Film as Art

I want to preface this entry with a comment about the "what is art" contreversey in general. I beleive it is not up to "us" (meaning the people in general) to define what is and isn't art. If you create somthing, whether it be a film or photo, and to YOU it is art, then who can tell you that it's not? And if there someone else beleives it is not art, they really don't have the place to say that.

But now onto the topic...

FILM AS ART

The first comment I would like to make is about how film didn't start out as "art." The paper makes this seem like a big deal, but if you put yourself in the mindset of a person from the early 20th century, of course film and photos weren't art. They were so new and there wasn't much room for artists to put their artisticness (?) into them. They were scientific inventions, not used by artists.

So most of the points against film as art are good points, but they really are outdated. For example, the idea that they were mechanical productions.

A point I would like to talk about thought is that they are not media, but a means of recording the media. The other examples of this were a painting put on a postcard. The painting is art, but the postcard is not. My counterresponce to this is that putting the painting on the postcard is a means of copying the artwork, not a means of producing it.

At one point in history (had I lived many years ago), I would have agreed that films were just a means of recording art. However, today cameras don't simply record things and put them out there for others to show. Real work and creative talent goes into every aspect of them, from the story to colors and costumes.

I like the "absence of intentionality" arguement. If the creator's purpose is not to create art, then most likely, it will not be artistic. Though this can't be used as a hard and true definition of what is art. But then again, when it comes to art, there really isn't set "right" and "wrong" ideas.