(The same goes for film in general, by the way, "AN" was just my example...)

Film is in a category of its own in my book. Of course there are films that have similar artistic attributes as other kinds of art, e.g. 12 Angry Men is basically an Aristotelian theatre piece even though it's actually an adaptation of a teleplay, The Hand by Trnka is a digitalized puppetry, The Passion of the Christ is a passion play and so on.

If we stick to analyzing the similarities between film and other kinds of media, Apocalypse Now has scenes which try to evoke the atmosphere similar to dark ambient music but even though it is a good film, it is very much overshadowed in this aspect by Tarkovsky's Stalker, which was released in the same year.

Haven't seen "Stalker..." :/

What standards are then, if it's own medium? How do you, personally, judge a good film from a poor one?

I previously said I felt "2001: A Space Odyssey" was, to borrow the phrase T.S. Eliot used to describe "Hamlet," "an artistic failure,' due in large part to the same reasons--a weak cast of characters besides the main (though I would SEVERELY contest Eliot on that in the case of "Hamlet," Claudius, Ophelia, and now, increasingly due to the 20th Century's interpretations of them, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are all roles with some very good substance to them, and Polonius is decent enough, if not too radical...really, of the mains, it's only Getrude that's truly static enough to be considered "weak," even Laertes changes) and the "author" of the work simply trying to do to much, reaching to do far too much with one work, and, while ambitious in his attempt, ultimately fails due to a lack of focus (again, I'd argue this isn't true of "Hamlet," but then we'd be here all day.)

Weak characters and a lack of focus, and you can tack on over-ambiguity and vagueness to that for 2001.

That was my charge, anyway...I said it LOOKED nice, but knocked it for the same reasons T.S. Eliot knocked a stage play.

I'm wondering now if that's an unfair charge...

Are the characters MEANT to be weak (again, excepting one here, HAL is by no means weak, GREAT character!)
Is it trying to do too much and failing due to such a reaching attempt?
Is it overly-vague (for a FILM, anyway...again, if I were to judge this as any other kind of drama, it'd be a resounding YES! and it's not like I dislike ambiguity or grey areas for interpretation, but when interpretation because nearly the ENTIRE film, we're back to my problem with calling a blank canvas that has not been touched by anything a "painting;" even if you wanted to call it "art"--and I'd really contest that too, but I'll leave it be, since at least I think everyone could agree it's not a "painting" without...well, PAINT, or something marking the canvas, that's the definition, after all, of "painting.")

So, in the case of 2001: A Space Odyssey (and I use it here as my example for discussion 1. Because we've had a previous discussion on it, so there's some background to build on here, 2. It's probably the most critically-acclaimed film I have ever seen and strongly disagreed with its receiving such acclaim, 3. Many people here HAVE seen it, so it's a big enough film that most here can probably jump in and talk about it, and 4. It's a perfect example for my question here):

1. Do these problems exist?
2. If so, do they "matter" in terms of what film is, or is it part of the media's nature?
3. If not...well, HOW, because they seem to exist for me, whether they're "problems" or not...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57vCBMqnC1Y&feature=relmfu

Obi, I think you would like Stalker, even though it is in a way quite similar to 2001, the 4 main characters (Stalker, Writer, Professor and Stalker's wife) have something to them and there are few philosophical monologues after all ;)

A blank canvas can be considered art, despite some slight touches, Rauschenberg's White Paintings are essentially just that. Indeed, when I pointed my friend to Cage's 4'33", he said that it was a pinnacle of all music endeavour, The End of Music in the same vein as Fukuyama thought of The End of History (nevermind it being overenthusiastic nonsense). Just as listening to 4'33" allows you to listen to your surroundings and therefore every performance of it is completely different, looking at a blank canvas will probably result in you seeing some optical illusion or some projection of pictures in your head.

It's probably important to make a distinction between a good film per se and film that is good because it offers you what you want. Normally, one doesn't need to make this distinction but if you are interested in reviewing films that are not your cup of tea, there's no other way. I like How High much more than 2001 but I'll readily acknowledge How High is several tiers below 2001 when we take film as art, as film per se.

Having weak characters in a film is not necessarily a bad thing. I dare to say Kubrick wanted to achieve exactly that. In this case, it doesn't damage the artistic quality of the film unlike in case of some movies modeled on the schematic of socialist realism. Kubrick wanted to accentuate the synergy between picture and sound whereas socialist realism was ultimately about people, their efforts, morality and heroism. And when a film about people is full of figures that are either completely black or completely white and never ever change their colour, it's a bad film.

OK, that was funny for once, fiedler... XD

(Though I despise Objectivism and Socialism alike, so those two points don't apply...but the very fact I've just responded in that way makes your point that I'm f fucked fool...

OR AM I???

;)

...No, seriously, probably yes, but I'll enjoy it for the moment.)

