#5: What’s black and white and red all over?

When I was younger, an episode of Full House saw the youngest daughter Michelle Tanner partaking in a go-cart race. If my memory serves well, she had a rival and as the race is about to start the rival makes time for one last insult. Michelle retorts by saying that her dad told her if she can’t say anything nice, she shouldn’t say anything at all.

My dad told me a similar thing. As a very outspoken girl, I used to have a hard time maneuvering arguments without losing my temper. My dad told me that if I didn’t agree with someone, I should just say that they rose some interesting points and then call it a day. That being said…

Rudolf Arnheim raises some interesting points on the evolution of film.

In The Complete Film, Arnheim (1933) argues that the perfection of the “complete film” as a medium that fully imitates reality completely veers away from the original intentions of the black and white silent film. Arnheim (1933) posits that the introduction of colored sound film obliterates the explicit and pure style of silent film in favor of “the inartistic demand for the greatest possible ‘naturalness’ [in the most superficial sense of the word]”. Where Plato critiqued art on the basis that it will never be the truest form of the object, Arnheim is now critiquing film for being too close to reality. To Arnheim, human beings’ need to create faithful images harkens back to a primitive desire of obtaining material objects by making it ourselves. In a sense, he relates the audience’s consumption of the reality in films as a cheap imitation of the experience without the stakes. The development of film veers it away from an art form and more into escapism.

To this, I wonder how quickly Arnheim would have a heart attack upon finding himself in our era of virtual reality, high definition videos, IMAX surround sound systems and the works. I wonder if the time in between his spasms and gasping for air will allow him the ability to talk to an audience exiting their favorite film. I’d hope I’m in the crowd so that I could just ask him a simple question:

“So what of escapism? Are there not worse fates for man?” (I love any excuse to talk dramatically and I will surely take advantage of it for Rudolf Arnheim)

The man looks like this. How would we not engage in fisticuffs?

Though in all seriousness, what of escapism? As someone that grew up on films, there is something magical about watching a film and being with a newfound extension of self. This also didn’t dampen my abilities to just absorb the story as it is. To simply hear the artist in the piece. To partake in the transaction of viewer and art by providing them with the emotions they elicited out of me. For that matter, I completely disagree with Arnheim’s proposition that the perfection of the “complete” film is a catastrophe. I think the assumption that a medium closer to reality as nothing but wish fulfillment is quite insulting to not only people but reality itself. There is so much chaos in reality. There are so many stories to tell and so many people can hear it because of the “complete” film. To whittle people down into nothing but apes following their primitive desires completely ignores just how powerful and creative humans become the more resources you give to them. Yes, silent films and black and white films are still mediums of film. However, they aren’t the only ones. And this isn’t to say that that medium should no longer exist nor that its value is decreased because of the colored sound film. This is to say that art is limitless and that the “complete” film will never exist. Filmmakers will find newer and newer forms closer to reality or farther removed. The beauty of the film lies in experiencing what could come next.

References

Arnheim, R. (1933). From Film as Art: The Complete Film. Film and Reality.