Does something need to be challenging and inaccessible to be considered "high art"

In archival communities, DVD/CD are not considered stable storage. What of that?

That’s one thing that VHS changed — like a book, you could now own a copy of a movie. Not possible before that. There’s nothing like an LP or a book for movies.

Online — i.e. on a network — is the most reliable way to store electronic media for the future.

Sigh…

^^yeah, and VHS also introduced the whole ‘repeat viewing’ phenomena into movie viewing culture as well. That’s not to say that people didn’t see films multiple times at the cinemas, on occasion, but it just made it easier.

There are even people that argue that this shift in viewing patterns is what made audiences more ‘critical’ of the films they were watching too.

that’s debatable to me but yeah ;-)

A couple things, by situational I simply mean that people tend to have a sort of sliding hierarchy of ethical beliefs rather than a hard and fast one, meaning that they hold multiple values at an approximately equal position and can alter the relative importance of each depending on situation so their ethical values aren’t entirely stable even if they have a basic similarity to the larger community in the abstract. I think there is a tension between that abstract set of ethical values, the sorts of values one would like to see imposed on or followed by others and a personal responsive set of values that is situational in that it is dealing with some perceived nuance or more concrete sets of facts than any abstract frame could permit. This is why I think people can act in ways counter to what they would hold as ethical in a general sense or for others in the abstract without feeling like they are behaving unethically as their specific set of circumstances aren’t seen as fitting the larger ethical framework. it isn’t a support of Kantian ideas as much as it is the suggestion that people perceive their world and actions as being so individualized that trying to create a general rule from one’s behavior simply doesn’t work very well.

The intersection between the personal and the communal is where the ethical considerations become difficult to categorize even though each may be felt as relatively clear when they are separate. I don’t disagree with the idea of utility exactly, especially in unreflective action, but I think we are capable of amazing acts of rationalization that allow us to behave in ways we believe are ethical on an individual level that we also wouldn’t find being so in the abstract or on a communal one. One can certainly make arguments that those individual acts aren’t then ethical ones, but that is trying to bring the abstract to bear on the specific in ways that most people would balk at if it were to be applied to them and doesn’t allow for the sort of nuance that is often necessary when trying to think ethically.

“A couple things, by situational I simply mean that people tend to have a sort of sliding hierarchy of ethical beliefs rather than a hard and fast one, meaning that they hold multiple values at an approximately equal position and can alter the relative importance of each depending on situation”

That’s essentially what situational ethics is to my understanding. I just don’t think people really act like that in practice. That would be imply that they have given some serious consideration to their value system, what they value, why they value it etc, and i don’t think people are like that at all. What’s lacking is reflection, and without reflection, moral behaviour isn’t really possible.

“I think there is a tension between that abstract set of ethical values, the sorts of values one would like to see imposed on or followed by others and a personal responsive set of values that is situational in that it is dealing with some perceived nuance or more concrete sets of facts than any abstract frame could permit. "

Of course there is, but people must be held accountable for their actions, and too offen this line of thinking in our society allows people to evade responsibility. ‘oh it’s more nuanced than that’. Sorry, we must draw the line at times. Whether it’s simple, pleasing to the individual being judged, is completely beside the point. we live in a cowardly society that is scared of judgement. We think what we are doing is right, and that we ough to be left alone, and it’s utilmately a delusion.

“One can certainly make arguments that those individual acts aren’t then ethical ones, but that is trying to bring the abstract to bear on the specific in ways that most people would balk at if it were to be applied to them and doesn’t allow for the sort of nuance that is often necessary when trying to think ethically.”

People would balk at it because they don’t know how to think ethically. Society doesn’t teach them how to think about ethics. That’s all it is. THey balk because they are suddently told that what they enjoy doing is wrong. It’s really no more complicated than that. They see judgement as a threat to their autonomy, and it bothers them. The common response is ‘oh it’s so much more complicated than that’, but when you start questioning them, they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. I’m just thinking back to my situations here, and even back in ethics classes in philosophy, it was almost disturbing how poor analytical skills were.

I think you are giving people far too much credit.

