Richard writes:

> Many people have had the experience of undervaluing a film on first
viewing and than coming around to a better appreciation later because
of they've grown.

But isn't it also possible to outgrow a film or filmmaker? Isn't it
possible that a first viewing can overvalue a film as well as
undervalue it?

> I would say that the formalist view is that appreciation equals
pleasure.

Such a view gives me pause. Equating appreciation with pleasure does
not work for me.

hl666 writes:

> Short answer: "It must give pleasure"
Wallace Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"

Slightly longer:

"We reason of these things with later reason
And we make of what we see, what we see clearly
And have seen, a place dependent on ourselves."

Full text:

http://home.earthlink.net/~scofield99/data/W_Stevens_NotesSupreme.htm

Fred writes:

> But also, it seems obvious that simply because a work has a
recognizable style doesn't make it good: examples from other arts are
abundant.

I would agree.

> But I can't accept simply talking about "pleasure" without talking
about what kind of pleasure.

Agreed. I recognize the pleasure of an ice-cold glass of lemonade on
a hot day or the refreshing tang of a sea breeze as I walk along the
beach. While I would identify both as giving me pleasure, it is a
pleasure different and distinct from what I receive from movies.

> If someone told me that the pleasure they find in Sirk's films lies
in their loud colors and outrageously campy acting and stories, I
might suddenly explain that I had a plane to catch and walk away.

Why? Is there something wrong with that type of pleasure? Are they
lesser forms of pleasure?

> An explication of the pleasure of Hawks's adventure films that
restricts itself to talking about his exciting stories and effective
performances would leave me thinking I had shared little with the
person I was listening to.

But if those are the only areas in which that viewer experiences
pleasure, is it fair to view him or the discussion as being
restricted? Restriction implies not only a conscious or unconscious
narrowing, but also the availability to all viewers of a more open
field of vision.

> Taste is to some extent subjective, a product of both individual
tastes and the tastes of a sub-group or culture. But is it totally
subjective?

How can it be otherwise unless you assert an essential "human nature"
that every human being is born with? Is that what you are claiming?

> If so, why have so many across the centuries derived such intense
and visionary pleasures from Homer (even in translation), Chartres
Cathedral, Shakespeare, Bach, Titian?

You are imputing causes by pointing out correlations – that is a
logical fallacy. The fact that many people have been inspired by the
same works of art does not tell us anything concrete about either
those works of art or the people.

> True, there are other great older artists who were rediscovered
only in the 20th-century -- showing, perhaps, that culture factors
into it to some extent.

I certainly believe that culture and acculturation play a significant
role.

> My real point is that I can distinguish between the considerable
pleasures I derive from the careful pacing, moving time-crossing
structure, and superb acting in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in
America," and the mind-cleansing, transpersonal, visionary explosions
of Sirk's "The Tarnished Angels" or Brakhage's "The Text of Light"

So there are not just differences among pleasures, but hierarchies as
well?

Also, what do you mean when you say something is "mind-cleansing"
and "transpersonal"? I have seen the term "transpersonal" used with
regard to psychology and Eastern mysticism, but I am not sure of how
you are invoking it in this instance.

> The films that I call great don't give me pleasures based on moods
or personal identifications with actors or characters or little
dialogue bits that I love or a narrative that hooks me: they present
visual (and often, aural) systems of expression in which all of the
parts come together in a way that lifts me completely out of myself.

I understand, but a "lifting completely out of oneself" seems like a
very personal and idiosyncratic experience from which I would be hard-
pressed to extrapolate a universal definition of great artistry.

> Rather, it seems to me that their forms convincingly embody their
visions, so that anyone can be moved by them.

But doesn't this assertion put us back in the essentialist trap? If
anyone can be moved by them, then anyone/everyone must be equipped
with the ability to be moved in this way. Futhermore, if they are
not moved, isn't because of a conscious or unconscious choice on
their part not to bring this inherent ability into play?

> This is why I tend to say that people who don't see the greatness
of the films that I love just aren't getting it . . .

I would agree that they aren't getting it (e.g., I am not moved by
Sirk), but the questions remain: a) whether or not everyone possesses
the same capacity to "get it"; and b) whether one commonality among
all great art is its ability to lift those who get it out of
themselves.

David E. writes:

> The reason that I value "Those Who Love Me can Take the Train"
above all other films starts with the story, the characters, and the
performers but REALLY kicks in because of the way Chereau has
synthesized it all into a work that takes the form of a living
organism in and of itself.

&

> The film ITSELF has a character -- the includes a built in d.j.

&

> I thinks about it self all the time

If the film has character, thinks about itself, and takes the form of
a living organism, would this be a case where autonomy was actual and
not illusionary?

Brian