BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Entertainment movies vs Good movies

besleybean · November 24, 2017 6:09 pm

(OT)In Scotland they have a wonderful word, though Liberty may have to help me with the spelling...a 'bidein'- as in somebody who lives with you, a partner...

Liberty · November 24, 2017 6:28 pm

I'm aware of the expression, but no idea of the spelling! Down here in England, I usually hear partner, but it's such an ambiguous word (often used for work relations), and doesn't sound nearly as cosy!

Kittyhawk · November 24, 2017 7:04 pm

OT: What happened to "common-law wife/husband"? I heard that used a few decades ago in a British film (by a police woman) and noted it down as translation for the German "Lebensgefährte".

Vhanja, are you saying that the people who define art as "whatever gives them a great emotional response" are wrong? Because if it's allowed to define art in such a way - which I consider reasonable enough, seeing that eliciting an emotional response is what some artists mainly seem to aim for (I'm thinking for example of Damien Hirst's "Mother and Child (Divided), or "A Thousand Years") - then it's perfectly acceptable to class a movie as "Great Movie" based on the emotional response one has to it. "Great Movie" would even be synonymous with "Great Art", given that all cinema is "le septième art" (7th art doesn't seem much used in the english-speaking world - maybe that's why France has such a rich and varied cinema production?)

Alternatively, we can also agree that art - and great movie/really good movie - are all rather meaningless words - but then this thread becomes superfluous, doesn't it?

For me art starts with perfect craftsmanship (there's a German saying "Kunst kommt von Können"), there's an element of timelessness (useless for modern art), the idea behind it should ideally be more profound than "let's see how much money I can make from this" (though where does that leave Op Art (my favourite form of visual art)?), and I believe it must have an emotional impact on somebody (not necessarily me, because I'm notoriously unimpressed).

By these criteria Tokyo Story is certainly a great work of the seventh art - though I'm surprised that you love it so much when you detest being manipulated into certain feelings by "scripts, dialogue, background music, framing, close-ups and acting techniques". Ozu has convinced more than one viewer with all these means to do something nice for their parents (which is not a bad thing)...

Edited to add: I consider the dig against John Williams uncalled for. The first Star Wars score was fantastic (one of three film scores I ever bought - and I'm not even a Star Wars fan), and he wrote the scores to Schindler's List and Born on the 4th of July, which are both good candidates for the Great Movies list...

Last edited by Kittyhawk (November 24, 2017 7:10 pm)

Vhanja · November 24, 2017 9:25 pm

Art is defined by the art milieu itself, that is what my "common-law husband" was taught when he studied the subject in University.

No, I don't think strong emotional response in itself can be a definition of art. As I wrote earlier, what elicit a strong emotional response in someone has often very little to do with the subject itself, but with what associations they trigger in the person. I.e, me being able to cry over a CC commercial.

Ozu very deliberately used very few of these techniques. The camera very often is completely still in many scenes, he uses very little music and very few close-ups. And he very consciously avoids the use of melodrama by creating an ellipse whenever there is a great emotional happening. Meaning: If there is a death of a close one or a wedding that happens in the narrative, he doesn't show it. He shows what happens before of after, but skips the big, emotional events themselves.

You can read more about it here if you are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasujir%C5%8D_Ozu#Legacy_and_style

You could of course argue that any movie would contain some level of maniuplation - after all, it's the director that chooses what he wants you to view and focus on. But I'm talking about the deliberate emotional techniques used by Hollywood.

I didn't really mean to have a go at John Williams - I absolutely LOVE the Indy movies and the theme that goes with them, for instance. As with anyone else in Hollywood, his craftmanship is excellent. He is just a very good example of the use of soundtrack and music to manipulate emotions.

