Post a controversial opinion

and yet we all choose to express ourselves in the printed word some of us read aloud instead of moving pictures on ilxor.com

https://media.giphy.com/media/l49JEc2wqcBnw2tpK/giphy.gif

i blink my eyes silently with a grin and type this on my laptop

no point trying to tell someone "like this" if you don't but even if you hate movies in general, i can't imagine a reasonable argument for saying chaplin or welles or renoir are inferior to any sculptors or painters of the same era

i think if i ever met someone that expressed that sentiment IRL i would immediately say "i have to return some videotapes" and walk away

that's okay bc im seein chaucer perform in a bit anyway

Keaton > Laurel & Hardy > Lloyd > Chaplin
Sam Fuller > Orson Welles
Can't make a comparison for Renoir because I've never seen any of his movies

Renoir > Renoir

Ha, I saw a lot of Laurel & Hardy growing up. For some reason, they were really popular in India with people of my parents' age cohort or even a little younger. My parents were totally baffled when no one wanted to stay for an entire L&H movie at my eighth birthday party.

Movies are a lesser art form compared to writing, painting, or music.
― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, April 8, 2018 2:43 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like saying Thanksgiving dinner is worse than turkey, stuffing, or mashed potatoes.

people have to realize things have been around longer than other things. there is a history to be aware of. videogames have been around for 30 or so years compared to books that have been around for thousands of years. this means there has been less time for people to make brilliant videogames than there has for them to make brilliant books. extrapolate from here to every medium.

the argument that one medium is better than the other is historically ignorant. we literally have no way of knowing, unless people were also making movies and tv series 5,000 years ago, which medium by itself produces the best work. it's entirely a subjective opinion so it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

Music reached its peak when Nixon was in the White House.

Music reached its peak when Nixon was in the White House.

Mainstream rock and pop, absolutely. 1969-75 were the golden years for rock.

ILM might be one of the few places where that is a controversial opinion.

(re: rock music; if you're talking about music as a whole, it gets a little dicier.)

This thread is only for posting controversial objective opinions.

Not for the first time, Fred, I'm not sure what you're getting at, but surely you can see why "1969-1975 were golden years for rock and roll" is a funny contribution to a thread for controversial opinions?

I'm making fun of this:

it's entirely a subjective opinion so it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), 8. april 2018 23:55 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh ha

https://media.giphy.com/media/SUeUCn53naadO/giphy.gif

that GIF always bothers me because the sound it would make ≠ the traditional rimshot+cymbal noise

unperson's opinion is dumb af - it's more likely you like garbage movies and that's the problem

if you wanna come out and defend why you think movies suck that would be worth something

the cinema is garbage at 24 frames per second

moving images are unnatural

if you wanna come out and defend why you think movies suck that would be worth something

I don’t think movies suck. I enjoy watching movies, sometimes. I said they’re a lesser art form. Primarily because they’re too collaborative. Great art is never made by committee. Solitary acts (writing, painting, solo musical performance) are best; the more people you invite in, the more watered-down your statement becomes. You’re not an auteur unless you could do it yourself if you really had to.

well unperson i respect your opinion and i cheers ya mate

Great art is never made by committee.

you really can't name one piece of art made by two or more people that is great?

Solitary acts (writing, painting, solo musical performance) are best; the more people you invite in, the more watered-down your statement becomes.

a group of people can't make a statement?

flappy going for the home run, bless

unperson, do you think Richard Serra does all of his metalwork solo?

theater and film are both examples of art that can scarcely, if ever, be made by a "solitary act". Even the barest bones 'one-person shows' must have, at a minimum, someone doing the lighting.

yeah but have you seen Limmy's Vines

There's tons of shitty art in the world, of course. But no movie I've ever seen compares to standing in the same room as a Richard Serra sculpture.

― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, April 8, 2018 3:00 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

With this you've achieved peak "Well, I don't even own a TV".

