in defense of tasteless people with no sense of history, such as myself.

[intertribal]

Something that I've noticed about my taste is that I don't like old films. Classic '30s and '40s movies. Nope. They do nothing for me. Here's the few black-and-whites that I do like:

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). I tear up watching the fillibuster scene. It's so cliched and saccharine, but you rarely see that sort of pure idealism regarding politics. A lot of people say that it's actually an anti-politics movie because Congress is so screwed up, but it actually confirmed my desire to be a political science major.
  


• The African Queen (1951). I don't remember why. I think I found it amusing.


• Bringing Up Baby (1938). Also found it amusing, and that's about it. I watched this because I was running away from a football game that was going badly.

I don't really have anything against them, but sometimes I can feel as though I am somehow an inferior movie watcher because they do nothing for me - people who defend them as their favorites often have such an air about them - "where actors were luminous and the interest lay in clever lines and twisty plotting. I like there to be dignity and grace and thought in films".  And that's the argument I'd like to defend my modern taste against today. 

I just watched two movies on the Independent Film Channel last night that definitely embody the opposite of classic movies - Kontroll* (Hungary, 2003), and The Sweet Hereafter (Canada, 1997). I really enjoyed both, far more than I could possibly enjoy, say, Casablanca or Citizen Kane. And to be honest my reasoning is the one that classic movie fans hate: Kontroll and The Sweet Hereafter felt relevant to me. They depicted environments similar to those I've lived in, they showed extremely skillful use of music, and their characters were real, flawed, and anonymous.

I understand that music is something older generations (and some of my generation) will not appreciate in movies - either that or they think of music as being songs played at certain points or piano crescendos.  That's not how I think of movie music.  Good soundtracks create an ambience you cannot get otherwise.  They don't even have to be melodious - they could just be organized sound.  And the fact is, I don't go a block without listening to my iPod.  Music gives the image and the action texture.  It's a constant.  It's an enricher.  Of course, not all soundtracks are good, or used well, and a powerful soundtrack is not necessary for a powerful movie (No Country for Old Men, for instance, has an anorexic soundtrack).  But, artful soundtracks help.

By anonymous I mean the actors moved to the will of the film, not the other way around. I must admit that movies that are vehicles for big stars are a pet peeve of mine, and I feel like a lot of classic movies are just that. The Sweet Hereafter did feature Ian Holm (Bilbo from LOTR) as the main character, but Holm is not who I would call a big name, he's a character actor, and he was not overpowering. I think personas - A-list actors who play the same character over and over and over, whose characters have the same morals and opinions they do, etc. - are the most toxic thing to a film. I only like character actors. You know, Spanish actors with bad English, who can't drive and hate violence, and play Anton Chigurh. That's hot. Or, people who seem never to have acted before (something I quite admired about Elephant), or have only acted in music videos or stage or some shit college movie, and create these gritty, grotesque five-minute characters with perfect facial expressions, perfect everything, perfect because they look real. Like how someone down the street would react to being punched at by commuters or having their children plunge to death in a school bus. Of course they're not going to win an Oscar with these shots-of-crazy-life performances, but they work superbly for the story. As someone who prioritizes storytelling I love those honest little details because they're what makes the story resonate. Glamour does not. Dignity does not. Luminescence does not. That guy in Kontroll was hot as hell and constantly covered in blood. As the lyrics to "Forgetting" by Phillip Glass and Linda Ronstadt go:

The man is awake now
He can't get to sleep again.
So he repeats these words
Over and over again:
Bravery. Kindness. Clarity.
Honesty. Compassion. Generosity.
Bravery. Honesty. Dignity.
Clarity. Kindness. Compassion.

I suppose what I mean is that I don't think grace and dignity have anything at all to do with art.  Least of all an art that is so closely connected to the masses as movies. 

Then there's also the argument that modern movies and their fans are unconscious of history.  There's a lot of counter-arguments against that, most of which boil down to the idea that history isn't static and is always changing, and young people who watch old movies today are not exactly watching their beloved classics with an austere eye.  Of course, they can't help this.  It is simply true.  I don't hold it against them - but it does make the history argument somewhat null.  And if we're simply arguing about educational value: that it's important to learn about history - and that watching old movies is a cheap and easy way to do that - we've got significant problems because we're now arguing that these movies are a suitable replacement for history books.  And while history books aren't perfect, they at least attempt objectivity and will at least tell you that slavery was bad (a sentiment not likely to be gotten from a cold viewing of Gone with the Wind).

