'The type of movies that become classics'

This maybe isn't the point of the thread, but are the Oscars in any way connected to the idea of 'classics' or posterity? I mean, in the last 15-20 years.

I don't really follow the competition, but it seems to me that they're essentially US cinema awards which miss what US cinema does best. That is, either terrific innovative action stuff (Die Hard series, the Matrix), or, like a lot of other countries, terrific indie-ish stuff (Harmony Korine etc).

Instead the most important awards go to the in-between junk like American Beauty and Erin Brockovich.

I'm assuming here. If big awards didn't go to the likes of AB and EB, I take this shit back.

But still, do the Oscars count? It's like, is the best film ever 'Citizen Kane' or is it 'Star Wars'? Obviously, it's neither. But they're both films that have to be dealt with, and neither would win an Oscar (CK would if it was remade, I admit, but I'd say it wouldn't if it were released NOW as it is).

The difference I think being that they were heralded as classics because they so set out and succeeded at doing something NEW which the directors/authors knew they were intending as they set out along this.

Now perhaps the problem is attempts to do old things with more polish?

Right, just discussed this with my workmate, and the best illustration we could think of was the film Amadeus (not the film itself so much as the story within). On one hand, Salieri, striving, trying his hardest to make great music, to be gifted by God with great msuic that is important and will send his name down in history. On the other hand, Mozart, this sniffing little swearing shagging madman who has no eye on history and no desire to be gifted by God but who is making the music Salieri so wants to make. Aye?

ie; The Idea that Scorcese, Frantzen, Flips et al have one eye on history and posterity when they're making their 'art', which makes it too self-conscious (or summat) to actually be the kind of thing they want to make.

Hunter Thompson got sent to LV to write about the bike race or whatever, he went a bit spazzo on drugs, wrote some craziness, and by accident almost to be the kind of Great American Novel, BECAUSE it wasn't made by someone who is trying to become a professional history maker, people just picked up on it and THAT amde it history.

Does this make sense?

The Oscars is all about highlighting an idea of an American art film. Because by its very nature it is always trying to award stuff that under the previous Hollywood situation (two three years back) would be considered ground breaking or great it is nearly always out of step. Also it can be used to valorise a picture which has not done all that well commercially, Hollywood has as its number one award the takings after all.

COmpletely agree with what MArtin said above, especially about comedy. And what you say Nick makes complete sense to me, the idea of suceeding when you are not trying is possibly the most frustrating aspect of this. Which begs the question can you actually suceed if you are trying (to which the answer is probably yes, but lord knows how).

What I liked about Magnolia by the way is that it has all the trappings of an important movie with a message, which it contradicts and in the end is a bit of a laugh about it raining frogs. (Content undermines form).

dialectiXoR of innocence vs experience: lyra can read the althiometer thought grace not learning => grows up and has sexy thhoughts abt will = can no longer read the althiometer => but now has the option of spending her life re-learning how to read it, via scholarship not grace => outcome = she will one day be able to read it better

the young prefer the art of pure intuition, bcz it allows them in also
the old begin to favour the art of intention and planning, bcz half their young buddies are now dead, of lousy intuition

Problem with innocence versus experience dialectic is no-one starts innocent? Yes?

Mind you the final point - the will allow her to read it better part, while I generally agree with it, disagreement with it is the basis of many anti-intellectual arguments.

Escape from freedom! (I think ILx could write a better version).

Chapter 11 The Doctor's Plan

Chapter 12 Escape From Freedom

as in,surely it can't be that *right now*,its finally happened,we've reached the point in history when all great art has been made,and from now on people should just abandon the idea of trying to make an ambitious album/film/etc,and instead of trying to write the great british novel,the next dickens should scale it down a bit and aim for the mildly entertaining stoke-on-trent short story?
i mean,i'm sure there were people after shakespeare,mozart,homer,writing saying right,that's it,this art form has achieved all it can,all this new fangled bollocks is just a fad,etc (in fact,i vaguely remember reading an essay from elizabethan times suggesting that drama was dead as an art form,and had been since sophocles)

*referring to my above post,but there have been several since...

this is interesting
but it kind of creates a catch 22 situation-if we are stuck in a rut where a "classic" anything is impossible because everyone is trying to write one using the standard criteria,then the answer would appear to be that we need something to come along and change all this,point the way foreward
but then this would have to be exactly the sort of classic/important/event work of art we're so cynical about in the first place?
do we just have to sit around and hope that someone will accidentally write the great american novel?

I think you're better off writing for money than art.