But, yeah, I think I can sum up that to me, great art (movies, books...) are great to me if they:

- satisfy my intellect just as much, and hopefully more, than my emotions
- gives me new insight (not just talking about new knowledge, but new understanding/insight/revelation of some kind).
- leaves me to ponder the great ideas and questions afterwards

Those are my criteria. And to me, personally, very few Hollywood movies fill all three criterias. However, as I've said before, I spend very little time on these great movies/books. It is not my intention to come across as some snob who look down on entertainment - 95% of my free time goes to listening to pop music, drinking store-bought beer and watching an entertainment movie/reading Harry Potter or Johnlock fanfics/playing an rpg game.

Vhanja · November 25, 2017 7:27 pm

Oh, and just an afterthought after having read this thread again. Kittyhawk talks about the story (for instance, that she got the story of Tokyo Story very quickly).

To me, a sign of a great movie, is that the story in itself isn't important. It's just means to an end, and that end is to convey the ideas behind. So to me, in Tokyo Story, the story and the characters in itself aren't what's important. It's all the nuances, details and ideas that are transferrable to all of us. It's everything in the movie that isn't spelled out, but that you can read between the lines.

Vhanja · November 25, 2017 9:12 pm

I will go out on a limb here and ad a third post in a row. Just to make an example of where humour can meet art.

Have you guys heard of Ylvis? The Norwegian comedian brother duo behind "What does the fox say?" They are two brothers who are born of Norwegian parents, but - due to their parents jobs - spent a lot of their childhood in Africa, before returning to Norway in their early teenage years.

The point of that is that they even though they are Norwegians, they also have kept a sort of distant observation of the Norwegian culture. They are also incredibly skilled in music, which makes for a hilarious combination.

My point of all this is: Art can also be found in comedy. The video I'm showing here is just supposed to be comedy, light entertainment. But it actually has an awesome view of the Norwegian "new money". As you might be aware, Norway was a poor fishing and farming community until we found oil. And oil has led to "new money" in my generation, something that Ylvis manages to show spot on.

I show you this video because it has English subtitles, and because it's an example of where easy entertainment meets art, in my view. Because you can start quite a lot of debate about new money after his, and I LOVE their observational skills:

Last edited by Vhanja (November 25, 2017 9:13 pm)

Kittyhawk · November 26, 2017 1:24 pm

Unfortunately the subtitles are in Norwegian, as far as I can tell, so I don't have any opinion on the video. However, I'd like to point out that nobody here has ever said that comedy can't be art - quite the contrary, actually.

Now, backing up a bit. Vhanja wrote "Art is defined by the art milieu itself". I actually had been asking how to define art, not who defines it. Because the art people (with and without relevant diplomas) I have asked didn't have an answer either...

Vhanja wrote:
To me, a sign of a great movie, is that the story in itself isn't important. It's just means to an end, and that end is to convey the ideas behind. ....

There's a theory (and a TED talk) that humans are "hardwired for story". You may be the exception, but for me it's true. I want a good story (with interesting characters). The idea behind the story will only arrive in my head if the story doesn't bore me to sleep. Which Tokyo Story did not do - but only by virtue of its exotic setting, both in time and place. If the movie had been set in contemporary Europe, I most probably would have switched off after 20 minutes - or at the very latest after the first hour, when I felt that Ozu had said what he had to say. None of which was enlightening, intellectually satisfying, surprising or particularly entertaining for me.

Amongst other reasons because I had just seen the ideas Ozu wanted to convey (children leaving their parents and the misunderstandings between them, the difficulties of people getting old in a changing country) in Gran Torino, which is another Hollywood Masterpiece - a Great Movie - that you have probably missed.

If you dismiss Hollywood productions as too shallow because of Twilight, 2012 and The Day After - well, then you are basing your opinion on too small a selection of movies - just like SolarSystem her opinion of French movies. When I was about 12, my music teacher told me that my not wanting to sing pop music ("I just prefer classical") was snobism based on ignorance and not acceptable. "There is no good or bad style of music, there are only good or bad pieces of music." The same goes for film: There are no good or bad film genres or production companies - there are only good or bad films.

Vhanja · November 26, 2017 5:55 pm

The subtitles are in English, you just have to swith them on in YouTube (it's the YouTube-subtitles, not the ones that are already in the video).

