Relative Merits

I was browsing through the "Community" section of OvationTV.com when I came across a discussion titled "Is crap art?" Naturally, I opened it, expecting to find longwinded hypertechnical discussions of why things that appear to be crap are actually art ... but found that the entire discussion began with a question relating to this photograph:

This picture was taken by a member of the OvationTV community named Theriff. It is a picture of crap. Horse crap, specifically, that he saw while cleaning up his corral. (A propos of that, he refers to himself as a city boy. But city boys don't have corrals, let alone clean them up. Every city boy knows there must be somebody you can call when you need a corral cleaned up.) He wanted to know what people think of his horse-poop photo. I guess he wanted, really, to know if it was art.

Naturally the discussion included the requisite scatological references, but what surprised me was that only a few of the serious comments that followed implied an appreciation of crap art. This leads me to deduce that the writers are not, at heart, artists.

I say this because of a conversation I had nearly twenty years ago with two friends who played in the symphony orchestra here in town. They were both on my soccer team, along with a third musician who couldn't take living in this metropolitan backwater, and I believe went back to Europe. Oh well. Anyway, I used to have season tickets to the symphony, and when the sideline conversation came to discussing the music, as it invariably did, I mentioned, in a fashion much more sensitive than I am generally given credit for being capable of, that I was noticing more and more pieces that were, shall we say, somewhat discordant. (What I had actually noticed was that more and more pieces were crap, but like I said I was going more for new-age--sensitive-90s-kinda-guy than I was unreconstructed-troglodyte.) The fact is, I don't like discordant music. (It takes all my willpower to avoid putting quotes around the word in that context). I find it discordant. Jarring. Unpleasant. I was ready to refer to a piece I'd heard the previous Saturday night as "a traffic jam in Havana," but there was no opportunity, because these two guys launched into an enthusiastic discussion of the wonders of such music.

I won't try to reconstruct their thoughts; first of all it was two decades ago, and second, it was too technical for me to follow in detail. It had to do with mathematics, and different musical scales, and music theory. I got the gist of it, but that was about it.

But my point is that these musicians, people who make their living performing orchestral music, found things of great merit in this music. I would not be overstating it if I said, based on that one conversation, that they found beauty in discordant music. After my initial inquiry, I had little to add to the conversation -- every now and then they would try to include me, but all I could do was nod, and frown sagely -- but they were gradually transported to a higher plane as they considered the construction and cohesion of these pieces. These pieces of crap.

Of course, the next question in my mind is, who's paying to hear that crappy music? Eventually, the answer was "not enough people," because the orchestra had to go back to performing more of the sort of music that I and my unreconstructed-troglodyte brethren would actually consider music without quote-marks, to avoid losing its public and philanthropic funding. (No one was more surprised than me when the local soi-disant arts community forced that change.)

So it is entirely possible that the universe of crap overlaps the universe of art, in ways that are only appreciated by artists. (The horse-poop photograph, I think, is not art: it is just a surprisingly pretty picture of a mundane subject.)

2012?

Take a simplistic new-age take on an ancient idea, mix it with postmodern relative humanism, throw in a raft of mediocre acting and dramatic, even melodramatic, special effects, and you have the makings of 2012. If you pay full price for your ticket, you will either feel cheated, or you have very low standards for entertainment. On the other hand, if you see the bargain matinee or, even better, a second-run showing at the dollar theater, you'll thoroughly enjoy this meaningless and predictable high-tech adventure.

I predict -- I'm going out on a limb here -- that by the time the actual year 2012 is history, this film will have worn out its audience's interest with thousands upon thousands of opportunities -- that, perhaps, should be in quotes -- to view it for free.

Another commentary on the movie "Avatar"

I went to see James Cameron's new movie, Avatar, yesterday, something I've been planning, and trying, to do since the movie was released. Normally I don't bother with seeing movies in 3D, but I've heard so much hype about how much better the technology is that I decided it'd be worth the extra money to see it in that format. (But not all that much extra: while local high-end theaters are charging up to $14 for the 3D version, I saw it in very clean and comfortable surroundings for $6.25, on the po' side of town. Figure an extra dollar for the gas to get there, and I saved enough to see another movie.)

The 3D technology is certainly better than it was decades ago, but it's still no big deal. It only makes a difference for those moments when something on the screen comes directly at the camera, and that isn't very often in Avatar. There was no scene I can think of in this movie that begins to compare with the moment in Jurassic Park when a velociraptor launches himself up toward the air vent where the humans -- and the camera -- are. All in all, I wouldn't pay extra again to see a film in 3D. (I was at Disneyland a few months ago; the 3D they use in some of their shows appears to be exactly the same: good, but not worth much of a premium price.)

I won't trouble you with describing the plot. Avatar is, basically, Dances With Wolves with computer-generated aliens instead of Sioux Indians, and a happy ending,  as predictable as the prize in a box of cereal, instead of a poignant one. I've heard this movie described as having a "heavy-handed environmentalist message," but I'm relieved to say it's not as heavy-handed as people have made out. Still, the message is simplistic, completely lacking in nuance, as are all of the human characters. Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang, could not be more of a cardboard cut-out if the part had been written by Dick Cheney (who probably considers the character an heroic one). Corporate lackey Parker Selfridge, played by Giovanni Ribisi, is an insult to cardboard characters, and of course to corporate lackeys everywhere. (I wonder if the corporate lackeys at Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation felt anything personal?) Even Sigourney Weaver's character, Dr. Augustine, has all the depth of a Melba toast square. Only the computer-generated characters had depth and detail.

But this movie isn't about characters. Sitting in the theater watching it, you are perfectly content to dispense with agonizing over the subtleties of characterization, or looking for any nuance in motivation, and concentrate instead on the lush visual experience on offer. It is amazing. No wonder many viewers are suicidally depressed at not being able to go to Pandora themselves. Sometimes, when my life is as dreary and empty as theirs must be, I feel the same way about not being able to go to London.

The detail in the computer-generation of scenery, flora, fauna and characters is as mind-blowing in the 21st Century as the first Star Wars movie's special effects were in the 1970s. Every detail seems to have been given full attention; I can't recall any moment when I thought something looked incomplete, half-baked, or out of perspective. This is especially surprising in those moments when the elegantly tall Pandorans, the Na'vi, are shown interacting with real human actors. Even Peter Jackson's magnificent Lord of the Rings trilogy didn't quite get that sort of juxtaposition right every time.

Still, for all the fabulous images and beauty in this movie, I predict it will not join the ranks of Timeless Great Films. Its message, its meaning, is essentially a currently-popular political viewpoint; it won't be that long before it seems naive, trite and hackneyed. This gorgeous movie is no Titanic, no Gone With The Wind, not even a Star Wars. At bottom, it's a phenomenally well-crafted piece of money-making entertainment, a technological tour-de-force instead of a classic for the ages. Go. See. Enjoy. Get over it.