The Deep End: The Art of Irony

Posted by Dr. Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 8, 2008

A few years back when I was still in college and, therefore, still theoretically literate, I told a class that I thought films would be studied in literature classes of the future, and I was laughed at. I can understand why. To those who don’t spend several hours a day debating whether Godfather was better than Godfather II (it is), a few more hours trying to understand the nature of the R-rated comedy, and an entire day watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a personal challenge, the idea of film as literature probably seems radical.

I know it has to do with the word – literature means books only. But even though film is the crossroads of visual art, music, acting and writing, it’s most closely related to books because its primary concern of storytelling. And when literature classes of 2108 A.D. buckle down to study the literature of our time, it wouldn’t hurt them to watch a Jarmusch film after reading David Eggers or Chuck Palahniuk or whomever will pass for classics by then.

In a recent issue of First Things, author Roger Kimball expounds on the topic of the end of art. His piece goes off the philosophical deep end (appropriately for a religion and philosophy journal), but the opening paragraphs make a strong claim against the direction art has taken in modern times. The problem, essentially, is that art has abandoned a pursuit of beauty, emotional impact, and spiritual penetration to aspire to irony instead. To make a statement. To be “oppositional” is the current goal.

Kimball seems to speak specifically about the visual arts, although literature is brought up more than once, but when I started thinking about how his argument might be applied to movies, I fell short. There is no large scale avant-garde movement in films. An avant-garde movement exists certainly (see Andy Warhol’s Sleep), and elements can even be found in mainstream filmmaking (see Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation), but for the most part, no one has hung a urinal on the big screen and called it art – unless you count Meet the Spartans.

I believe that the lack of irony comes from the structure of the medium. In visual art, an impact is made immediately, a story told as soon as the viewer gets within range. As such, a piece of art only has a few seconds to produce a statement or story. A girl holding an umbrella that’s raining on her. A canoe sculpture made out of lead. A can of an artist’s bowel movement labeled “100% Pure Artist’s Shit.” Anti-art is a far cry from something purely beautiful like the Sistine Chapel. The beauty of these pieces isn’t entirely dictated by the message, but it’s a major part of it. For film, a particular scene can have a strong, immediate impact, but artist’s have anywhere from twelve minutes to three hours to create beauty.

And the creation of that beauty comes from different facets. Where visual art has one primary beauty-delivery method, film relies on set design, editing, acting, dialog, shot-framing, costuming, direction, makeup, and special effects amongst others to create a story and an artistic statement.

Even if some filmmakers are making completely ironic films, there’s a whole host of filmmaking that sticks to genre, sticks to classical methods, pushes boundaries in other directions, or avoids irony altogether to give audiences a choice. While your favorite local artist is showing his anti-art film at the local 20-seater, Beverly Hills Chihuahua is playing down the street at the mega-multiplex.

It’s also just not as celebrated in filmmaking as it seems to be in the visual art world. A debate over artistic worth sprang up over at Aint it Cool recently when Quint made Salo his movie of the day. It’s difficult to claim Salo as a purely ironic film – although I wish it was for the purposes of my point – but it certainly eschews the norms of film to create a singular statement about fascism by displaying the most profane sequences possible, all without the benefit of cause, context or character. It also earns the same types of arguments that anti-art does. Either it’s genius and misunderstood or it’s completely exploitative. Whichever the case of its art, I think it would be difficult to claim that it requires any technical skill or craftsmanship above mediocrity. This, too, it shares with anti-art.

That lack of technical skill is probably what hampers a true avant-garde movement in film from gaining the type of strength that its scene in the art gallery world. Audiences demand strong craftsmanship from filmmakers. Movies are as much about execution as they are about idea, and if someone applied the same artistic skill level it takes to throw paint randomly at a canvas to filmmaking, they’d never get tickets sold on a major level. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what the cinematic equivalent to Jackson Pollack is. I’m not sure there is one.

All this to say that I’m glad filmmaking hasn’t become completely ironic. I can enjoy an ironic film as much as the next person, but they usually involve a message of some sort. One that’s delivered in a smirkingly clever way that requires little in the way of talent. I’m glad there are a lot of options out there for movie-lovers. I’m glad that one has to accidently go to the Modern Art Museum to see Warhol’s Sleep being screened. Plus, if I wanted to be lectured to, I’d just go back to college.

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790

The Godfather films are the best mafia films but best overall. No fracking way in helll.........

Sam

I think one of the major differences between visual art and film is the audience. When you talk about famous artists, sculptors, pieces of artwork, etc you are talking to a smaller audience than film 'reaches'. I don't want to come right out and say that film is targeted to a more 'uneducated' audience, but to certain extent I think we can.

Art, High Art, Anti Art and whatever else hold a stigma of being for the snotty upper class, 'educated' types. Or, people who graduated from university with degrees in philosophy and art history. Obviously this isn't completely true, as art can speak to anyone, although some abstract looks like shit to me. Film has always had a certain level of every-man involved in it. In a lot of well scripted / acted / etc movies the audience clearly identifies with the protagonist and a rapport is built that you don't necessarily see in other visual art. Of course, we all know that there are Art films, or 'ironic' films or what not, but this hit the same small niche market as other art types do.

I think this is changing to a point, and arty films are gaining more exposure, but if you ask the common film goer to name an art film off the top of their head, they probably won't be able to. (Its early, and I can't, to be honest.)