Richard Serra works with mathematicians to get his ish done right

I don't like movies either but

that GIF always bothers me because the sound it would make ≠ the traditional rimshot+cymbal noise

― Karl Malone, 9. april 2018 01:37 (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But that is the best part! #ContrOp

A lot of avant-garde cinema has that solitary feeling, from Brakhage to experimental documentary. But I also think collaborative art is good in other contexts, like the Illiad, or Shakespeares works made in collaboration with his actors. #Scenius>Genius

When Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers collaborate, it isn't just two individual pieces of art, words and music. The real product is the songs, with the sum greater than the parts.

When Billy Wilder put Kirk Douglas on top of the mountain in Ace in the Hole, was he in total control of his medium? Of course not, though did it really diminish the statement made?

Likewise when Jackson Pollack dropped paint onto a canvas, was he ever fully in control of his medium?

Wilder and Pollack both knew the materials and methods they were using and introduced a degree of controlled randomness and I feel great art was the result.

no man is an island but on the other hand this is the controps thread guys, being controversial is kinda the point

Yah I get it but controps threads are best with the (probably fruitless) arguments that follow.

Also is compromise so bad in itself? Isn't there a kind of beauty when someone gets the best from the materials available?

Michael Curtiz was a studio man, and the materials he used might have been forced upon him with the direction limited, but he still had the control in bringing them together and framing them in the best possible way. I wouldn't hesitate to call his best movies "great art".

nobody who creates any kind of cultural commodity has ever existed as a sealed unit expressing the purity of their purely independent ideas thru a neutral technology that does no more than allow the expression of their pure artistic freedom would be my general point

Oh agreed for sure.

this is the controps thread guys, being controversial is kinda the point

the introduction of a controversial opinion producing subsequent controversy seems like a natural life cycle

no it doesn't

does so

Aimless otm

Great art is never made by committee.

I mean

This is a potentially dangerous line of thought. Refueling the "artist toiling in solitude" romance is one thing, but negating any other model is not only fetishistic toward the "solitary artist", but also dismissive of more social and community-oriented methods of art-creation

I do profess to have a taste for "single origin work" because it IS romantic, no one is immune (except people who wilfully or reactionarily have immunized themselves); I have heard the "Tinashe produced her first mixtape herself" narrative told to me in wondrous tones more times than I can count. But lots of great art is made by committee, made by proxy, made by industrialization of one's vision, made by curation, made by teams of people. If we're going to dig deep and cull the single-origin stuff from the rest then there's a lot of essential great art that's gonna lose its "great" status, the least of which is your Richard Serra

I mean, it would be poetic if Richard Serra spent many tedious hours welding those enormous metals into art that is as equally tedious

But still: the gallery, the lighting, the method in which you discovered his work, the donors that paid for it...

I do get waves of pleasure in inhabiting the isolated psychological spaces that Galina Ustvolskaya wrote her works in, contemplating birch trees and Jesus Christ and her own mortality, but it's still played by some people, on instruments made by other people, in a building made by other people, and recorded by others, uploaded by others, linked to me by others, and the entire history and work of that composer is coloured by anecdotes about her and Shostakovich, anecdotes about Americans hearing her work and feeling frightened, and the documentary I watched about her, and so on

Last night I was speaking with a gallery curator who was telling me about how every Monday they have to clean out the Yayoi Kusama rooms, and the installation staff were considering creating new work from the enormous amount of hair that was collected. I don't know if "Large Ball Of Human Hair Collected Every Monday By A Custodial Team For Six Months From The Kusama Infinity Mirror Chambers Exhibition" (2019) would qualify as "great art" but I'd definitely pay to see it

i think unperson has a point about art by committee, not in terms of the dismissing of film entirely, but in terms of its effect on film more than other art forms. it's not as healthy today as it once was, the films released by major studios are fewer and more narrowly focused and yet take up a higher percentage of screens than ever before. while i believe it's easier to make films today w/the wide range of technologies available it's also harder to get them seen widely or make any money doing it. i also find it a bummer how many promising actors and directors pop up and are immediately funneled into the tentpole movie pipeline, and the ones that aren't sometimes just disappear.

99% of the posts in the 'Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here' thread should have been posted to their intended threads.

99%? Are you positive about that? Because that seems high.

"Posts you had a second thought about..." should be retitled "Some passive aggressive posts sometimes without context."

That's the whole point of the thread. In normal circumstances you just wouldn't post it anywhere at all.