more than “just a plot” but I’m pretty tired of the same people arguing that their method is better. Why else would “top 100” books lists have horribly boring stuff like Ulysses on it? In the List of best 20th century novels, the editor’s list didn’t even have LOTR on it, whereas the readers list put it at No. 4. What does that tell us? It shows us a fundamental disconnect between what some people think good books should be and what we as readers know the good books are.
i am a movie addict and i watch a lot of movie in just one night, the greatest movie for me is Somewhere In Tome ‘,*
Sorry… You are just a moron
I see a lot of flaws in your thinking. While it is your right to freely believe whatever your heart desires, you seem to be hypocritical. I don’t know you personally, so I’m going to go by what you wrote, you yourself seem to have some kind of inferiority complex. Please, don’t take offense, although I can’t blame you if you do, but the fact that you conceived and wrote this particular piece shows your ego has been hurt/damaged in some fashion. I don’t know what motivated you to write this, but I can’t help but think that you are coming from an irrational, extremely subjective place. First, you go on to offend critics, “artsy” people, etc.. etc.. You reduce Citizen Kane to a “dump of a movie”, which is your opinion, not fact. These statements lower you to the exact types of “snobby” people you passionately hate, very ironic indeed. In your comments, you state that critics who list Citizen Kane and such movies at the top are wrong, and the movies/literature “average people” like, are right. You say, “It shows us a fundamental disconnect between what some people THINK good books should be and what we as readers KNOW the good books are”. So what you’re saying is that the so called “critics” and people who’s whole lives are dedicated to the art of films/literature THINK it’s good, but the so called average people KNOW it’s good. In other words the average people are right by some god given knowledge and the people who rank Citizen Kane, 2001, Ulysses, are just flat out wrong. Isn’t that the definition of pretentiousness and so called snobbery? This is double standard at it’s finest. And you state “most people prefer a good story….not hidden messages(symbolism, allegory…)”, what do you know about “most people”, have you met everyone in the world. How do you know what most people like. And if you say their is such a divide between “average/most people” and “critics/analysts”, have you ever thought the other way around, maybe their is nothing wrong with the critics, but the average people. Maybe, just maybe, “average people ” aren’t striving to be intellectual, therefore they fail to understand said art? I’m not implying anything, I’m just simply showing how hypocritical and extreme your rationale is. And how I can easily flip your argument the other way around using identical arguments. Lastly, while it’s your right to do whatever, you shouldn’t trash things simply because you find it “boring” or you just can’t understand it. Their are many intelligent people who devote their lives to your so called “pretentious art”, people who love the material, study it, debate it, and discuss it. Without knowing the history of said art such as film, paintings, literature etc… you really shouldn’t make such provocative claims and call it “bullshit”. Take a step back, and really think about what you wrote, and what you are claiming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not debating your intelligence, it’s clear you are an educated and intelligent individual. But, that should make you all the more inclined to be open minded. Life itself isn’t straightforward and doesn’t have a clear meaning so why should anything else?