Artistic value: objective or subjective

[Zell]

If Rush Hour 3 brought enjoyment to that many people then it was a good film. You and I may not think so but there are plenty of people who do.

 

You can't base a film's worth by how many people watched it! Just because most people thought something was good does not make it good. Hitler was voted in democratically, the majority of Germany thought he was a good leader, and boy how wrong were they!

 

The other point that DD is trying to make is judging a film based on one's own enjoyment is subjective, but its actual quality is objective.

[MoogleViper]

You can't base a film's worth by how many people watched it! Just because most people thought something was good does not make it good. Hitler was voted in democratically, the majority of Germany thought he was a good leader, and boy how wrong were they!

 

The other point that DD is trying to make is judging a film based on one's own enjoyment is subjective, but its actual quality is objective.

 

Of course it does. Good and bad are a matter of opinion.

 

And at the time Hitler was a good leader. He's only a bad leader because he lost the war. If he had won it then we would all be saying how he was a good leader.

[ReZourceman]

So who says what good cinema is? Artists? Bullshit! Even artistic film makers can't agree what is good and what isnt, so how can you say they have a standard to even judge by? At least with looking at it from an entertainment perspective you can rate a film based on how much you enjoyed it. And that's what we do. Hardly anyone cares about artistic merit. Yes, maybe that's shallow, but that's the world we live in.

 

Absolutely epicly true, and in fact deminishes entire argument.

 

:bowdown:

[Chris the great]

Why? When I rate a film it's ME rating it. Therefore the rating will be down to MY preference. If it wasn't down to my preference then I wouldn't bother reviewing it as there are plenty other reviews out there. If good and bad were indeed fact then there would only need to be one review for each film and any others would be the same. If OW is always right then why isn't he making money as a critic?

 

your bassicly saying you do what im surgesting we all do. it simply stops us getting shouted at for our lack of artistic apreciation.

[MoogleViper]

your bassicly saying you do what im surgesting we all do. it simply stops us getting shouted at for our lack of artistic apreciation.

 

Oh yeah sorry. I misread your post thinking you had put that we should judge it on the film merits not our own enjoyment. My mistake.

[Sanchez]

Godwin's law

[Dan_Dare]

There's no such thing as safety in numbers when it comes to criticism. Alot of you seem to be ignoring that.

[Goron_3]

Of course it does. Good and bad are a matter of opinion.

 

And at the time Hitler was a good leader. He's only a bad leader because he lost the war. If he had won it then we would all be saying how he was a good leader.

 

What YOU think are good/bad are an opinion, yes, but surely there is a standard when comparing films against each other in the sense that instead of comparing their entertainment values, you compares which is a better movie. To get that, you have to decide what movies are about; i mean, a good movie to me is one that is almost art in motion, one where the actors aren't acting but are so into their roles it genuinely feels like they are right there. A good movie should get everything spot on, though the problem is, we can't define what makes a good movie, we've just got to think with sense.

 

The same applies to music. I mean, look at Crank That' by Soulja Boy. It got insanely popular and came up on every tv channel and at every party i went too. It was popular people enjoyed listening to it but that doesn't make it a better song than like, I dunno, a real hip-hop song that might get zero air play.

 

Sorry if my point makes little to no sense, my hands are full!

[gaggle64]

Art and your opinion of it is purely subjective. That's why it's art, and not a steamship or a pair of binoculars or something.

[ReZourceman]

Art and your opinion of it is purely subjective. That's why it's art, and not a steamship or a pair of binoculars or something.

 

Exactly. Art is subjective. Now that is a fact.

[Shino]

Godwin's law

 

Hahaha, I didn't know that, that's brilliant!

[Sheikah]

Exactly. You're right. I don't disagree with this at all. Films can be art. But art is, as you say, subjective. But according to OW art is objective and there are factually better and worse forms of art.

 

Exactly. What critics think are the top 10 films is very subjective, and the #11 film might well be considered the #10 film by someone else. Put simply, some films you may obviously think are better than others, but it's madness to say that there can be films 'factually' better than others, especially when talking about a top 5. Anyone who doesn't see how wrong he is in saying that has not read his posts properly.

[ReZourceman]

Exactly. What critics think are the top 10 films is very subjective, and the #11 film might well be considered the #10 film by someone else. Put simply, some films you may obviously think are better than others, but it's madness to say that there can be films 'factually' better than others, especially when talking about a top 5. Anyone who doesn't see how wrong he is in saying that has not read his posts properly.

 

True facks here.

[Gizmo]

The thing for me is; by what criteria do we measure "art"? What is "art"?

 

I mean, the easiest way for me to think about this is with music, as I'm not big on film and such. Sure, more people may buy the new Arctic Monkeys album, but that doesn't mean they are better musicians than Jimi Hendrix. There is two sides to it; there is the subjective opinion, of how much it matters to you personally, and there is the objective opinion, of which is the more skillfull work.