In other news, turns out my mom doesn't like mojitos.

* I wish I could find a slower, more atmospheric scene for Kontroll, but I couldn't.

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

"No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.

In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdicu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part in a Frenchperson's choice of clothing, furniture, leisure activities, dinner menus for guests, and many other matters of taste. What emerges from his analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere in the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions-that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes. Taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a world of social meaning in the decision to order bouillabaisse, in our contemporary cult of thinness, in the "California sports" such as jogging and cross-country skiing. The social world, he argues, functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.

The topic of Bourdieu's book is a fascinating one: the strategies of social pretension are always curiously engaging. But the book is more than fascinating. It is a major contribution to current debates on the theory of culture and a challenge to the major theoretical schools in contemporary sociology. "

"Bourdieu's analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and chokes matter less than an esthetic outlook in general and by showing, moreover, that the acquisition of an esthetic outlook not only advertises upper-class prestige but helps to keep the lower orders in line. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. It serves the interests not merely of status but of power. It does this, according to Bourdieu, by emphasizing individuality, rivalry, and 'distinction' and by devaluing the well-being of society as a whole."

"La Distinction, a sociological book by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), takes as its basis Bourdieu's empirical research carried out in 1963 and concluded in 1967/68. The original publication took place in 1979 in France. Richard Nice translated the work into English, and it appeared in the United States in 1984 under the title "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste". In 1998 the International Sociological Association voted it one of the ten most important sociological books of the 20th century.

In his often densely-worded prose, Bourdieu discussed how those in power define aesthetic concepts such as "taste". Using research, he shows how social class tends to determine a person's likes and interests, and how distinctions based on social class get reinforced in daily life. He observes that even when the subordinate classes may seem to have their own particular idea of 'good taste', "...[i]t must never be forgotten that the working-class 'aesthetic' is a dominated 'aesthetic' which is constantly obliged to define itself in terms of the dominant aesthetics..." (page 41)"

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

just saying, both of these aesthetics probably come from certain class positions, though they may be more specific than that. certainly the value attributed to "dignity and grace" as well as real-ness and relevancy, flaws, anonymity, etc., are class-bound in a certain sense. but as usu. w/ class, it's more complicated, in particular in this case regarding what has changed in the tastes governing movie production between the time those movies were made and now...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

for what it's worth, though, i don't like "personas" either. i think meryl streep is one, and she drives me nuts...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Really? I don't see Meryl Streep as a persona, but I guess you could call her that. I think I don't mind Meryl Streep for a very dumb reason - because my mother liked her, and I almost always took my mother's preferences, however slight, when it comes to celebrities and accentuated them. We've diverged paths since but the Streep thing is one I remember from early childhood. It's the reason I still like Jack Nicholson even though rationally I think, um, not that good... because my mother liked him. It's sad really.

I guess my #1 most hated persona is Julia Roberts. But it's hard to know how seriously she's taken.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

my dad really likes her, but the only reason i don't is she always seems to play the same sort of aggravatingly self-pitying weak and ineffectual woman.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

which is not to say that i think she's a bad actress

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what have you seen her in? Not trying to argue with you, just wondering what you consider an "aggravatingly self-pitying weak and ineffectual woman".

I can see Sophie's Choice, Bridges of Madison County, Evening (not that I saw that one).

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i was thinking more of The Hours, Music of the Heart, Out of Africa..

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Music of the Heart! Lol. There was one Saturday when that just kept playing on CW.

Well, she plays a Hillary Clinton type in The Manchurian Candidate and a bitch boss in The Devil Wears Prada...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

lol indeed.

ineffectual may have been the wrong word, but i still don't usu. like her characters. i s'pose the bitch boss was slightly better, but really, i don't doubt that it's just the reverse side of the former role...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

strangely enough, i haven't seen any of those

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

oh, definitely. it's interesting because it really shows that class is not the same as wealth - because my cousin is totally like that, all about "dignity and grace", and she doesn't come from a wealthy background and isn't wealthy now. But she definitely has a certain sense of what's proper and what's not that's very old-fashioned in certain respects. She's a medieval re-enactor, is into the Princess Bride, once reprimanded me for criticizing the military "because most of your family was in the military."

