When is film art?
| Abstract | Intuitively, some films qualify as artworks and others do not. Few would deny that Un Chien Andalou qualifies as art, while many would feel little temptation to apply this honorific to the average Hollywood blockbuster, television melodrama, or sleazy porn flick. But what marks the boundary? When is film art? Some might restrict the label to avant garde cinema, European art house films, and video installations, while others are inclined to expand the category to include films intended for wide audiences, including Anthony Mann’s noirs, Sergio Leone’s westerns, and Mario Bava’s masterworks of low- brow horror. Some have even suggested that the art/non-art boundary does not exist. All film is art, though some of it is better art or higher art. How, if at all, should be draw the line? This, it turns out, is not just a question for those with a special interest in film. It has interest for aesthetic theory more broadly, because film can serve as a test case for definitions of art. Some theories of art seem too restrictive, because they prevent us from classifying certain films that are aesthetic masterpieces into the category of art. | |||||||||
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