“yeah but Matt, was it really easy to find most of the films released by Criterion and Kino back in the VHS days? Perhaps if you lived in L.A or New York only?”

There used to be these paper booklet things called “catalogs” . . .

Right, there were a lot of practical disadvantages compared to today as well . . . but theoretical availability was not necessarily one of the them.

Ahh Joks, you are too harsh! Well, in some cases anyway, and yes, I’m not arguing against some idea of being held to account necessarily, depending on what you mean by that, and I don’t think having a communal understanding is a problem in itself as people do understand the need for a sort of regulated behavior even if they don’t always hold to it themselves for whatever reasons. That doesn’t diminish the tension between the personal and the communal though and doesn’t imply that they would accept the judgment of an abstract ethics on specific behavior, nor do I think they should necessarily since ethical behavior is determined by the concrete at least as much as the abstract.

“and doesn’t imply that they would accept the judgment of an abstract ethics on specific behavior, nor do I think they should necessarily since ethical behavior is determined by the concrete at least as much as the abstract.”

But the abstract can just as easily become the practical.

They are not necessariliy at loggerheads. unless you are a Kantian of course ;-)

No, they aren’t necessarily at loggerheads, heh, I’m always amused by that term, but any abstract system flexible enough to deal with the concrete becomes almost amorphous able to do nothing but proscribe vague general principles which is why I was suggesting that the key to ethical behavior might simply be the desire to behave ethically and the process which one undertakes in the attempt to do so rather than anything more absolute or proscriptive. The individual, of course, is limited by their own capabilities as well as the system they live in so that too will play a role in determining ethical choices.

They see judgement as a threat to their autonomy…

If you want a MUBIan ethical experience, here

Ha ha ha! Touche, Robert!

Heh. I actually had that thread in mind as well…

haha Robert :-)

Ok well Greg, i had a lot more to say but i’m not going to say it. I’m officially done with this ethics discussion now, but i always get the impression that we tend to cross wires a lot on here, especially on film, even though in ‘real life’—i.e face to face conversation—we’d probably agree. Our communication style just doesn’t mesh well for some reason ;-)

I agree, or should I not? :)

Tomato vs. tomahto?

How do I manage to miss all the really good ones?

What’s lacking is reflection, and without reflection, moral behaviour isn’t really possible.

They are being told pointblank it is wrong.
Reflection?
That thread shows us that any impulse is justifiable.

Any impulse is justifiable to one’s self.

Richard Rorty “proposes we seek the justifications that are relevant to a contextually embedded practice. The loss of the unconditionality associated with long-established notions of truth is actually a gain, pragmatically speaking. While truth is an aim that is unachievable due to its definitional ambivalence prior to commitment to action, justification is a recognizable (and contingent) goal that permits practical satisfaction without closing the door on future recalibrations in response to inevitable challenges to such justifications. The best way to allow for justification of a belief with no neutral standpoint, Rorty suggests, is to allow competing beliefs to be evaluated on their performance capabilities and not on their ability to ground themselves in universal validity.”

…goal that permits practical satisfaction without closing the door on future recalibrations in response to inevitable challenges to such justifications…

Shoot now, sort the bodies out later?

More at, publically speaking, ethical values are a negotiation, with everyone at the table presenting the beliefs he or she prefers, and these ideas are considered, debated, and eventually adapted in the end so that a sort of consensus emerges—although the consensus is subject to constant and continual appeal and arbitration.

I just like how I’ll be skimming along merrily, discussing this or that, disagreeing with a movie or a process or an aesthetic or an approach, being disagreed with, and then suddenly next thing I know I’m the reason why one 1/5,000,000ths of Norwegians go postal and kill a heck of a lot of people. Those moments on Mubi always throw me for a loop.

—PolarisDiB

“In archival communities, DVD/CD are not considered stable storage. What of that?”

They degrade faster than vinyl (unplayed) and celluloid. Also, they degrade slower than electromagnetic tape. Internet archiving is useful but lasts on two assumptions, one, that the copies will continue to be made and without glitches, and two, that the Internet will always be around.

