76254
Saiyan Pride
- Local time
- Today 10:55 PM
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2014
- Messages
- 27
A couple years ago, my class took a trip to the Warhol Museum. Personally, I found it kind of overrated, but the point I'm trying to make here doesn't have much to do with my personal tastes. I saw this really convincing chainsaw sculpture that I thought was interesting, so I read the plaque beneath it. It said that the chainsaw somehow symbolized some aspect of capitalism, I can't quite remember exactly what point it was trying to make, but I thought "well, I never would have guessed that by looking at it." I found this to be a sort of intellectual cowardice, to hide the point you're trying to make to hide it from scrutiny.
I remembered how some time before that, I watched about the first half hour of Alejandro Jodorowski's "The Holy Mountain" before I thought "what the hell is this even about?" So I skipped ahead through some scenes, watched some clips here and there, no scene made more sense than another, and then I watched the ending. Wanting clarification, I read a synopsis on the movie, detailing how it was rife with symbolism, and the only thing I could conclude from the movie was that Jodorowski was an atheist, which I'm not even certain of. Any other point he had to make was too vague or too hidden in symbolism. So as I saw it, AJ used 115 minutes of running time and a $750,000 budget to say something along the lines of "Christianity sucks."
Judging by how lauded films like Begotten, the Holy Mountain, etc. are within the art community, it seems to me that too many artists think that any point they try to make somehow has more validity if they use some convoluted symbolism to express it, rather than presenting it honestly and straightforwardly. And I understand how films are made for dramatic appeal rather than to make any serious point, but I'd say that any point the director tries to make with a movie has no more validity than if they just made a statement, and wrapping it in vague symbolism seems like both a waste of time and effort, and intellectual cowardice. If you paint a beautiful picture that says "2+2=5," it might be heartwarming, but it's still wrong.
I put this thread in the films section, but this applies to any symbolic art. For example, Brave New World and Animal Farm might have been good reads, but they don't make Huxley's or Orwell's viewpoints any more valid than if they would have just plainly stated their views.
I remembered how some time before that, I watched about the first half hour of Alejandro Jodorowski's "The Holy Mountain" before I thought "what the hell is this even about?" So I skipped ahead through some scenes, watched some clips here and there, no scene made more sense than another, and then I watched the ending. Wanting clarification, I read a synopsis on the movie, detailing how it was rife with symbolism, and the only thing I could conclude from the movie was that Jodorowski was an atheist, which I'm not even certain of. Any other point he had to make was too vague or too hidden in symbolism. So as I saw it, AJ used 115 minutes of running time and a $750,000 budget to say something along the lines of "Christianity sucks."
Judging by how lauded films like Begotten, the Holy Mountain, etc. are within the art community, it seems to me that too many artists think that any point they try to make somehow has more validity if they use some convoluted symbolism to express it, rather than presenting it honestly and straightforwardly. And I understand how films are made for dramatic appeal rather than to make any serious point, but I'd say that any point the director tries to make with a movie has no more validity than if they just made a statement, and wrapping it in vague symbolism seems like both a waste of time and effort, and intellectual cowardice. If you paint a beautiful picture that says "2+2=5," it might be heartwarming, but it's still wrong.
I put this thread in the films section, but this applies to any symbolic art. For example, Brave New World and Animal Farm might have been good reads, but they don't make Huxley's or Orwell's viewpoints any more valid than if they would have just plainly stated their views.