 

The people arguing art is objective are saying that our opinions do not matter, and it is the artistic merits only that matter, correct?

 

And the people arguing art is subjective are saying that it is our opinion that matters, as art is something personal, that only we can judge, correct?

 

There are two ways of thinking about things. There are two sets of "criteria" for artistic merit. Who are you Oxigen_Waste, or who are you Sheikah, to say which criteria is correct?

 

There is no correct or incorrect. There is no right and wrong answer. There isn't in anything of this sort in our world; Russia invaded Georgia the other day. Was that right or wrong of them? To them, it was right, as they were protecting their citizens. To Georgia, it was wrong, as Russia was invading their land.

 

Right there; land and citizens. That is two different criteria with which to judge the merits of that conflict. Who was right and who was wrong is not a clear cut thing; there is no black and white answer to which is the correct stance. In the same way that objective and subjective are two things which co-exist - there isn't a right and wrong, just two sets of criteria.

[Haden]

Exactly. What critics think are the top 10 films is very subjective, and the #11 film might well be considered the #10 film by someone else. Put simply, some films you may obviously think are better than others, but it's madness to say that there can be films 'factually' better than others, especially when talking about a top 5. Anyone who doesn't see how wrong he is in saying that has not read his posts properly.

 

The Godfather is factually better than Bad Boys.

 

When it comes to top 10s thats different but some films are clearly better than others.

[MoogleViper]

The thing for me is; by what criteria do we measure "art"? What is "art"?

 

I mean, the easiest way for me to think about this is with music, as I'm not big on film and such. Sure, more people may buy the new Arctic Monkeys album, but that doesn't mean they are better musicians than Jimi Hendrix. There is two sides to it; there is the subjective opinion, of how much it matters to you personally, and there is the objective opinion, of which is the more skillfull work.

 

The people arguing art is objective are saying that our opinions do not matter, and it is the artistic merits only that matter, correct?

 

And the people arguing art is subjective are saying that it is our opinion that matters, as art is something personal, that only we can judge, correct?

 

There are two ways of thinking about things. There are two sets of "criteria" for artistic merit. Who are you Oxigen_Waste, or who are you Sheikah, to say which criteria is correct?

 

There is no correct or incorrect. There is no right and wrong answer. There isn't in anything of this sort in our world; Russia invaded Georgia the other day. Was that right or wrong of them? To them, it was right, as they were protecting their citizens. To Georgia, it was wrong, as Russia was invading their land.

 

Right there; land and citizens. That is two different criteria with which to judge the merits of that conflict. Who was right and who was wrong is not a clear cut thing; there is no black and white answer to which is the correct stance. In the same way that objective and subjective are two things which co-exist - there isn't a right and wrong, just two sets of criteria.

 

Exactly. Which is why "These are the 5 best animes, fact." is complete bullshit. Even if you look at something objectively you still have to judge it against some criteria. But as you said there is no right or wrong criteria. So therefore there can be no fact.

[Sheikah]

The Godfather is factually better than Bad Boys.

 

When it comes to top 10s thats different but some films are clearly better than others.

 

And considering he was saying that 'these are the top 5, fact', it completely proves that your analogy (comparing good films to pretty lame films) isn't what he was getting at.

 

Exactly. Which is why "These are the 5 best animes, fact." is complete bullshit. Even if you look at something objectively you still have to judge it against some criteria. But as you said there is no right or wrong criteria. So therefore there can be no fact.

Completely true...look at the film Billy Elliot. Did it have inferior special effects, camera techniques, etc to many films? Definitely. Things that you could say were factually worse about it still didn't affect many people's view in thinking it was 'better' than many other films. This is why judging if the content of a film as 'factually better' does not mean the film is actually 'better'.

 

I wasn't too much of a Billy Elliot fan, but that was just an example.

 

There are two ways of thinking about things. There are two sets of "criteria" for artistic merit. Who are you Oxigen_Waste, or who are you Sheikah, to say which criteria is correct?

 

I think you have completely misinterpreted what I was getting at. Simply put, I am saying that you cannot say that there are 5 films that are factually the best ever. I am not getting at anything else, other than this very obvious truth.

[chairdriver]

There are some films which I look at as art.

 

Dancer In The Dark is one, taken as an example. I absolutely love it, and cried several buckets of tears when I first saw it. I loved how Bjork "lived" the performance; she wasn't acting, she was Selma Jezkova. I would rate it 10/10.

 

However, some of my friends who watched it thought it was shit. I could say that my opinion was right, and theirs wrong, but how does one tell? DitD also got mixed reviews. One famous American critic (I forget his name) gave it 0/5, whilst others gave it a percentage score in the 90s. Do I trust the Cannes film board who awarded Bjork best actress, or do I trust the people who want to punch Bjork in the face?