:p

Before I adress the film comments, I need to adress the white canvas/4:33 bit, ulytau.

First, 4:33.

4:33 IS NOT music, and that is a pretty astentatious claim to make, to declare emphatically that something is not what it is claimed to be, but I don't make taht declaration lightly and, on the contrary, would argue that your friend must give some sort of argument besides the one given by you to claim that it is music.

I REALLY don't care for Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logical Positivism, nor his Tractatus (at this point fiedler's probably rolling his eyes and answering "Pro: I don't give a shit.) ;)

But his concept of Signifiers in written and auditory communication and art are nevertheless valid and the logical conclusions to make--for a language to work, Wittgenstein argues, there must be signifiers which correspond to a certain something else, ie, the letter "A" corresponds to a very particular couple of sounds.

The argument may be summed thusly (and, in true Wittgenstein fashion, mathematically, for our math fans out there):

A=A.
A=/=K
A=/=(Blank Space)

"A" doesn't correlate to a "K" sound, and so it is not "=" to it, nor is "A" free from any defined sound, so it's not "=" to nothing, silence, or anything of the sort.

A is ONLY = to A, as that is the definition of A.

Now, this, according to Wittgenstein, applies to language and art, and according to him, this is how art and language works--assign a symbol to something, and the symbol stands as a particular signifier for something, ie, it's "definition," and so even though there may be in front of me the sheet music to "Bohemian Rhapsody"--I thought I'd use someone besides the composers, as everyone is tired of my using them, and anyway, I like Queen, too--and on my computer it may be playing from the speakers, these two things are really the same thing, one is the "symbolized" version, and one is the corresponding auditory sound. It's the same thing, "said" two different ways, but the "definition" of the thing is the same, sheet music or audio music, it's still "Bohemian Rhapsody" and IS ONLY EVER "Bohemian Rhapsody" AND NOTHING ELSE, or, to put it another way...

Bohemian Rhapsody sheet music=Bohemian Rhapsody audio music.
Bohemian Rhapsody=Bohemian Rhapsody.
Bohemian Rhapsody sheet music=/=Hey Jude sheet music.
Bohemian Rhapsody audio music =/=Hey Jude audio music.
Bohemian Rhapsody=/=Hey Jude.

Now, apply this to "Music" as a medium.

The Webster's Definition:

Definition of MUSIC

"the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity"

Where does 4:33 violate that?

-ORDERING tones; there is no ordering in 4:33 by your own admission that every performance is different in nature because of different ambient sound, whereas music, as is defined here, has an ordered, SET correspondance of tones, ie, Bohemian Rhapsody's sheet music does NOT change, it is ordered, whereas 4:33 changes each time, by your own admission (there is a counterargument to this that I've heard, which I'll adress momentarily.)

-Ordered TONES; this implies different NOTES, the way a sentence implies different LETTERS, ie, SIGNIFIERS to make the point, and so, in the same way that you cannot have a sentence with no letters, you cannot have a musical score without notes (again, there is a counter to this I've heard, which I'll adress in a moment.)

-IN SUCCESSION implies, again, that there is a set succession of these notes and, again, 4:33 does not have this succession; waht is more, if we wanted to read into "succession" that this is supposed to be a LOGICAL succession of notes, ie, a pre-ordained pattern, then this, again, would be something 4:33 lacks, as you'd be hard-pressed enough to argue that the ambient sounds occur in a pattern as they are, by your own admission, not controlled and different each time, but even if we allow THAT, there's still the fact they are not, and cannot, be PRE-ORDAINED patterns, as the whole point of 4:33 is that it is NOT pre-ordained, but unique each time.

-"In combination" Essentially, take the "in succession" part, and add to it the fact that these sounds are meant to be intentionally combined, whereas 4:33 is, by ITS definition, incidental and ambient and therefore CANNOT occur in a determined combination.

-"UNITY and CONTINUITY" The "continuity" bit is easy enough to spot, as 4:33 changes each time and therefore lacks continuity from one instance to the next, and, as the sounds are incidental and may come from many various sources, you would again be hard-pressed to argue 4:33 has a "unity" about it, with all these different sources colliding, but even if this was established, however, there is still the fact that there is an utter lack of continuity and thus a breach in the definition of "music."

NOW...

The two counters I hear most often, and my responses:

1. "4:33 DOES have order to it in that it is, musically, all "rests," which are valid and recognized parts of music, and so 4:33 IS composed ot musical elements, ergo, it is a musical composition."

My two points there:

-To adress the second half of that first, just because something has certain elements of a musical composition does NOT automatically make it so, in the same way that, while periods, words, commas, and the like are parts of a novel, their appearance on a recipt does NOT make that recipt a novel--there is more to a novel than those elements, and while you may--correctly--say all the elements of novel do not have to be in place for a work to be considered as such, enough have to be present to make it so, and, just as a recipt=/=a novel, ONLY rests=/=a complete musical score

-Rests are analogous to "0" in mathematics, a LACK or ABSENCE of denotation, and as such, this raises problems for the statement rests=notes; there is debate whether "0" is a number or not, and so while I cannot and will not flat-out say rests are not notes, it seems rather hasty to go the other way and jump to the conclusion that they are.