(BTW - in Doctor Who, if the freindly local was you become a companion they would not have Cahpter 9: Betrayal, instead it would be replaced by Chapter 9: A Brief Respite - when they introduced them to the wonders of the Tardis).

pete,i'm not really referring to people sitting down saying,right,i'm going to write the greatest book in the history of literature
i mean more if someone is writing an ambitious novel with a large scope,are they doomed to failure
or
are we doomed to have it pass us by because nowadays,if someone does write a 600 page novel dealing with major issues,it will be presented to us as "the first great american novel of the 21st century","the greatest book since the bible"etc by the publishers,papers,etc and thus we will be cynical about it
i mean i know franzen announced that he was going to write the great american novel,but say something like gangs of new york,i dunno whether it is any good or not,and i seriously doubt it will be a truly amazing film,but even if it was because of its scope and ambition it will be so hyped its bound to be underwhelming...

heh. both of us discussed this earlier in the week when martin let me borrow a couple of PKD novels and a Jim thompson one. and i thought abt that discussion when i saw the thread yesterday.

I think when we discussed SF movies we both agreed thta most of those weren't THAT good (though you praised the movie based on 'solaris'). Hollywood tends to take a couple of chapters and go off at a more 'entertaining' tangent.

As far as books go there is a lot of snobbery towards the SF/crime end of things. The 'classics' are definetetly preferred (hey they are longer, 600+ pages and more 'challenging'...yeah, right).

not in regard to being accepted into the "canon",just in terms of writing a great book* that deals with big themes and has a large scope,a book that *could* (or should) be regarded as "important/a classic",regardless of whether it is seen as such (ie accepted into the canon)

*or recording a great album,or whatever

Have we had that entertainment vs art question yet?

and then when i read it it turned out that it was basically a second rate sci-fi story interjected with middle aged men getting joyless blowjobs and having meandering,name/concept dropping philosophical discussions...
but because it was presented as a literary novel dealing with the big questions,it was accepted as such

Ha ha and he calls *me* arrogant.

I think you are probably right about City Of God being aimed to be bigger budget bigger scope (and it is based on a bestselling Brazillian novel as well which also ties it in that way). And of course me telling people to go and see it will instantly raise the suspicions of people who generally disagree with my taste in films. Wheras I don't think anyone else will probably see "Take Care Of My Cat" - and I don't want to big it up because I think its a film that just touched me in a certain mood. How do I tell?

i know what you mean about not wanting to go on about something because it just touched you in a certain mood,and i suppose at the end of the day most films/books/albums that people will love,that will really mean something to them,are down to that,so i suppose what "great" works of art do is touch a nerve with most people,which i suppose is why they have to deal with the "big themes"

i suppose its just a question of how well its done,and maybe noone is doing it well at the moment,or,as i think is more likely,maybe the media requires it to look like someone is doing it to validate art/promote sales,so they look for someone who deals with universal issues,heap praise on it,and because we soon realise that these "great" things seldom live up to the hype,were all cynical about them,and this is what i mean,that the problem is not with the idea of the great american novel,its just that its become a boy who cried wolf situation...

But are people still reading The Bonfire Of The Vanities now?

A weird point about the genre prejudice thing is music, where as far as a lot of mags and critics are concerned, the mainstream seems to equal white men with guitars. Other genres are treated tokenistically, as if each offers one person you have to acknowledge, and you can ignore the rest - Lee Perry is the reggae producer, Billie Holiday is the jazz singer, Otis Redding the soul singer. With black forms, it helps to wait twenty years or so...

i was more referring to ambitious projects which *could* become classics (as all classics were once) because of their scope

for example the roots album is (by all accounts-i wish i was more familiar with the specific examples being discussed here)hardly an attempt to merely copy classic hip hop like jurrassic five do (oh i now see where some confusion could have arisen-jurrassic five are trying to make a "classic"hip hop album,as in one that ties in with what is considered classic hiphop,but they aren't trying to make a classic in the sense that it will be regarded as a hip hop milestone)
it is an attempt,from what i've read,including an interview with the band itself,to create an album that goes beyond normal hiphop,ie an important,future classic album
is it just me or are people cynical about people like the flaming lips,roots,etc in their efforts to redefine their chosen medium,whereas mike skinner can actually write a song called "lets push things foreward" and get away with it?
because the roots are an established group,(or scorsese an established director)should they not try to do something that raises the bar?

basically, i think that movies that can fit into people's facile narratives about cultural trends tend to make their way into the canon.

What's disorienting though is that one generation's facile narrative about their cultural trends can be completely upended by the next generation's facile etc.

oh yeah, absolutely. that's why i think spring breakers is interesting... there was a whole new inquiry pdf issue about it, and it definitely seems like the kind of thing writers feel compelled to write about, but the discourse about this movie has nevertheless been eclectic and mixed, and critics haven't really settled on their pet reductionist explanation for what it is supposed to *mean* yet. idk. "the graduate" is interesting in this way because it is a very different movie today than in 1967 owing to the fact that the "youth" movement it apparently was seen to champion no longer exists, and that generation today is seen to have a conflicted, rather than purely emancipatory legacy.

i think a serious man is a classic

Superbad is a total classic.