For me, what I look for in a movie, varies. Sometimes I want to laugh and relax, sometimes I want to be scared, sometimes I want enjoy a specific actor and his/hers acting skills, something I want to just drool of said (or some other) actor. Some movies I watch because of the effects, other for the setting, others again for the story... there are a tons of reasons for why I want to watch a movie or read a book.

However, it doesn't have to have a clear narrative or a story. I enjoy that too, of course, but it doesnt have to be. Interestingly enough, while pondering this very point, I just realised:

- My favorite movie isn't storydriven
- My favorite book isn't storydriven
- My two favorite Johnlock fanfics aren't storydriven

As for snobism, I had hoped I had made it clear in this thread that 90 to 95% of everything I read/watch is entertaintment movies/books/tv-series. I have also written earlier in this thread that there are Hollywood movies with elements of being great. And I have never said that Hollywood was bad. Quite opposite, I've often mention that they are at the top of the class when it comes to quality of production.

Yitzock · November 26, 2017 8:37 pm

There was no captions button on the video. But here is a version where you can click the "CC" button for English captions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLjPJHpxpR0

Kittyhawk · November 28, 2017 3:56 pm

Vhanja wrote:
.... I have also written earlier in this thread that there are Hollywood movies with elements of being great. And I have never said that Hollywood was bad. Quite opposite, I've often mention that they are at the top of the class when it comes to quality of production.

"with elements of being great" is not the same thing as "being great" - so even when you are back-pedalling you are still saying that you consider Hollywood movies to be second-class compared to Tokyo Story - at least intellectually.

But I don't care - we've established that we expect completely different things from a movie, so there's no point in continuing the discussion or trading film recommendations (interestingly enough, there's zero overlap between our lists of favourite movies).

Vhanja · November 28, 2017 4:05 pm

If you think I am "back-pedalling" you haven't read my posts properly. I can't take responsibility for you reading something in it that I never intented.

Kittyhawk · November 29, 2017 1:35 pm

So what did you intend when you wrote:

Vhanja wrote:
There are entertainment movies, then there are good movies. Now, let me explain.

The one supplier of entertainment movies is Hollywood. Hollywood is about number one when it comes to high-quality production and entertainment. ...

Then we have the Good movies. To me, they are a very different breed. Good movies strive to do more than entertain. Good movies leave you thinking. ...

To me, entertainment movies are about melodrama. Good movies are the ones that make you have a very good and very satisfying intellectual discussion afterwards. It reaches something deeper than melodrama.
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But the "Good movies" category is something else for me. It goes beyond the script formula of Hollywood. (In Hollywood, you have genres that usually follows a set pattern and tropes. So if you've seen a few movies of a genre, you can often predict a lot of what will happen in other movies of the same genre). The movies are often easily accessible, play on melodrama, and there isn't much to get from the movie beyond the surface.
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I would say that a movie doesn't have to be good just because it's made by a smaller company, but there is a very little chance for a movie being made by a big company to be anything but a popcorn movie. Because big companies want movies to sell, so they go for the least common denominator. Genre movies follow a movie formula.
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Hollywood has made a whole industry on manipulating emotions in people. They use close-ups, soundtracks, lines and everything they can to manipulate people to feel whatever they want to feel. Production-wise, it's really, really high-quality. They are properly skilled in what they are doing. Often, I see through it and just get annoyed. Sometimes it triggers something in me and I get swept away in it.

But that is a set formula and has very little to do with a Great Movie in my book.
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To touch those kind of emotions are actually really easy if you are skilled in how to do it -and Hollywood really are. They use scripts, dialogue, background music, framing, close-ups and acting techniques for everything it's worth, really hitting you over the head with THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL NOW - SEE HOW SAD THIS IS!
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Quality isn't just one thing, though. If you look at the most superficial and simple action movie from Hollywood, the production quality is incredible. Probably rivaled by none. But to me, there needs to be something more. Something that isn't spelled out with anvil-sized hints. Something that deals with ideas, not just a particular story or a particular character. ...
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I understand from all this that you consider Hollywood to be incapable of producing what you consider Good Movies.

