catapult magazine

I can now chime in on this movie. I was very disappointed. It’s way too self-indulgent. I don’t care if the screenwriter knows he’s being self-indulgent, it’s still “shame on him” for being so.

The message of Adaptation is very similar to that of Signs, in my opinion. It seems like Hollywood people are so hung-up these days on finding personal meaning in life, as if that is the great end for mankind. What matters for Charlie Kaufman is that he has discovered himself in what he loves and it doesn’t matter who loves or doesn’t love him. And this is the great conclusion to his two hour struggle?

I also have a problem with the film’s perspective concerning what films are good for. Blah, I need to get the taste of this one out of my mouth!

First of all, before we go too far, I’m using the word “smash” in somewhat of a metaphorical sense as a reference to this age-old dilemma between iconoclasts and iconophiles. I’m not being literal on this point. If I were, then I’d be starting a bonfire for my Marilyn Manson cd’s this instant, and you know that ain’t happening!

The point I’m trying to make is that I DON’T want to smash artworks. I want to see the true value of art praised, so that we don’t just say something’s good merely because of its craftsmanship or because it is a great reflection of our day and age. We have to ask, what kind of a reflection is it? And is the perspective of the artwork valuable for human life?

When an artist puts something before the public eye, the artwork does not go on a pedestal where no one can touch it or dispute it or question its message. That kind of a society is just as dangerous as the one where art is burned and smashed. If the artist can hawk his perspective in the public market, then I may question its value.

I guess I just don’t see why you think a person’s perspective displayed prominently in a piece of art must be preserved and honored as untouchable, whether it’s right or wrong? Art history itself is the very battleground of perspectives! So why should we be disarmed from attacking one’s perspective? What’s so holy about a person’s perspective that it ought not be messed with?

Ok I misunderstood what you said. Of course art should be up for criticism just like everything else. Usually art is put on a pedistal because people relate to it; feel somehow moved by it. If people stop relating to it, it will come off the pedistal. People have different reactions to the same piece of art, and that’s the way it should be.

The fact that an artist’s philosophy isn’t the same as mine doesn’t mean that she cannot create great art. It’s hard (and maybe not valuable) to try to quantify art into numbers on a scale, but obviously there are varying degrees of greatness. So even if I think a piece of art is great and it has a philosophy I disagree with, that doesn’t mean it is the greatest—it could be greater. I didn’t hear anyone saying that art should be above questioning or examination. I think that’s important. But I don’t think we have to throw art away or say that it’s crap because it portrays an idea that we disagree with. We just have to acknowledge the bad and the good.

I realize that a discussion on art is slightly different than a discussion on a hollywood president’s image campaign, but there are definite similarities. In the other thread you say we’ve got to put to rest the idea that the “shadows on the wall are to be distrusted in favor of the true world of reality.” It seems to me that you’re saying something different now—that we should measure the shadows against truth and judge them accordingly. If that’s what you’re saying now, I agree. Again, I probably wouldn’t use the word smash as loosely as that—because I think we can and should appreciate and learn from art that is not Christian.

The question is: How do we find value in works of art? If we’re going to use a scale of greatness, then we’re going to have to decide what kind of scale we’re going to use.

I don’t like to use the scale of “artistic excellence”, which says that Michelangelo’s David or the Mona Lisa ought to be valued as great merely because they are examples of excellent craftsmanship or universal beauty. This scale says: DaVinci displays a great skill in replicating his mother’s smile with the Mona Lisa. Yeah? So what? If DaVinci’s skill was used out of sickness (as Freud suggests) as an attempt to immortalize his mother’s approving face, we are looking not just at a display of excellence, but at the work of a troubled human being who wrongly thinks art can heal his wounds or satisfy his deepest human longings.

We do an injustice to the richness of art itself when we stop short merely at DeVinci’s skill level. We deny the religiousness of artistic work and eliminate its ethical dimensions. We don’t do this in other areas of life. We don’t commend Bin Laden for his skilfulness at carrying out the 9-11 attacks as if that’s the only kind of judgment we should make. Why should we do the same for art? If the work of art is an act of destruction against human life, it ought to be condemned as such. So, we must ask “How is the artist’s skill being used?” when it comes to art just as we ask the same question when it comes to Bin Laden’s act. “To what end, to what purpose does art serve for human life?”