Anti-Art holds a different niche of hipsters who want to be nose-in-the-air elitists by shitting on the actual nose-in-the-air elitists. That sounded really bitter. Anyway, visual art is still something that as a whole is not a common-man experience. Its changing as the art mediums change (the internet allows a lot to be accessible, tattoos is a great 'new' art medium depending on who you ask), but it's still very limited.

I agree with you that it's not as present in film, but I think it's because those movies become commercial failures, or at the very least, break even. Producers don't want to be a part of them, production companies don't want to sponsor them, etc etc. But if I go into my basement and splash paint on a canvas and explain the relevance of the pattern as a comment on the erratic nature of human emotion, I can probably sell it somewhere for more than the canvas and paint cost me.

Unfortunately we are looking at a genre of art that is moved quite extensively by profit margins. Other forms of theater, like live theater, still have a shit ton of starving artists who are probably pretty well known in that genre (I have no idea, I know nothing of live theater popularity). When you look to classic painters a lot of them were starving artists, but famous. Or, weren't famous until years after their death. And maybe that's where another separation lies. If it becomes commercially viable to do something, does the artist(s) lose the ability to be completely edgy?

Cole Abaius

You bring up some good points, Sam. Even though your question is rhetorical, I'd like to take a stab at it. Mostly because I love answering rhetorical questions.

People have difficulty separating commercial gain from any equation. If an artist sets out to purely make art and ends up selling it, people will assume that the original intent was for commercial gain, and, therefore, impure in a way. Not art for art's sake. In some cases, it works though. The 100% artist's shit being sold was part of the art itself. Had it not sold, it would have been pointless.

But that's my problem. Art to make a point isn't art either. In my narrow view of art. Whether you're making it to make money (creating a product) or making it to enter into a debate (making a point) there's something not purely artistic about the process.

I don't think the ability to be edgy is lost. There are a ton of edgy, commercially viable films out there. But that, like you said, might just be an advantage that the medium has over others.

Mladen

I assume we're talking feature-length cinematic-release films here, and not short experimental films that you regularly find screening in small galleries, indi theatres, etc?

Because the latter definately fit the bill of what you're talking about. There's an army of art-school directors who put together 'ironic' films (anti-plot, anti-story, experimental footage, political satire, collaged films, etc), but they obviously can never reach total consumer appeal... and thats kind of not the point, since in the end they're made for artists and other directors to watch. As always with these things, the avant-garde films inspire the directors higher up the foodchain to attempt something similar in a mainstream film.

The other example would be music videos. Music-video style and directing (and its spirit of experimentation) has had an enormous effect of modern-day film-making, so much so that most modern-day 'big' films genuinely look exactly like music videos: hyper-saturated colour, willy-nilly use of slow-motion, and the appeal of the visual spectacle.

Cole Abaius

Mladen, you're right. It's definitely happening - there's anti-art films being made, which is great. But it seems like anti-art is all that's happening in the visual arts. I know there's not exactly a mainstream high art movement, but find me a hip new artist that's painting portraits or gorgeous landscapes, and I'll be surprised.

Not sure how far we're going when still considering something a film. I'd say Julain Rosefeldt's "Lonely Planet" counts - and it anti-art in a way (showing sets, cameramen as feature dancers, the integration of false and true in one image that recognizes the existence of the camera). But is something like Christophe Girardet's "Release" counted as a film? It's definitely awesome to watch, and I suppose anything that's composed of moving images is technically a film, so I guess it might.

Good point about music videos. Especially considering the likes Michel Gondry. I always did love that video for Fell in Love with a Girl...

Sam

Cole, for the sake of not sounding long winded more than I already have, do you think 'pure' art, as in Art just made to be Art, truly exists with in any mainstream medium? I would like to think that there is in fringe areas of every medium, except that I'm incredibly cynical. I suppose what I just said is probably really unfair to a lot of talented people that I've never met and who may have every intention of making true art, but I think with the amount of hands in the pot (in film) its improbable.

Cole Abaius

No, but I think it could. I look at someone like Banksy who's achieved a ton of success - edging toward what could be mainstream recognition. Obviously, he's making statements with his pieces though.

The irony (there it is again) is that the only art for art's sake that gets made probably comes from the independently wealthy or well-off at least who take it on as a hobby.

By the way, I'm not necessarily advocating pure art. Mostly it's awful. Mostly, the article was about how glad I am that we have options in the film industry.

And an awesome point you have there about the amount of hands in the pot. Another major difference I overlooked is that a single artist can create a painting, but it takes an army to make a film. Or a village. Something like that.

But yeah, I think you're definitely right. The more people involved, the more difficult it becomes to create something purely to add beauty into the world.

Sam

Yeah, Banksy is a pretty good example. His new exhibit in new york (which is free) he has even poked fun at how artists try to make a message with their art.

I would agree that most pure art is rubbish, and I think that it's because it becomes incredibly personal, which is the point where a lot of people will lose interest. And that is probably the benefit of more commercial art that is made for 'everyone', that is more than just fluff.

I agree with you, it is great that the film industry has that option (as, I think, literature does) because then, when done properly everyone can take something away from it. And that's what I think is the most important thing in any form of art. Sometimes it just takes a lot longer to sift through the shit to find the diamond or whatever that analogy is.

And I think the expression is "It takes a village to...", and "it took an army". Though maybe that's just me.

The Deep End: The Art of Irony

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