Does Hollywood Produce ‘Art’ Anymore?

For the most part, nobody will confuse Hollywood films, or even many independent films, as “art.” Popular culture is generally popular for the very reason that it lacks a certain aesthetic sophistication. Movies that are too obscure, too inaccessible, or too “artsy” are by their nature, not popular.

Yet there are films that are unquestionably excellent, achieving certain heights in the cinematic medium that make them deserving of note. This begs the question: When does a film cross over into the realm known as “art”? In order to answer the question, we must first establish a set of criteria under which a film may be entered for consideration.

In 1966, philosopher Abraham Kaplan delivered an essay that many in the film criticism world consider to be a seminal work on the topic. “The Aesthetics of Popular Art” lays out a set of criteria meant to delineate between that which is considered “popular art” and that which is considered “high art.”

The beauty of Kaplan’s essay is that it does not condemn popular works. Rather, he seeks to define why such content is popular, and how other content may transcend popularity and offer more value for the viewer, even if they are unaware of it.

Any film can be evaluated using Kaplan’s criteria – narrative, documentary, animated, or experimental, both short and feature length.

Why bother with such an analysis? We all love movies, and we love artful movies even more. There are a number of ways to make commercially successful films that transcend popular art and represent higher art.

Filmmakers who pay attention to Kaplan’s criteria can elevate their works to a higher aesthetic realm. When a film redefines the way we look at the world, an obscure work of art can become a cultural phenomenon. This, of course, can translate to larger audiences and box office receipts.

As we will see from the examples below, popular art is a unidirectional experience. The film is a stimulus, like a cattle prod, and zaps us into reacting. High art is a bi-directional experience, in which the film shows us something more abstract, and we must enter a dialogue with the content.

The difference can be summed up as that between a monologue (popular art) and a conversation (high art). In popular art, we only hear. In high art, we listen.

Shape vs. Form
There is a difference between watching a movie and experiencing it. Does a viewer focus on outcomes or on the unfolding of events? Do we engage with a film out of curiosity, or out of suspense? Do we merely suspend disbelief, or do we feel challenged in our understanding of the world as we know it? Do we recognize and acknowledge a movie’s message, or impose our perceptions on it?

In each instance, Kaplan says the former is representative of popular art, the latter of high art.

One of the best examples of contemporary high art is David Lynch’s “Mulholland Dr.” One does not merely watch this film; we experience it. It does not inspire so much a curiosity about what will happen as a creeping sense of unease and suspense.

From the beginning, we sense that there are mysterious forces at work, somehow manipulating the characters. It appears we have a protagonist in Rita, who loses her memory in the opening car accident. Yet, we repeatedly cut away to characters we have never seen before, many of whom have no apparent relation to Rita’s plight.

Thus, we do not recognize the storytelling structure and must acknowledge we don’t know what events may unfold. Because we are knocked on our heels and not given all the answers, we are forced to impose our own perceptions on what is happening.

We must then actively engage our intuitions and feelings to stay connected to the content, instead of sitting back and forming expectations about a character’s presumed behaviors.

 The film is ostensibly about Betty trying to help Rita recover her memory, which would be our focus in popular art. We would ordinarily ask the question, “Will she recover her memory?” in our minds.

Instead, the film takes us on other tangents, and our increasing sense of unease leads us to experience the sinister undercurrent of events: What we initially may have wanted may or may not be possible or even desirable. An impending sense of danger envelopes us.

Compare this to the best James Bond film, “Casino Royale.” Although it is a spectacular movie by all accounts, the audience is focused on the outcome – Bond defeating the villain. Our curiosity is piqued as we want to know how he will do it, but the film does not generate ongoing and continuous suspense.

In “Mulholland Dr.,” we are strung along from one scene to the next, fearful but unsure why, as we process the suspense.

In the case of Bond, we cease to project our internal perceptions onto the film, because we recognize the genre and form expectations from the start.

Reaction vs. Response
This is a subtle distinction. Kaplan refers to a reaction as being an element the filmmaker specifically induces via a stimulus. Everything is pre-planned and ready for viewers to consume when the proper signal occurs.