2. "Rests ARE 'tonal denotations,' and so 4:33 DOES have a set, pre-ordained score, one composed entirely of all rests."

My three points in response:

-First and most obviously, to say 4:33 has a score seems to violate the very IDEA of 4:33; isn't the point supposed to be, as you said, that it's different each time, and NOT pre-ordained? A score is something set, and 4:33 is supposed to be free of that...so, if this is a position you adopt, that 4:33 is different each time, and yet it has a set score, composed entirely of rests, doesn't that seem rather contradictory?

-Second, if we DO somehow accept 4:33 as a set score and grant that rests=notes, we have the issue of the NATURE of those notes; as said earlier, "A"=/="K." "A" can only ever equal "A". As such, rests are defined as PAUSES in the score, ie, pauses in between notes...the very term, "rest," implies a BREAK between two periods of action, in this case, musical action, and so, if no notes are played, these rests become irrelevant, it's merely pause after pause after pause with nothing preceding or succeeding it, and so, much as no sentence can be ",,,,,,," with no words between those commas, a musical score needs notes between the rests.

-EVEN IF we make what I'd consider to be an absurd concession and say that not only are rests=notes and you CAN have a score of all rests, which is basically the same as a sentence with all commas, then that is still THE ONLY THING THAT IS ACTUALLY COMPOSED WIOTHIN THE BODY OF THE SCORE ITSELF AND NONE OF THE AMBIENT SOUNDS THEN ARE PART OF THAT SCORE. If I write a book composed entirely of commas, and then in the bookstore, where its being sold, you read this book of commas as two people by you recite lines from "Hamlet" in rehearsal for a school play, that does NOT mean my book should of commas all of the sudden may be credited as having these lines of "Hamlet" be part of the book. To give a musical example, if I am listening to a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1, and the guy next to me suddenly has a brain anuerism from having debated philosophy with me for hours before the concert and starts convulsing and smacking into chairs and makes a lot of noise, this noise is NOT now part of the score, nor is it attributable to Tchaikovksy, he gets no "credit" for these involuntary sounds that occur OUTSIDE HIS PRE-ORDAINED SCORE. Likewise, even if we accept rests as notes and 4:33 as a score, ALL it is now is a score completely composed of RESTS...NOTHING MORE can be attributed to 4:33, unless you are also willing to attribute the words "Fuck you, asshole!" from a fight you hear outside while at a play to Shakespeare and say it's now part of "Macbeth."

Your rebuttals are very poor, considering you probably used them before :)

4'33" gives clear instructions to the performer as to what instrument one should use (any single or any combination of multiple instruments), what notes and when should be played (none, all the time) and how long is the composition, including the division into movements (4:33 and three). If the instructions included only the type of instrument to be used and which note pattern should be played, it would suffice to be considered musical composition. I can go on, grab my keyboards and play 4'33" following these instructions just like I could play any other composition.

There are no debates about the nature of 0, it is a proper number unlike infinity.

There is nothing contradictory about 4'33" having a set score and being different every time it is performed. When you perform live music by analogue instruments, you exactly follow the score (otherwise you would play something else or interpret poorly, at least if it wasn't your intention) and the outcome is always different. That applies to 4'33" just like to any other composed music. If I played 4'33" and accidentally touched my keyboards, I would be still playing 4'33", albeit very poorly. Would a bad performance of 4'33" count as music to you?

Not this argument is not really important for me but the idea seemed funny so let's try it. A rest is not necessarily a break between two actions. Rests are regularly placed at the beginning of the composition, there can be even more of them in a row. Imagine a composition where the score for all instruments requires 3 quarter rests before any note is played. What are the first breaks for? To explain their purpose by your approach, you have to reffer to the notes that stand after them. However, if a note has a meaning in itself, why cannot a rest have a meaning in itself too? And of course it does, any rest has a well-defined meaning - the player must not play any note. A rest defined as a period of inaction is much more well-defined than a rest defined as a break between two actions because it doesn't require any further refference to anything else.

Your last point is meaningless. I play 4'33" by not doing anything. Of course the ambient sounds are not a part of the score but who says they are? That's a completely strawman argument. Cage is not taking credit for the background noises you hear while listening to 4'33", he takes credit for the score of 4'33". You buy ticket for 4'33" performance, you want the artist to stick to the score. Since he is not responsible for the ambient sounds that surrounds you while he performs, he takes no credit for that. Now, the quality 4'33" strives to provide to the listener is a silence, which allows you to hear the noises in the first place. By sticking to the score, you fulfill the composer's intention and it doesn't matter you cannot take any credit for the stuff whole concert hall hears. It doesn't matter at all.