 

I think art is subjective in a way, but not completely.

 

 

Alot of cinema isn't art though. But I have no idea how to determine whether a film is art or not, apart from using my instinct.

[Paj!]

I agree with Dan on many points, but I don't think people are stupid to enjoy films that are a bit rubbish. Presumably they're comedies or whatever..pocorn flicks.

 

I love beautiful or stylistic films, ones that are justifiably called art in motion. However, I've watched X-Men 3 (Also by Brett Ratner) a few times, and enjoyed it for what it was. Sure it perturbs me, as a massive X-Men fan, but that same token, I enjoy it.

 

It's not as good as The Dark Knight (within Comic films). Nor is it as good as Aliens or Terminator. (By any stretch of the imagination)

 

I believe pure enjoyment is different (and should be kept apart) from how good a film actually is. Sure, I get enjoyment from a film because it's good, but not always. (Depends of genre/content of film, really)

 

Also, I do not believe every film is made to compete with some kind of "art world" of films. Of course, by their very nature, films are an art form, capturing movement and excitement through different camera angles and such, but for example, "Hard Candy" is a much more artistically credible film than Iron Man. Hard Candy uses different colours to slightly tint the image at different points during the film to capture moods, only 3 actors in it creates tension, etc. Iron Man is an enjoyable and slickly made film, but doesn't compare in beauty.

 

However, I could guarantee that a lot of people would enjoy Iron Man more than Hard Candy.

[Haden]

And considering he was saying that 'these are the top 5, fact', it completely proves that your analogy (comparing good films to pretty lame films) isn't what he was getting at.

 

Completely true...look at the film Billy Elliot. Did it have inferior special effects, camera techniques, etc to many films? Definitely. Things that you could say were factually worse about it still didn't affect many people's view in thinking it was 'better' than many other films. This is why judging if the content of a film as 'factually better' does not mean the film is actually 'better'.

 

I wasn't too much of a Billy Elliot fan, but that was just an example.

 

 

 

I think you have completely misinterpreted what I was getting at. Simply put, I am saying that you cannot say that there are 5 films that are factually the best ever. I am not getting at anything else, other than this very obvious truth.

 

When it comes to top 10s thats different but some films are clearly better than others.

 

I was agreeing with you sheesh is it that hard to read a full post.

[jayseven]

I'm tempted to throw some Oscar Wilde quotes in, now that we've had facepalm and nazis mentioned aleady.

 

all the blahs

'Art' is actually just a big joke that some stoned caveman made up once. Art is just the obnoxious human instinct to be so self-involved, and in love with their own thoughts.

 

Gah. I was going to go make a thread about how annoying it is when you have to make a big deal out of a small thing just to highlight the fact that it's a small thing, but I think this entire thread has done that for me. When you have two people (or sides) arguing, where one side is basically saying "I'm right" and the other side says "I don't care what you think", then the 'winner' is kind of defunct.

because you're basically saying art (all art) is useless and has no purpose, and the only gauge of worth is profit!

 

God, the thought of that being even possibly true might just make me take to the streets with an M16.

The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely. All art is useless. Trufax.

 

Moogle's absolutely right.

 

If it were free to 'buy' a DVD or go to the cinema, how many films do you think would be out there? Very very few becuase they wouldn't have any money to make them.

*points to youtube* ... plenty of people make stuff irregardless of money. But then maybe you can argue they do it for fame. Which just basically means they do it for sex. Most people fail.

 

and at thread in general (and for hypocracy lols);

 

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

 

I rate this thread 2/10

[Kirkatronics]

It all oppinion, critics ratings are their oppinions.

Sites which gather visitors ratings show mass oppinion, mass opinion is not fact.

[ReZourceman]

*points to youtube* ... plenty of people make stuff irregardless of money. But then maybe you can argue they do it for fame. Which just basically means they do it for sex. Most people fail.

Its true, I mean I know I put stuff on YT, heck my latest video I put up this morning....

 

 

....Link in my sig.

[Haden]

Wow shit this thread is free falling to a objective 1/10 rating now haha.

[The fish]

*wades in*

 

Opinions are all entirely personal. Facts apply to the scientific method, and conclusions draw from it. If you include opinions on the scientific method, it's no longer scientific, and therefore no universal facts can be drawn.

 

Also, if I think a film is good if it had good, long stationary shots, like, say, Pulp Fiction, and a friend thinks that a film is good if it has a shots that change a lot, like, say, Star Wars, then in my mind, Pulp Fiction is better, but in my friend's mind, Star Wars is.

 

Of course, it's more complex than that, but I hope you can see the extent to which particulars of art is factual is entirely personal.