I’ve always had the germ of this thought on my brain, but it was a teacher who helped me materializing it into an idea : Objectivity does not exist. Or what it is the same, the (absolute) truth doesn’t exist, as much as an individual or a collective preaching as being in it’s possession.
And leass within the different arts. (Not even the cinema-eye of Dziga Vértov.)
What is usually meant by “absolute” objectivity is born of meetings and agreements between the subjective views of various people, motivated by their way of seeing the world, their tastes, their education, their background and circumstances.
As in the kitchen, truth is that there is a minimum level of social convention where we define what it is a salad and what is a soup, as well as when a food is in poor condition and can cause you a disease, but there is where the “rules” finish. Although it is also legitimate that you enjoy the taste of this rotten food and no one can blame you you’re wrong, although you have to take the consequences for your health on the way to the hospital. But nobody can impose what soup is better than another, or that a salad is better than a soup.
This simile of food can be applied also to any other art, or any area of life, since even the absolute knowledge of science can be refuted in the future.
Not even death is permanent, as Herbert West taught us.
And as what makes me breathe is cinema and I have always seen its production as the kitchen, except that is you who always have to create the best ingredients (the characters) for the recipe you’re going to invent comes tasty, firstly for you, and luckily to a greater or lesser number of people.
Therefore, neither you nor I nor any critic, nor the public are right.
We all are right and is the only one that should matter.
Hence comes this number of issues to consider.
- Thou shalt not include a shoy of the full moon without a very good reason.
- Thou shalt not shoehorn the topical heterosexual romance by decree, especially in stories where do not add anything.
- Thou shalt not follow the “unwritten rules” of traditional studies and leave aside your original idea to mold your story to “what the audience demands.”
- Thou shalt not use the music to underline the emotional moments of the plot.
- Thou shalt not put in the mouth of your characters what they are about to do.
- Thou shalt not end up your movie abruptly the frame just after the plot is resolved as they liked to do in the classic cinema.
- Thou shalt not qualify a movie as failed if you are not one of its authors.
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Thou shalt not use digital blood or CGI instead of latex and animatronics.
- You will never approach melodrama.
- The only taboo that you will respect will be the one that Mr. Murnau shot.
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Thou shalt not show anything obvious on screen, and you’ll never show again scenes or details that the viewer should remember.
- Thou shalt not infect your story with a happy tone to have your audience comfortable, if what you want to tell it is an unfortunate and dark as coal story.
Sweeten our art only makes us poor, both creators and the audience, which believes that only needs harmless entertainment to escape from the miseries of life. - Thou shalt not make your characters speak another language than the one they should because of their origin or “How hollywood believes that the whole planet speaks English“. Love the authenticity, fear not the subtitles.
- Thou shalt not shot sex scenes in a puritanical or prudish way, as we have always been shown. For that is better an ellipsis. Learn from John Cameron Mitchell and Lena Dunham.
- All the above should be discarded if you use one of these cheap resources with the aim of achieving a comic moment.
* This is not just for the movies, but I also like to follow it strictly : repudiate moderation, the politically correct, the metrosexuality and all fads.
There are other issues in the world of culture, which are either taboo, or almost inevitably fall into the drawer of the one-dimensional thinking, as in the case of “piracy”.
(The part that hit the jackpot of) The world of film and music accuse ordinary people of piracy for watching a movie or listening to some songs without paying for it, just as we do when we watch a movie on television or heard a theme on the radio.
But, the difference is that, since the born of the internet (Thanks to the Network Working Group and Tim Berners-Lee for a wonderful tool!) we can do it when and how we want, and that firstly means without going through the annoying advertising.
Their guilt-theory for file sharing software as the only and main cause of the decline in sales has been disassembled many times, and has made me sick hearing many people using demagoguery to attack it, like the time that I heard a person who worked in the film infustry in our country that downloading his film was the same as stealing a coat in a store, totally ridiculous …
It’s rare in the world of film production to not recover at least the initial investment (in the field of the films of medium-high budget, the ones that are usually most shared), and it’s more because of haven’t generated interest, although many great films barely get results at the box office.
In the world of music, living on the royalties is a story of the past (the very few musicians who could) and to survive it is logical to earn their livelihood doing other things, such as concerts.
In my opinion, the whole “not live” cultural goods should be freely available, and then each person should commit themselves to contribute with money to what they really like, as long as they can afford it. We’ve all paid for a movie or album that after we have repented.
There are many types of users, some will never pay for such content and they doesn’t care if they doesn’t get that precise movie or album for free, and others like me have much need of culture that can not afford to pay for everything we feel curious about.
Therefore, if you want to see a movie and you can watch it in a theater, go. If not, download it, rent it or buy it directly if you trust its creators.
At the release of an album, if it’s created by one of the artists you like, make a pre-order, if you do not trust it, download it and you’ll pay for it if you like it.