It depends on the film. Like books, some films have genuine artistic value and some films are solely for entertainment and have no deeper meaning.

Jesus dude... "collage"? How's yer edukation going?

I'm sorry to say I find YOUR rebuttals very poor...we seem to have a difference of opinion. :)

Going paragraph by paragraph:

-Your first SENTENCE and description of 4:33 already violated the definition of "music" where you say, essentially, that any single instrument or combination of instruments can be used to play...none, no notes? So there AER no notes to be played--then how is this music? The definition calls for "ordered tones," and with your first part of that you acknowledge there is no pre-ordained order, as any instruments in any combination can play in any order, and you just said what tones were played in 4:33--"none, all the time." So, two simple words, and, by your own definition, again, 4:33 doesn't meet EITHER of them, as 1. There is no set order by your own acknowlegement, as you acknowledge that any combination will do, and 2. You state there are no notes to be played...hence there are no TONES. In fact, your statement that you can go and grab your keyboard and play 4:33 as you would any other composition seens--forgive me--laughable, as...well, by your own admission later in your response, even accidentally hitting those keys would count as a "bad" rendition of 4:33, because 4:33 is about NOT palying music...and as most TOHER musical socres require you to...well, actually PLAY the score out with the keyboard, and all you ahve to do with 4:33 is sit there and not touch a key--I can thereby proclaim that I am the grandmaestro of 4:33 playing because I, too, can go right up to a keyboard and NOT PLAY with unsurpassed excellence! :p

-OK, my mistake on "0," then, I was a bit unsure about that one anyway, wasn't really a main point and just something I thought of in the moment, so my mistake, math isn't my forte (as anyone on this site will tell you.) ;)

-I actually have heard this counter before as well, I forgot to put iot in, and then didn't add it because...well, I felt that post was long enough. :) To respond to that--yes, every performance of a Tchaikovsky score or Mozart score or Beatles score or ACDC score is different, but my point was that the variations in the playing cannot be attributed to the score ITSELF, as these are ambient sounds and not part of the score. Again, if I am at a Tchaikovsky concert and the pianist plays Piano Concerto #1 on an electric organ rather than a grand piano, YES, it WILL sound different in kind, but the "substance" of the score will not change, the NOTES IN THE SCORE ARE THE SAME...to put it another way, the words "To be or not to be, that is the question" have been spoken by millions of actors and actresses alike down through the last four centuries, and in vastly different ways...but the WORDS are the same, the SCRIPT does not change, and so, if someone gets up on stage and goes "To be or not to be, that is the motherf*ckin' question, man!" that little ad-lib is NOT attributable to Shakespeare or "Hamlet." In the same way, then, even if we allow 4:33 to be called a score, then there remains the fact that it's merely a score of rests, and all the ambient noise is just that--ambient nosie OUTSIDE of the script. Going back to the electric organ/grand piano bit, the notes are the same, the same way that "to be or not to be" can be said in an English accent, "American" accent, French, German, Italian, comedically, seriously, quickly, slowly, and other such ways, but this does not change the words and, again, any words besides those in the script are just that--outside the script, and so it seems rather insulting to artists like Tchaikovsky and Shakespeare and Queen to give them credit for what they have IN their scripts/scores and give that same credit to a work where all that occurs is ambient and outside the score, something they DIDN'T do.

-"When you perform live music by analogue instruments, you exactly follow the score (otherwise you would play something else or interpret poorly, at least if it wasn't your intention) and the outcome is always different. That applies to 4'33" just like to any other composed music. If I played 4'33" and accidentally touched my keyboards, I would be still playing 4'33", albeit very poorly. Would a bad performance of 4'33" count as music to you?"

While I would agree that's pretty POOR music...yes, I'm forced to say that accidentally touching the keyboard and producing notes would be CLOSER to music than 4:33; I wouldn't call it "music" per se as 1. It's accidental, and, again, we're working off the idea that music is set and pre-ordained in a score, and 2. Music requires pattern and harmony, and if your hadn just accidentally smashes into the keyboard that's likely not going to be there, but nevetheless, the two words on which so much of this argument turns, "ordered tones," comes into play here, and while it's clear you don't have any ORDER in accidentally hitting the keys like that, you also cannot deny you have, in fact, produced notes or TONES--and 1/2 is more than what 4:33 has in this department, so yes, accidental and horrible as it may sound, it's still closer to music then what might best be described as "anti-music."

