What does it mean for a movie to be “Art”? What separates an
“Art Film” from the big mainstream blockbusters that roll by every summer? Or
the pretentious Oscar bait that pompously parades itself through theaters every
December? I think “Art” is not in the movie, but in the viewer.
I like to define “Art” as the interaction between the “experiencer” (the person watching, reading, looking etc. at the work) and the “Work” (the movie, book, painting, videogame, etc…). A movie is nothing more than a series of images with related audio, a book is nothing more than words and letters arranged in a specific order, a painting or drawing is nothing more than materials arranged on a canvas and so on. The “Art” is created when someone brings their own ideas, biases, and history into the work, and takes out of the work something about themselves, the world, or anything really.
Now that I’ve established how I define art. It is now possible to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post. What makes a movie an “Art Film”? I say it is not a quality of the movie itself, but how you experience it. What might be an “Art Film” to me might be inane nonsense to another person (or vice versa), because the film doesn’t address their ideas, biases, or history in a way that makes sense to them. Does this mean that Michael Bay’s Transformers could be considered an “Art Film”? Perhaps, but not necessarily; some movies lack the depth and complexity to be interacted with, and thus can’t be art to anyone. Now, none of this is to say that pure escapist and “Artless” movies are worse in any way: Citizen Kane may be a masterpiece of art, but on a Sunday afternoon I’m FAR more likely to watch one of the Resident Evil movies. The important thing to take away from this is just about any movie could speak to you in a way that no other movie can and you could learn more about yourself and your life and the world from all kinds of movies from horror to sci-fi and Oscar bait dramas to Godzilla. Art is everywhere if you only look hard enough.
I like to define “Art” as the interaction between the “experiencer” (the person watching, reading, looking etc. at the work) and the “Work” (the movie, book, painting, videogame, etc…). A movie is nothing more than a series of images with related audio, a book is nothing more than words and letters arranged in a specific order, a painting or drawing is nothing more than materials arranged on a canvas and so on. The “Art” is created when someone brings their own ideas, biases, and history into the work, and takes out of the work something about themselves, the world, or anything really.
Now that I’ve established how I define art. It is now possible to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post. What makes a movie an “Art Film”? I say it is not a quality of the movie itself, but how you experience it. What might be an “Art Film” to me might be inane nonsense to another person (or vice versa), because the film doesn’t address their ideas, biases, or history in a way that makes sense to them. Does this mean that Michael Bay’s Transformers could be considered an “Art Film”? Perhaps, but not necessarily; some movies lack the depth and complexity to be interacted with, and thus can’t be art to anyone. Now, none of this is to say that pure escapist and “Artless” movies are worse in any way: Citizen Kane may be a masterpiece of art, but on a Sunday afternoon I’m FAR more likely to watch one of the Resident Evil movies. The important thing to take away from this is just about any movie could speak to you in a way that no other movie can and you could learn more about yourself and your life and the world from all kinds of movies from horror to sci-fi and Oscar bait dramas to Godzilla. Art is everywhere if you only look hard enough.
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