These types of questions force us to ask what is the “most appropriate” or “best” perspective one should have as an artist or viewer of art. In an attempt to answer this question, we might say that art attempts to reveal truth(s). So now we must come to some understanding about truth, which definitely brings us back to the core of the presidential propaganda debate in the other stream. Is there some kind of objective truth or real reality that we need to find? Or that art can show us? If so, then is this objective truth explained in terms of two worlds—the real world and the shadow world, or is truth subjective—split into multiple worlds belonging to each individual person, as a growing number of people believe these days.

As Christians believing in one world created good by God but made bad by human sin, truth is revealed to us through the Word of God (as John defines that term in the first chapter of his gospel). So, if God is the god of truth and this is God’s world, why not let God be the judge of works of art? And as God’s heirs, as his children, isn’t it our responsibility to measure the value of art according to His scale?

Now who’s being the enlightenment rationalist? Just seems funny that you’re talking about measuring art using God’s ‘scale’. If there was ever a vague concept, that’s one. So the question is, is art about ‘getting it right’? Is God so small that he can only be glorified by the handful of artists who agree to the same manifesto? Sorry about the rhetorical questions…

And I’m not ready to throw out the notion that great art equals Christian art (well, maybe when it is stated like that — but the idea behind it…)

Grant at one point you say that if the Mona Lisa is created out of sickness, we ought not to value it. But we are all sinners, right. The Mona Lisa exists, I would argue, due to a large measure of God’s grace.

Let me shift over to Shakespeare, of whom I can speak a bit more intelligently. The reason his work is reveared is that he has created something that contains Truth. Not all Truth, and certainly not Truth on the level that the Bible does — but he has accurately nailed an understanding about humans and their desire for power and the value of friendship, and (if you look at the Tempest) the fact that all good things are a matter of grace and should be responded to with forgiveness. We know so little about the man who wrote this work, and I certainly don’t want to get into a discussion of his sexuality, but I will submit that he was certainly sinful and definently troubled and as a Christian I value his work because i can learn a great deal from it about my world and my God.

I think he was working for the kingdom (as do all good things) but he may not have known that he was doing so.

What you’re doing with Shakespeare is what I’m saying Christians ought to do with the Mona Lisa. I disagree with Freud’s interpretation of DaVinci’s work. Freud sees the Mona Lisa as a work of a sick man and is saddened by it. A Christian ought to find value in it, but not the kind of value that I’m criticizing—not value just in the craft or skill involved. A Christian looks at these works of art and sees them as a discovery/revelation of the corruptness of human nature or of the desire for immortality or just of what colors, light and shape can do to evoke feeling in God’s world. That’s a different value judgment, a different scale than Freud’s or the “excellence in art” people.

And in response to dan’s comments/questions, I hear people talk again and again about how vague, how unclear God’s Will is but that just doesn’t ring true. If you read the Bible close enough and properly, God’s nature becomes very clear. I’m not saying we can think God’s thoughts exactly as He thinks them (not while there’s sin, anyway), but the Bible story reveals quite clearly and consistently what kind of God He is—what actions, behaviors, things He values. Paul says that God’s ways are far beyond our ways, but then in the same breath, he says: but we can know Him and be like him now that we have the Spirit. Paul asks his readers to try to think more like God, become “godly”, which is a process, just as learning to reason like the rest of mankind is also a process, a learned skill. Trying to learn how to measure things according to God’s scale doesn’t seem any vaguer than a belief that all human beings are born with a universal scale of Reason.

Then there’s no disagreement at all! I’ve been saying all along that people respond to art because it speaks to them. I don’t think most people go to see the Mona Lisa just because it’s a technichally excellent piece. It’s the mystery, the little smirk on her face, the eyes that speak volumes.

I don’t think there are many people who walk into an art gallery and spend most of their time musing about the corruptness of human nature or such. Most people respond to a piece based on whether is speaks to them or not. Great art speaks to people.

Adaptation may not be a ‘great’ film, but it is good insofar as people can relate to the struggle presented and enjoyed the ride. However, a lot of people seemed to like Chocolat, so it must connect with something that’s important. I saw it for the first time yesterday and disliked it. I don’t think it’s worth seeing, but I’m willing to listen to someone tell me how it spoke to them. Meanwhile I’ve got to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

grant, here’s a question: Are you willing to say your opinion of Adaptation is God’s? That all the people who liked it are wrong, or misguided—that they don’t have a proper understanding of God’s scale?