-I again disagree--notes and words ONLY have meaning IN CONTEXT. As an example, let's just take our previous example of your accidentally smashing your hand into the keyboard, and let's say you hit a note in that mess that also appears in "The Marriage of Figaro." Does it have the same meaning here as it does there? I think we can both agree it does not, as you yourself seen to regard that accidental hitting of the keys as rather poor playing and meaningless, not something you'd attribute meaning to, and so there's far less meaning in that instance of the note than their is in Mozart's instance, where the note draws from all the other notes in the score and from CONTEXT has a meaning that we ascribe to it. To go back to the words analogy, if I write "liberty" in the middle of the Gobi desert and no one ever sees it, does it have the same meaning as it does when John Locke declares that everyone has the right to "life, liberty, and the protection of property?" Here is where Wittgenstein loses me--"meaning" is different than "definition," and so, while it's true that A=A and A=/=K, that does NOT mean that A means the same thing every time it appears as part of a word...unless you're willing to ascribe the same meaning to "Art" as "Asshole."

-"I play 4'33" by not doing anything." ...OK, since you've said it for me, now I can put this again in definition-esque terms:

action=action
inaction=inaction
action=/=inaction

music=ordered tones produced by actions, ie, playing/hitting/doing something
4:33=inaction
4:33=/=action
4:33=/=music

Also, just because I find this funny...

"Cage is not taking credit for the background noises you hear while listening to 4'33", he takes credit for the score of 4'33". You buy ticket for 4'33" performance..."

If this is something published, bought, or sold, someone is clearly taking credit for it...and if all he's taking credit for is the inaction, the non-music...

Why waste money or time on him when I can do the same and, as you said I could, play 4:33 perfectly by not doing anything and standing in a quiet room?

;)

@Thucy:

I done wurked purdy durn haard att mie neerbuy sckhooul, soe dohn't yu goe noching mea!

:p

@Gunfighter:

I know that, I'm not saying anyone should hold "Independence Day" to the same standards of "Amadeus" (my favorite non-franchise movie)...

I'm just asking what the standard would be for film in general; I'd be hard on a drama if it was overly-vague or nonsensical or didn't develop characters and a plot...

But I can't blame a symphony for not having characters, that's not part of it's deal, so to speak...and I can't criticize a painting for not developing a plot...

So, what standard should be applied to film on the whole?

Art?
Music with pictures?
Drama?

And if it's something different...well, what would it be?

What makes a film "good" and another "bad?" (And DO NOT say "opinion," that's a perfectly valid PART of it, yes, but that's not the be-all and end-all of criticism...there ARE some ways in which a work of art can be objectively bad, ie, if I have a story with poorly-developed characters, a nonsensical plot, poor punctuation and so on and so forth...half of criticism may be objective, yes, but there DEOS exist that other half that is objective as well.)

And GAH!

I just cannot spell today! XD

My spelling is objectively horrendous! :p

And I just found this:

Wikipedia, yes, but it's cited...


"They missed the point. There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.

— John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″

...

So, yeah, he ISN'T giving you a composition filled with silence and rests, by his own admission, HE DOES want you to focus on and wants to take credit for his RADICAL discovery that there's no such thing as silence.]

...

So essentially he's just another overly-pompous whining artist--and you KNOW they're bad when *I* of all people can use those terms, as open to such descriptions myself ehre at times--who's moaning

"Ah, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT."

Endearing...

@ obiwanobiwan

You answered your own question. I think opinion only comes into play when you are discussing "entertainment" films. What is entertaining to one person may be boring to another person.

Artistically speaking, I think any film with strong elements similar to the literary elements by which books are judged are "good".

"1. It's accidental, and, again, we're working off the idea that music is set and pre-ordained in a score, and 2. Music requires pattern and harmony"

This is a great example of Austrian thought, actually - treating ambitious presumptions as unanimously accepted truths. I certainly do not work off such a preposterous idea that music has to be pre-ordained and harmonical. Bobby McFerrin spontaneously jamming with the audience is music, native Tuvans singing around their fire is music and noise or power electronics is music too. What I was pointing out was that 4:33 is musical composition because it fulfilled the criterias of a composition - it gives clear instructions on how to reproduce the piece from the score.

The reason why you believe there is no set order of the rests in 4:33 is because all those rests are the same, indistinguishable from each other. If it called for 4 minutes and 33 seconds of playing quarter A at 120 bpm, you could also say that there is no set order of those notes because you could say "hey, you just played the A from five beats away!" and I couldn't prove you wrong. In a world where those notes had some unique personality, that is, not in our world. In our world, when you have a set of exactly the same elements, any combination, variation or permutation from them will have the exact same parameters. That's why I can say that you play rests all the time, it's a minimalistic instruction for the performance of 4:33. I could also say that you should play rest-rest-rest... thus giving you the exact order of rests to be played but it would be exactly the same instruction.

I didn't say that any instrument can play at any time. I said 4:33 can be performed on any single instrument or a combination of those. One then follows the score and since the note pattern is in range of any possible musical instrument, there's nothing strange about 4:33 being possible to interpret on any instrument. Not to mention that even composed music may allow for an element of chance or deliberate rearranging of the order of notes to be played so aleatoric music is probably not music as well in your book.