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

sometimes class is more evident in..."pretensions" and "airs", trying to be something you're not, trying to fit in, etc., or just plain valuing something that's associated with a class higher than your own. or shown in defining yourself in direct opposition to that and derisively mocking it.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

'just guessing, though. it's also the case that the middle class is actually more valued in contemporary american (or european) society, since like the french revolution. i think. not sure. i haven't actually read Distinction. but i remember talking about the rise of the bourgeoisie in Modern Hum this semester, and i valuely remember from Language & Politics the influence it had on standard American English and the valuation of "straightforward, plain style" that rose as America distinguished itself from Britain, etc.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ah, hm. So do the people that value dignity and grace part of an upper class or lower, then? Or both?

Stupid complexity.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

good question. i'm guessing somewhere around middle class, but i don't really know.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Also, I think a critical approach to both primary and secondary sources is essential, moral judgments aren't objectivist, no matter how bad slavery was, and in short history should be gotten from old movies (as well as books, objects of art, relics, etc.) as well as histories. it's just important to remember the context they came from, and what it tells you about that rather than their purported subject.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I could get through old movies. But no, yeah, you're right - but I hardly think that most of the people who put stuff in their DVD are there to analyze the context of what they're watching.

And I wouldn't have included the pitch for history books if not for the argument that old movies are as good as history books with regards to factual informative value, which I firmly maintain they are not. I know history texts aren't objective but I don't entirely think education should be objective. I guess if everybody were above average that would be a good idea.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think education should at least be mostly objective, i guess...what that means is probably a bigger question, though.

haha, yeah, i don't mean to say that people defending old movies on that count were getting that sort of analysis out of it.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

The objective thing is a hard one... like, I think it's important for kids to come out of high school understanding that slavery is bad, for ex., but it would be preferable if they came to this conclusion for themselves, if it wasn't just ground into their heads. But on the other hand, if the teacher is providing the info how objective can you be?

Then again, Rippe did have us read defenses of racism... but by then it was junior year, I doubt we were very moldable.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i do think a lot of this is determined before high school...not that education doesn't have a real influence. i think they have to come with the moral principles to make that sort of judgment, though, for it to be "ground into their heads" in the first place, and that will happen whether or not you present slavery as bad or more 'objectively'. (sidenote: personally, i have to admit that i find nietzsche's critique of morality very compelling. i've been thinking about it a lot lately w/ regard to the "ascetic ideal" and the academic one, the moralizing of truth...blah) anyway, i don't think you can convince someone just by telling them that slavery was awful.

(talking about an article about political rhetoric surrounding 9/11:)

Me: And my other, related problem

Steve: in other words: what problem?

Me: is that I think in general we as a class, not to mention the authors of the article, don't have a very good grip on who the audience was, whose minds this really affected, or what the speech changed, partly because our friends, our parents, our teachers didn't buy this.

Steve: this is, of course, a real issue. It's called "socioeconomic class" [which is profoundly mediated, in contemporary EuroAmerican society, by the educational establishment and symbolic capital more generally]. We touched on it in conference, and will in future classes, but I agree with you that we should probably address it more and more explicitly.

Me: That was what I meant about wondering about the peers and background of my classmates. A few people in the class, myself sort of included, seemed to know people who actually did want to 'fight for our country', but I'm just guessing that we may not have been the majority.

Steve: Probably right; I would guess that a small majority of students in this class come from the sort of class background from the typical perspective of which reacting to 9/11 with "think I'll join the Marines" is very foreign indeed.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

No, and then parents come into play, I think, along with everything else that shapes how a child develops a moral compass. I'm pretty sure I know some people who don't think slavery was all bad - it was "politically incorrect" but not morally reprehensive to them. Then again I sort of wonder about a lot of my friends' real ideological leanings... and how much of it is just sort of rehearsed for essays and such.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Not sure why I said No at the beginning there. Ignore the No.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

probably a lot like how i say "yeah" and "yes" all the time, even when i'm disagreeing...it may serve a discourse function, and i've clearly just finished writing all my linguistics essays...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i don't find it bad out of compassion, if that counts for anything. i don't like to find fault much, either. i don't believe in evil. when i say slavery is bad, it has more to do with a belief in individual rights that goes against all forms of domination.

but yeah, know what you mean about wondering about people's real ideological leanings

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I wonder why I find slavery bad. Probably similar to yours, but I think I have the compassion thing in there somewhere too.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i struggle with compassion. i'm not sure i have as little of it as i'd like to think...