Last edited by Kittyhawk (November 29, 2017 1:36 pm)

Vhanja · November 29, 2017 5:47 pm

More or less, yeah. I am not going to state that Hollywood never have and never will produce a Great movie. I can't know that. However, according to my personal definition of the term, they very rarely do. Because Hollywood usually follows a formula, depending on what genre the movie belongs to. Therefore, it has to follow a certain narrative structure. Actors are usually slim and handsome (unless not being slim and handsome is a plot point) and the movies very often deals with melodrama.

I often get moved emotionally by Hollywood (because that is what they do), but I rarely get challenged intellectually or on a deeper level. Not because I am particularly intelligent, but because Hollywood caters to the least common demoniator. Similar to how the blandest commercials you will see are the international ones - because they have to be able to cater to a multitude of cultures.

But there is a long list of Hollywood movies that have elements of that greatness in them, as I mentioned before, and gave a very small list of examples of.

I don't think Hollywood is incapable of producing Great Movies. I think they choose to not to, because they go for what earns the most amount of money.

besleybean · November 29, 2017 5:48 pm

But they might just accidentally be good movies at the same time?!

Yitzock · November 29, 2017 5:52 pm

I tend to think something like that. While I'm wary of the idea of directors as singular authors of films, there's a reason we have the idea of the genius within the system. There's a reason Hollywood films can win awards. But there are a lot of non-award worthy Hollywood films, too, of course.

Vhanja · November 29, 2017 6:26 pm

They can be good, but not great.

Kittyhawk · November 30, 2017 10:42 am

For me Schindler's List is a Great Movie (though I remember the uproar when it was announced the Steven Spielberg (!) would make a movie on the Holocaust (!) in black and white (!)).

Gran Torino will probably end up on my list of Great Movies as well (I'll need to watch it a few more times to see how it holds up) - don't be put off by Clint Eastwood being the epitome of slim and handsome, he is also a fabulous director (and actor).

A Few Good Men is one movie that I consider perfect in every way - with lots of food for thought! (Anybody else wonder whether the movie could still be made post 9/11?)

Fried Green Tomatoes is another All-Time-Great, even if the idea that women can be good friends is not all that intellectually challenging (but rarely enough shown - where's a 21st century version?)

Even U. S. TV can be Great - The Wire will probably stay the best "cop show" of all times for years or decades to come.

Yes, the very good and great movies are few and far between - but 90 % of everything is crap! I'm sure that 90 % of Japanese movies aren't great either, we just never get to see them. Sadly, one needs to wade through the crap to find the few pearls...

Last edited by Kittyhawk (November 30, 2017 10:42 am)

Vhanja · November 30, 2017 11:28 am

Oh, yes, I do agree that 90 % of everything is crap. Then we have 8 % with elements of greatness and 2 % great. Or something.

Of your list I've seen only two of them. A Few Good Men is one of the movies I would put on the list of having elements of greatness. It certainly does give food for thought, I love that movie.

I watched Fried Green Tomatoes many, many years ago. I only remember I found it incredibly boring, but I was young and stupid. I might view it differently today. Is it similar-ish to The Hours? Another movie I think has elements of greatness.

Kittyhawk · December 2, 2017 1:26 pm

I only yesterday borrowed The Hours and have not yet watched it - from the text on the DVD there might be some similarities. Though I'm pretty sure that they don't show another perfect way for making disappear an abusive husband (that might be my favourite scene in Fried Green Tomatoes) ;)

Kittyhawk · December 3, 2017 9:56 am

The only similarity between The Hours and Fried Green Tomatoes is that the protagonists are women. I find The Hours depressing (everybody in the movie is unhappy!) and forgettable (I had already seen it, but didn't remember), whereas I've remembered Fried Green Tomatoes ever since my first viewing (which was when I was much younger and less jaded). FGT is sometimes sad, but on the whole I find it optimistic and uplifting...