"I think we can both agree it does not, as you yourself seen to regard that accidental hitting of the keys as rather poor playing and meaningless"

Poor playing in case of 4:33 where it goes against the score not as a generally valid notion. It provides very refreshing atonality in noise music. Also, music is not language. If there's a quarter A note in the score, it means you play quarter A, nothing else. Notes and rests are well-defined meaningful building blocks of music. It's OK that we have different opinions on what the meaning of meaning is.

Cage gives us a composition which should attract our attention to the fact that silence doesn't exist. That's a perfectly valid artistical aim. In order to allow us this experience, his composition uses the most sensible means - rests. People are happy to pay money for the opportunity to see it live when performed by prestigious musical bodies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

Oh Come the F*** on people! I come here to play and relax and what do I see in the forum? A thread on the shit I work on.... Really? Bringing work here? Really???

What's the shit you work on?

Oh, and I haven't read the whole argument on John Cage's 4:33, but it should be known that Cage wants the audience to hear silence and the absence thereof where it seems to be on stage. In other words, the "sounds in the background" are part of the artistic experience that the work is suppose to elicit, though obviously not part of what Cage could structure intentionally in creating 4'33.

I teach philosophy of art. My speciality is artistic creation but I work a lot on cinema too.

Oh yes, I mentioned somewhere in my post. To sum up the argument, in a truly modernist fashion, obi picked a definition of music with which he can smack 4:33 to oblivion but failed to notice that his interpretation of that definition renders some well-established areas of music unworthy of being music. I defend the idea that 4:33, jamming, folk songs, noise and aleatoric music are in fact music. Of course it ultimately boils down to the fact that definition of music is founded in the cultural perspective of the listener.

Teaching philosophy of art... that sounds pretty messed up, I can't imagine how it goes. Is it fun and whatnot?

Film is film. errrr....So you made up a ridiculous question in order to create a thread??? Film is clearly not theater, not a book....er....are you seriously asking this question???

Seriously, sometimes I think half the posts on here are crated by someone who thinks they are going to impress everybody else with some deep, new philosophical understanding of the world...Not gonna happen. Nobody is impressed by the question.

Hahaha! Dear Krelin: there's actually vast amounts of literature on the subject, and the question of where cinema would fit in the artworld (if it did) was an important one for a large part of the last century (W. Benjamin had much to say on the subject, for example).

Ulytau: teaching philosophy is fun, and teaching phil of art is even more so. Hard not to be passionate about it. My Intro to Phil of Art class offers a historical approach to the concepts we use in dealing with art, and a more "problem oriented" approach, where I try to introduce students to contemporary debates such as ... the definition of art! I want to work a touch more on genre theory. I'd also like to focus more on cinema than I have. But I still have to finish my work on artistic creativity first.

Also, Krelin: Diplomacy seems to attract a fair number of academics and intellectuals (I'm certainly amongst those and the person who introduced me to the game is both a dear friend and a colleague of mine). You thus can't be that surprise to see posts of that nature here. I will grant you though, that it might not be the best of places to have those discussions since some will want to participate who do not share the background of others. It can lead to pretty messed up threads.

Cachimbo, I guess it may depend on the position of your subject in the curriculum. If it's only obligatory for prospective philosophers and art theorists, you can expect involved and content students. My fellow schoolmates who study IT applications in business but have obligatory philosophy since the faculty dean said so are not that enthusiastic :)

While film encapsulates performance art, photographic/visual art, and musical art, it is it's own kind of art as well. Why does it have to be classified as anything but Motion Picture Art? After all, it's the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

@Chach -- lol The idea that there is a "vast amount of literature" devotged to the question of where FILM fits into the art world is simply a testimony to the idea that 1. Film makers have written books to make themselves seem more important, or 2. Psuedo-intlelectuals (such as are found on WebDip) have written books about the OBVIOUS idea that film is different from every other art form in order to make themselves feel smart by espressing some inane philosophical concept about film.

OK...duh...film COMBINES multiple art forms, including theater, writing, blah blah blah and then TOTALLY enahcnes them all through the uniques attributesof FILM. Not saying it is superior...just unique. Trying to say film is the same as something else is like saying that spoken word is the same as blog posts. Simply not true. And is is stilla stupid, inane topic of discussion.

Catching up, had a math test (passed it for the first time! Must be because I quoted Shakespeare down the side of the paper...even in math class, it just seems to work for me to shove Shakespeare in shamelessly...) ;)

Krellin:

I am NOT trying to impress anyone.

And, clearly, I'm not.

I have these discussions on the forum because:

-I enjoy the material discussed
-I enjoy (for the most part) the "company" and opinions of those who take part
-I enoy sharing and receiving new ideas, and hopefully refining my own and learning
-I enjoy the act of discussion itself
-I enjoy writing itself

So, contrary to popular belief---no.

obiwanobiwan does NOT see himself as Shakespeare 2.0 or Neo-Nietzsche.

