Asian Art Cinema

Definitions of Art. Unclassificables movies Art, Sex & Violence and others

Personally I often find myself trying to classify or rate a film, specially asian ones and not finding a term or a category to put it on. It is like " a wong kar wai" film. Wong Kar Wai himself is a category of his own approach to aesthetics's, or you could said a "takashi mike" film and you know you are going to expect lots of blood. But still are hard to categorized. You cannot say "The postmen in the mountain" is a father-son movie only, or that "scent of the green papaya" is maturity. Etc.  I think everyone is clear that there are just movies that do not fall into a genre and explore here and there into different categories that we recognize. And many of those movies ended up being referred to as "Art Film" or "Experimental". 

Anyway, I called this group "Asian Art Cinema" and while I was looking through some of the films I put in I found myself wondering. Is this and this film an "Asian art" film ?. And many people will probably argue and disagree with my concept or art. But being this an open group I kind of put any Asian film that I have watch. So please feel free to add films to the list even if you don't believe it is "Art"

To take an example, we have "Oldboy" . I personally loved that movie. It was escene of extreme violence as well as what I consider to be extreme beauty (Hugging couple in the snow), It was a combination of sex and romance that i finded very well managed for being involved with "incest". There is Action, Comedy, Romance, Horror, Suspense, Dobule Personalities, and Detective like genre. But I still think this movie is an Art film, for his contemporary and different approach. Do you think that is art ? 

 "In the realm of the senses" and "Lies"for example really makes people think what the whole film wanted to say or was about, apart from showing a lot of sex. Is that art ? Takashi Kitano Is one of the directors that mix the pure Art scenes by definition, with extreme violence, and it is not hard to classify "Hana Bi" (Fireworks) as an Art film. But will you say the same about his film "Violent Cop" ?

So this discussion with myself is not going anywhere, but I hope you understand the confusion I have. To what point violence & Sex overcome a movie and tags it for it, How much until it goes in or out the "art" category. Is it ok to show extreme violence if is beautifully shot ? Or can we justify a rape scene by letting the rapist say a haiku ?

Let me know what you think ! 

PD: I didn't mention western films with similar "dilemmas " like "irreversible " or "9 1/2 weeks". But I think the discussion can include same category of films even if they are not western. 

Ivan 

Re: Definitions of Art. Unclassificables movies Art, Sex & Violence and others

Re: Definitions of Art. Unclassificables movies Art, Sex & Violence and others

Ah, that quintessential paradox.  Does it cease to be art if it makes money?  Or should it go one step further: does it cease to be art if it is simply accessible enough to make money?  In order to make money, it must be entertaining on some level.  And the word "entertainment" is what needs to be examined here.  There seems to be a common misconception that being entertained is a passive endeavor.  Not so; if that were the case, then we would be entertained by literally anything that occupied our time.  The very nature of our acknowledgement of whether something is entertaining is an active one.  So, something that requires even the least amount of thought still requires some thought.

So there's no reason to think that its commercial potential is even a factor because (and I'm aware that this is starting to become less true with the advent of youtube) if you're seeing it anywhere, it's a product.  Because someone put money into it in order to make some money back doesn't make it any less of a work of art.  As guilty as cinema is of requiring your money in order to have access to it, no one ever looks at books in the same way.  No one ever disputes that Catcher in the Rye is a work of art, despite the fact that it's not free to all and never has been.  So the publishing industry, which has delivered so much great art at a price, has proven that artistic integrity and commercial potential are not inversely proportional by design.  Without commerce, most of our art wouldn't exist, or at the very least be as available as it is.

I think the problem is that we think the quality of art is directly proportional to whatever intellectual or emotional stimulation it wears on its sleeve.  We consider a film like (in keeping with the theme of this group) Seven Samurai to be a work of art because of how engaging it is on visceral, emotional, and intellectual levels.  But what of films that don't deliver that same quality, yet inspire us to debate and sort out what makes Film A work and Film B fall flat on its face, and the like?  Can that be considered a type of "found" art?  Can we make a work of art out of something never intended to be such simply by interpreting it as art?  I think we can.  Many may disagree but I think it's worth talking about.

Art is selfish by its nature.  It is one person or groups thoughts on how something should be, what it should do.  Even if someone is standing on a corner, handing out their creation for free, still... they feel the need to spread their influence in some way.  So it's a selfish prospect, creating art, which is why commerce fits so well into it.  It satisfies all desires: the desire of the customer to acquire it for their own purposes as well as the desire of the creator to, at least share ideas, and at most share ideas and make money to be able to do it again.

Leaving it open for all sorts of films to be classified as art is probably the best way to go.  Not that anyone is keeping score but at least we'll know that we didn't leave anything out for consideration.

Re: Definitions of Art. Unclassificables movies Art, Sex & Violence and others

I certainly wasn't saying that art can't be an isn't commercial.  But what I'm saying is that if you are censoring yourself from the beginning, stictly trying to pander to the bottom line that does not seem to be art.  If that's your mentality then it doesn't even matter what the actual movie is, it just matters how you can sell it.  That mentality is once you've paid for your ticket, they don't care what you think.  Except that maybe if it's good you'll tell a friend.  But unfortunately most money is made on a movie in the first week anyways.  But regardless of that, even if they are banking on you telling a friend, there is less risk involved if you make things bland and the same as they have always been.  Instead of taking risks and doing something original which may turn out to be a great thing comercially of course, but there is too much risk that it would bomb as well.  So that's what I'm saying.

The main thing here is that something is being CENSORED.  For whatever reason.  If art has commercial properties but you can honestly say you didn't censor yourself along the way with that in mind, then the ultimate commercial aspect is irrelevent.

Definition of Art and Entertainment

Once on film school I was suppose to give a presentation on " Un chien Andalu" by Luis Bunue, the topic of the presentation was "Made to shock ?". Some people argue that he made the movie just to shock people, and that it was that fact who made him famouse rather than the actual aestethics or imaginary behind the film. It was such a hard topic to discuss. On one side, like Dali, he put so many subtext on the art direction revealing aspects of his own psique,  but in the other side, they were the new surrealist wave and in fact did wanted to shock people as well, for the sake of it, as an instrument of revolution I guess. 

The problem with art I pointed then, is that you can put an apple on an empty room, take a photograph, hang it of an art gallery and people will think "oh that is art", and everyone will find diferent meanings to it. But many people will think, that is just an apple, and it doesnt try to say anything. The ultimate truth about whatever something is art or not i think is on the perspective of the author and his own definition of art. If the director of a film believed that this shot, this scene, this lines, where his artistic expression, I think it gives it more chances to be recognized as art to others. Like, many commercial asian Kung Fu films are so focused on the Action, the Special Effects, etc, and most of the time they are not directed by the writer, they even use different directors for the fight sequences and for the dialogue. But there is not a clear "Vision". I think Vision is the key to the art paradox. If the director had a vision, it connected with the actors, with the cinematographers, and we the audience also connected, even for a moment of even on separate scenes, it gaves us the sensation of art. I guess it is like the magic of film. The 7th art.

I liked the idea achance42 gave us. 

achance42:

I think the problem is that we think the quality of art is directly proportional to whatever intellectual or emotional stimulation it wears on its sleeve.