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jackSo, is it artistic or is it just pretentious?
And at what point can I offer an authoritative opinion on that? There are certainly books I thought were just pretentious at the time, but later decided were clever, and conversely books that at the time I thought were clever and later decided were overlaying interesting cliche ideas with a veneer of looking-clever.
(Please, someone provide examples, none come to mind.)
What makes a movie seem clever? I can think of three aspects:
* Saying something complicated (eg. Memento)
* Creating a sense of mystery (eg. Lost)
* Throwing together a lot of random shit and expecting the audience to put it together. (Naming no names)
Of course, #3 can support either #2 or #1. The difference is, if #2 is what you want, then that's what #3 gives it. But basing #1 on #3 is basically cheating -- people are saying "Well, I didn't understand it, and other movies I didn't understand were doing something really clever."
So, #2 is a skill. But if you spend four seasons dragging things out by pretending there's a big overarching plot the audience are supposed to work out, and then wrap it up in a lame get-out, people can be bitter. You can legitimately claim such a thing is "beautiful", but I don't think it qualifies for "clever" in the same way #1 does.
Eg. I think people forget how good Matrix 1 really was. Philosophically it had one really simple message "we could be living in a matrix". And it explained that well -- they discussed and showed implications of it, and just before you're told that, you should in theory be able to work it out. Matrix 2 and 3 *tried* to do that with predestination, but just made up mystical sounding bullshit.
Eg. Babylon 5 always had something mysterious going on. But you kept finding out more and going "aha". Whereas I'm assured X-files descended into pretending you were going to find out more, but was actually just a string of randomly chosen clues to give the impression there was somewhere to go.
Eg. A mystery novel. If it's done well, the true answer is the only possible answer. If it's done badly, you just string a lot of random clues together and assert there's only one solution, without that being in any way deducible.
Eg. Hyperion. The sequel does a *quite* good job of explaining the mysteries. But the true strength is in the mysteries of the first novel -- they'd have the same impact whether they had resolutions or not.
Where does Thomas Crown fit? The first time I saw it I thought it was mainly pointless. Now I thought it was quite enjoyable, the references to paintings, TC's motivations, etc all quite beautiful.
It feels like it's making some kind of overall point. But I don't think it is, I think the message is just "Thomas Crown is cool". Which comes across well, so I class it as a "good #2".
And at what point can I offer an authoritative opinion on that? There are certainly books I thought were just pretentious at the time, but later decided were clever, and conversely books that at the time I thought were clever and later decided were overlaying interesting cliche ideas with a veneer of looking-clever.
(Please, someone provide examples, none come to mind.)
What makes a movie seem clever? I can think of three aspects:
* Saying something complicated (eg. Memento)
* Creating a sense of mystery (eg. Lost)
* Throwing together a lot of random shit and expecting the audience to put it together. (Naming no names)
Of course, #3 can support either #2 or #1. The difference is, if #2 is what you want, then that's what #3 gives it. But basing #1 on #3 is basically cheating -- people are saying "Well, I didn't understand it, and other movies I didn't understand were doing something really clever."
So, #2 is a skill. But if you spend four seasons dragging things out by pretending there's a big overarching plot the audience are supposed to work out, and then wrap it up in a lame get-out, people can be bitter. You can legitimately claim such a thing is "beautiful", but I don't think it qualifies for "clever" in the same way #1 does.
Eg. I think people forget how good Matrix 1 really was. Philosophically it had one really simple message "we could be living in a matrix". And it explained that well -- they discussed and showed implications of it, and just before you're told that, you should in theory be able to work it out. Matrix 2 and 3 *tried* to do that with predestination, but just made up mystical sounding bullshit.
Eg. Babylon 5 always had something mysterious going on. But you kept finding out more and going "aha". Whereas I'm assured X-files descended into pretending you were going to find out more, but was actually just a string of randomly chosen clues to give the impression there was somewhere to go.
Eg. A mystery novel. If it's done well, the true answer is the only possible answer. If it's done badly, you just string a lot of random clues together and assert there's only one solution, without that being in any way deducible.
Eg. Hyperion. The sequel does a *quite* good job of explaining the mysteries. But the true strength is in the mysteries of the first novel -- they'd have the same impact whether they had resolutions or not.
Where does Thomas Crown fit? The first time I saw it I thought it was mainly pointless. Now I thought it was quite enjoyable, the references to paintings, TC's motivations, etc all quite beautiful.
It feels like it's making some kind of overall point. But I don't think it is, I think the message is just "Thomas Crown is cool". Which comes across well, so I class it as a "good #2".