I do hope, someday, to be an author myself, yes--but, as of right now, I'm just another person with another opinion, shaped by various things, more knowledgable for sure of some things than others, and sharing that with everyone.

No more, no less.

@Cachimbo:

Really? Where do you teach? (And has my post thoroughly annoyed with what is, I'm sure, an argument you've heard trite time after trite time?) :)

@ulytau:

Well, first, I AM half-Austro-German by descent in my all-Jewish background, and it's German/Austrian composers and philosophers I largely enjoy--except Wagner, Ride of the valkyries is brilliant, but I'm sorry, he can just go and fuck himself as far as I'm concerned, I can accept bigotry in artists and men who lived in such an environment, but he's just crossing the line for me--so...

I wouldn't be largely surprised if I sound "Austrian," I'll take it as a compliment, meant or not. :)

I don't, however, find my assumption to be preposterous or, to put it another way, it's not as if I'm out there in Nietzsche-esque fashion ranting and raving with style, perhaps, but little logical structure in places, I think, whether you agree with my position or not, it's at least logically constructed and not off the wall.

However, I think you missed the points I was trying to make with a few things or, perhaps more accurately, you might have taken them in a way I didn not intend.

"The reason why you believe there is no set order of the rests in 4:33 is because all those rests are the same, indistinguishable from each other."

No, that's not why I believe there is no set order.

I believe there is no set order not because of the rests--for as you rightly point our, they ARE, for what it's worth, correctly and fairly set and structured--but rather because, by Cage's own admission, he wants people to focus on what is ehard OUTSIDE THAT SCORE, the ambient noise, and THAT is unset and changes each time, thus meaning there is, perhaps, a set score, but no set "content" for the work, unless we are to go agaisnt Cage's own vision and declare that only those rests, ie, only the silence here counts, in which case...well, you have 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, of inaction, I fail to see how that is analogous to 4 minutes and 33 seconds of action and playing and the like.

So we have a bit of a dilemma--

Cage's vision does not appear compatible with either your or my view of what a score should be and what counts as a score; we both agree, at the very least, that the score is entirely made up of rests, and whether or not that actually *is* a score--and while I know technically it meets the requirements, I'd still argue against calling it as such as, again, a sentence cannot consist merely of commas and have any substance to it, and so even if we accept that an all-rests score is valid, it still remains, in my opinion, without substance INTRINSIC to the score and NOT of the ambient, external nature that Cage intended--we both agree that the ambient sounds outside the score should not be attributed to it or to Cage.

However, that is precisely what Cage intended with his piece, and so, if "authorial intent" plays a role here, we must consider what Cage intended, and admit that Cage intended the ambient sounds to be attributed in part to 4:33.

So, either we must look again at our conception of what a score is and what is allowed in it and what may be attributable to it, or else we must stand by that definition at the consequence of going against the intent of Cage's vision and taking 4:33, potentially, to be something, at least in part, other than what Cage intended it to be.

"I could also say that you should play rest-rest-rest"

If you're resting, aren't you NOT playing?
If you're not playing, in this context, at least, are you not taking action?
If you are not taking action--musically, at least--are you in a state of inaction?
If production requires action to produce, must not a score require action to produce?
If you are in a state of inaction, then, how can you reproduce a score, if action is the necessary ingredient, and it is the very ingredient you lack?

"I didn't say that any instrument can play at any time. I said 4:33 can be performed on any single instrument or a combination of those. One then follows the score and since the note pattern is in range of any possible musical instrument, there's nothing strange about 4:33 being possible to interpret on any instrument."

Again--if you're not in action, how are you "playing" anything and "reproducing" anything? That seems a bit like my not writing any words on pages and then selling said pages as a novel (perhaps "The Neverending Story," as lacking in punctuation it clearly can never end?) ;) And we'd call THAT rather farciucal and absurd and almost certainly wouldn't recognize that as a novel...so why recognize 4:33 as a score or, if we do so technically, in a "meaningful" way, why treat nothingness as if it's something, that certainly seems to be calling a club a spade...
Not to mention that even composed music may allow for an element of chance or deliberate rearranging of the order of notes to be played so aleatoric music is probably not music as well in your book."

I'm not saying you can't change a score or script or ad-lib things...again, you can play Tchaikovsky's piano concertos and flutter a bit in the structure and make it your own...you can update a work of Shakespeare's, or update bits of dialogue to correspond to modern speech, or even cut entire scenes for time (which is done most ot the time for the dramas at least, especially "Hamlet," as uncut that runs at least 4 hours long.)

AS LONG AS you remain somewhat true to the source material, it's fine, it's an adaptation of a work, or an improvisation, and that's great, that's part of art.