A response, on the other hand, takes its own course, determined by an individual’s imagination and self-stimulation, based on their own spontaneous and creative interpretations of symbols. There is an actual interaction with the work, an unspoken symbolic dialogue, that itself shapes the work of art as it occurs.

Take a look at the award-winning movie “The Social Network.” We are prompted to have certain emotions. Oh, poor Mark: His girlfriend broke up with him! Yay: Mark made an Internet page all about her! Go, Mark: Screw those rich twin brothers! Yes, Eduardo, you should be angry and outraged at the way Mark screwed you!

We do not respond to the movie. We are only reacting to what is going on. We do not do any heavy lifting, either psychologically or emotionally. The table is set for us.

In contrast, take a look at Peter Weir’s 1975 film, “Picnic At Hanging Rock.” In this movie, a group of teenage women at a turn-of-the-century boarding school go for a picnic in the outback by a mountain. Not all of them return.

The mystery that appears to drive the narrative is “what happened to them?” Yet we are never offered an answer. We are shown bits and pieces that suggest something supernatural overcame them, but are left to project our own perceptions onto them at the moment in which they occur, and after.

We must interpret the film’s symbolism, at the moment in which they occur, and after. We respond, rather than reacting, only to the symbols offered.

Thus, the important question is not “what happened to them?” but rather, what the individual viewer believes happened. And moreover, what does that interpretation say about the viewer?

Films left open to interpretation are typically considered works of high art.

In “Mulholland Dr.,” Betty and Rita’s journey to Club Silencio serves no apparent plot purpose. What we witness and what we feel, inexplicably, is what Freud refers to as an encounter with Das Unheimliche — “the uncanny” – the opposite of what is familiar.

We have no idea what is going on, but what we do know is that we are frightened, so is Betty, and that there is a sense of death hanging over us.

Our imaginations ping back and forth between the numerous symbols in the sequence, shaping individual responses to the content, as we each project our own individual subconscious responses onto the images. What we each individually believe is happening is what matters, and this is the point.

Lynch himself never discusses his work. Instead, when offered an interpretation, he merely replies to fans, “That’s a beautiful thing.”

Associated Emotions vs. Expressed Emotions
Is a movie transmitting an emotion to you, or is the movie actually expressing and embodying emotion?

Let’s take fear, one of the most powerful emotions. In a well-made adventure like “Captain Phillips,” we are afraid for Tom Hanks and his crew. Once Hanks is kidnapped, we are even more afraid for him. Is he going to make it? we wonder. Again, the focus is on the outcome.

Yet this is an associated emotion. We associate an innocent person being kidnapped with something that should be feared. We associate gun-wielding pirates with fear.

Let’s return to “Mulholland Dr.,” in which the film itself embodies fear. We are projecting our own fear back to the screen, because of the overwhelming sense of dread cast upon us.

At some point in a film that represents high art, we have trouble discerning the tone of the film and our own projected feelings about it.

The 1973 film “Don’t Look Now” is another example. It tells the story of a couple mourning the drowning death of their young daughter. They’ve moved to Venice, Italy to start anew. Yet something feels amiss every step of the way. We are not told to be afraid. We just sense, through a combination of story and editing, that something is terribly wrong.

This palpable fear is created by a juxtaposition of images and sounds, and the personal response that we project onto them.

Modern High Art
To truly understand the difference between popular art and high art, it is helpful to view the films discussed.

Start by studying Kaplan’s criteria, but don’t stop there. Applying his theory to contemporary cinema would yield more than a few works that are arguably high art. Worthy of discussion might be the following films:  “A Serious Man,” “Shoah,” “Tree of Life,” “Birdman,” “Persona,” “Seven,” “United 93,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Leolo,” “Eraserhead,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Last Year at Marienbad,” “The Exorcist,” “Psycho,” “The Sweet Hereafter,” and “Blue Velvet”.

Audiences may instinctively discern the difference between good and bad films, and films that are artistic versus films that are high art. To assume we don’t is an insult to our intelligence.

There is an ongoing struggle between commercialism and high art, but they are not mutually exclusive. Film as a medium is capable of being great when filmmakers decide that elements of high art are worthy of their pursuit and valued by the public.

Only then may such works be more commercially accessible.