Losing the ability to contemplate art for itself
Do you need a narrator to know where to look?
Do you need entertainment to enjoy this view?
Do you need lyric music to make you feel?
Do you need hero identification to suspend disbelief?
Do you need a climax to keep contemplating?
Do you need to pretend it's funny to make people watch?
Do you need narrative devices to contemplate this?
Do you need spectacular effects to enjoy this?
Related:
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| Red Fuji, 1831, Hokusai |
Do you need entertainment to enjoy this view?
 |
| Mont Sainte Victoire, 1887, Paul Cézanne |
Do you need lyric music to make you feel?
 |
| Le gobelet d'argent, 1768, Jean Siméon Chardin |
Do you need hero identification to suspend disbelief?
 |
| Still Life, 1934, M.C. Esher |
Do you need a climax to keep contemplating?
 |
| Oliviers avec ciel jaune et soleil, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh |
Do you need to pretend it's funny to make people watch?
 |
| Bay of Greifswald, 1834, Caspar David Friedrich |
Do you need narrative devices to contemplate this?
 |
| Swiss Landscape, 1830, Alexandre Calame |
Do you need spectacular effects to enjoy this?
 |
| View of Madrid from Capitan Haya, 1987-94, Antonio López García |
Related:
Comments
You realize that critics and historians spend more than the normal runtime of a film on it to study it in depth, right? Watching it over and over, frame by frame, extensive still shot analysis...
I came across your blog after reading your rebuttal to Nick James ( http://unspokencinema.blogspot.com/2010/05/slow-films-easy-life-sight.html ). There, I understood that the point you were making was on the distinction between critic and reader: between those duty-bound to critique films regardless of their 'value', and those who desire to watch films that have value in the fulfilment they provide.
Doesn't it now sound like you're contradicting yourself, that critic and reader should be one and the same, that the onus is on us if we don't appreciate a film because we "didn't study art seriously yet"? Don't we have a right as a reader (and not a critic) to dislike a film because it demands more energy from us than the fulfilment that it provides in return?
If a film resonates exclusively with critics and not with readers, doesn't that render the job of a critic in this scenario kind of... pointless?