Now, if I bang on a desk 73 times and say to you "I've just performed the guitar solo from 'Bohemian Rhapsody!' Am I a Guitar Hero or WHAT?" or make a film about a guy who makes sandwiches all day and eats them, and call that "The Cherry Orchard," we have a bit of a problem, that's NOT being true to the source material, not even close.

"Also, music is not language."

I have to disagree:

Music has signifiers for various expressions/sounds/ideas
There is a structure to these sounds/expressions/ideas
A flat=A flat
A flat=/=E flat
"to"="to"
"to"=/="axe"
The Queen of the Night aria=The Queen of the Night aria
The Queen of the Night aria=/=The Rain In Spain from "My Fair Lady"
"to be or not to be"="to be or not to be"
"to be or not to be"=/=The Queen of the Night aria

Words and Music are different languages, yes, but, as they have signifiers, structure, authors/composers, and meanings, I'd argue they're both languages, albeit radically different ones in nature.

"Cage gives us a composition which should attract our attention to the fact that silence doesn't exist. That's a perfectly valid artistical aim."

If Cage's composition, AGAIN, is meant to say that there is NOT silence...
And all the composition itself IS silence...and if we're ONLY to take those rests as the composition"...then there IS silence, all the actual composition IS is a compilation of pauses, all silence, and so Cage's aim and his actual composition, again, by your definition, are at odds.

Finally, a question:

Are you a Post-Modernist?

Because you're right about me, I AM a Modernist, or at least closer to that than other things...

And I LOATHE Post-Modernism, post-modern philosophy, post-modern art...

And the Post-Modern take on "Hamlet" Ethan Hawke made, I DETEST that film, hate it with a passion, and when you take my favorite piece of literature AND my favorite character AND the words written by my favorite author...and turn THAT into a film I despise more than any other, a film that is my personal standard for Cinematic Failure (for "serious" movies, for "entertainment" movies, it's Battle: LA, saw that with some friends a few weeks ago...GAH! HORRENDOUS! And I LOVE "Independence Day" as a popcorn movie...this was ID with no Will Smith-type awesomeness to carry us through--even Aaron Eckhart isn't saving things--no characters, a plot that's ripped off from ID only made stupider LITERALLY from the first moments of the film, HORRIBLE performances, NO logic even on an action-movie level, boring explosions, boring fights, a camera that's having a seizure and won't let the audience SEE anything and prefers to just nauseate them...HATE IT!!!)...

THAT takes some special kind of Post-Modern Awfullness, to make me hate Hamlet.

;)

@Obiwan: "I have these discussions on the forum because: -I enjoy the material discussed
-I enjoy (for the most part) the "company" and opinions of those who take part
-I enoy sharing and receiving new ideas, and hopefully refining my own and learning
-I enjoy the act of discussion itself
-I enjoy writing itself"

BULLSHIT! YOu do NOT enjoy the discussuion or else you would not belittle others that have a different opinion.


But, honestly, you enjoy the discussion BECAUSE YOU WANT TO FEEL SUPERIOR when, and if, you convince someone you are correct. These threads are aLL about ego. MY ego, right now, if writing these posts to insult people like you that think your shit doesn't stink, and who think that the bullshti you JUST LEARNED in lecture hall is somehow new to the world. These threads are FULL of college pukes who think the ideas and concepts they JUST LEARNED are 1. Brand new to the world (even though tey are a hundred yars old) and 2. Unique to the world and blah blah blah....

I'm so tired of stupid teenagers and 20-somethings exposing their new-found knowledge on the world that has already considered....and dismissed....their Utopian ideology...

Putin, anyone?? For example. Wait until that stupid fucker actually has to pay taxes and utility bills. THEN we will see how much fucking Putin supports his idiotic ideology.,,,,just as an example. And....Putin....if I am wrong....and you will willingly pay your ashare...then PAY extra noW!! wHY WAIT TO be a great citizen of the world....Pay extra to the government just on prtinicple!!! Oh...but there is not a Liberal ALIVE, from Soros, to Obama, to Clinton, on down the line that will WILLINGLY pay their IDEA of a fair share to the government! OVERPAY yupour fucking taxes and don't cash the refund check , you fucking retarded blow-hard hypocrites!!!

...When do I belittle others???

And for someone who seems to hate belittling, you sure have no problem slandering myself and Putin and trolling the thread along with your rantings on how stupid we are for posting...

"Blow-hard' hypocrites, eh?

Have you looked in the mirror lately, krellin?

And, if you hate these threads oh-so-much...

Why are you posting here?

It's not as if you don't know what this thread is, it's a thread started by ME...it's a thread with an abstract topic that matters oh-so-little in day to day affairs...

I enjoy the discussion, but clearly you don't--

So, why stay? To shout how stupid we all are?

Well, who's more foolish, the fool, or the fool who chases after him?