A more abstract issue that vinyl and celluloid have going for them that no electronic medium hard or streaming does, is the fact that the playback technology is in their design and discoverable based on the way they are made. By that I mean, imagine yourself as an alien from another planet landed on post-cataclysmic Earth. Everything’s dead. You sort through piles of trash and alight on a piece of electromagnetic tape. How do you play it back? Whereas if you pick up a piece of vinyl, you may notice that there are these sort of unique etches and grooves in it through a microscope. Those etches and grooves have patterns, and follow distinct paths. You can run a piece of tuned metal along them to see if you pick up any sonic pattern from that. Or if you find a piece of celluloid, first it looks like just a spool of negative film. But then you notice these spools sometimes run for miles—literal miles. Maybe it’s supposed to run through something. Pick up a DVD instead, and you’ve still a random-looking display of shininess. Figuring out how to reverse engineer a player is much more difficult.

—PolarisDiB

“DVD/CD are not considered stable storage”

In the larger scheme of things, but from a personal standpoint, it’s nearly as important to me to have a guarantee of access to a film for 30 years.

Matt, they don’t even last 30 years…

I have CDs that are around 26 years old and haven’t noticably degraded. Should I expect them to self-destruct “Mission:Impossible” style? If they do I’m gonna be kinda pissed :)

Lol! All I can do is wish you… good luck..

Matt, they don’t even last 30 years…

Really? I’m going to be pissed, too!

Thislife,
No but good art can often be interpreted in different ways and that causes it to become undefinable. In other words it goes beyond words. if art was inaccessible it would not be art.

omg, Charlesdegaulles aka Renault is back with a new bunch of funny topics! Hallelujah!

my favorite film is a dutch short called “rain” or “regen” by joris ivens. its included in that kino video avant garde comp thingie. its about a passing rain storm. im pretty sure “avant garde” would put it in the high art category even though the only thing that can be construed as high art is that maybe its a little boring.

How do you form an opinion about someone?

His/her style (hair, makeup/grooming, clothing), you look at what topics she is interested in, how she expresses herself (vocabulary), her friends, her insights, her tastes (whom she quotes, what kind of food she likes to eat), what other people think about her, etc all go into the opinion you form about her (and we may not even be aware that we are using these aspects to judge a person since we don’t dissect people as explicitly as we dissect films but most magazine articles about a person or biographies almost always mention these aspects for a reason…)

The same is true for films and each of the above have (rough) equivalence in films.

Style – style
Topics of interest – themes
Friends – genre
Expression/vocabulary – how well (uncommon) aspects of the medium are (appropriately) used
Insights – psychological/sociological/philosophical depth
Tastes – allusions and/or the text/actors/location that is used
Other people’s opinions – what do the academics/critics/laymen say about a film

When a film is typically considered challenging or inaccessible, it is as if you are communicating with someone who doesn’t communicate in a straightforward/engaging manner but in a manner that requires you to solve an (intellectual) ‘riddle’ or understand a not too obvious idea – you may not understand what she is talking about unless you are already familiar with that particular idea. In other words, to truly appreciate what she says, you are ‘smart’ or knowledgeable. (Obviously, all of this is relative.)

Most people get a certain amount of ‘pleasure’ when we get something that others don’t so there is a certain bias towards challenging/difficult things. Further, what do you think about someone who talks about common things all the time versus someone who talks about unusual things? (Why do you come here versus, let’s say, IMDB boards?) Riddles can help us understand or appreciate something better and understanding a new idea indeed expands our minds (to further intellectual pleasures) but, are all new ideas really interesting and do we really need to resolve a riddle to appreciate something?

There are people who try to distinguish themselves by talking in riddles or talk about some school of thought in an attempt to show their greatness but, when you get to know them, you find that it is more a posture rather than substance and that their ‘strategy’ is really elusiveness to evade criticism. (Of course, posture can be the substance but we are digressing…)

A film can be ‘great’, even if does not have the elements that make it inaccessible or challenging and an inaccessible/challenging film is not necessarily great. I don’t mind a category to denote films that are difficult/challenging (if that’s what ‘high art’ is) to facilitate discussion but, imo, it is not necessarily great art as its phrenological associations suggest…