We haven't been arguing with obiwan so much as agreeing with each other...

True. Very true. But we have been trying to convince him (well, I have been anyways) that just because he doesn't see merit in something doesn't mean merit doesn't exist and that his definition of art is limited in scope when he should open up that scope and see art in many more places.

OK...so, 15-hour school day (not kidding, 7am-10pm) but now that that's done...

My GOD, it just keeps going and going and going...anyone think we can pass this thread off as art somewhere? Split the profits with you...the whole two dollars someone might pay for this... ;)

I'll adress, I suppose, the other posts in a bit--though I'm really hesitant to as I STILL don't think anyone has yet adressed my point on "a sentence must contain words" pertaining to art as a whole. It hasn't been adressed as far as I can see (I skimmed, so I might be wrong, but didn't see it first time through those responses) and the ONLY attempt to adress it at allw as really a non-attempt, Lord Alex simply STATING "Musical piece does not equal sentence" as if that were enough, with no evidence to support his claim and, just as importantly, if not more so, a counterargument to mine, since, again, my principle, as far as I cna tell, has NOT been directly challenged, and so, again, since I don't see my principle being challenged, I cannot accept, then, any challenge to the conclusion of that principle as anything but superficial if you agree with the principle "all sentences have words/all forms of art have signifiers," but not "That which lacks a signifier is not art." It's akin to accepting 1+1=2 but not that 2, then, is necessarily a larger quantity than 1.



The one part I WILL adress right now, this coming from mcbry:

"And another thing, Obi, anyone that bashes Joseph Conrad (even qualified bashing) and suggests that Star Wars is in any way the equal or better of 2001 (or by extension that anything George Lucas could ever be associated with could be the equal or better of anything Stanley Kubrick was associated with) and in the same post no less, shall officially and effective immediately have his/her license to express, dispute, or otherwise pontificate any opinion regarding art and the artistic hereby REVOKED. You, sir, are a philistine. That is all.

:)"

To take this bit by bit:

-To say I cannot "bash" Josef Conrad (I use his natural name, rather than the Anglicized version) is...well, really--why not? Literary criticism is perfectly legitimate, and I have a perfectly legitimate complaint with Conrad, namely that I feel his use of adjectives and description, while BRILLIANT, is so excessive and overdone at times that it KILLS the pace of his stories. He does have good points, but I simply cannot stand his atrocious pacing, particularly in "Nostromo"--now, "Heart of Darkness" I have a similar problem, but with the story being shorter, a novella, and Kutz as a character is genuinely interesting, but "Nostromo" is just ATROCIOUS in its pacing to the point where its characters just seem frozen and static, even though they're not...I said about 2001 that there's giving us a slow shot of a ship to establish how long space flight takes and how majestic and vast space is...and then there's over-doing it. I felt 2001 was guilty of that in a lot of places, and the same with "Nostromo."

Actually, to be honest, while I would argue Conrad and Kubrick are in different forms and so, to an extent, it's folly to try and compare them...but while I would still take Conrad over Kubrick in the case of "Nostromo" vs. 2001 because even though it moves slower than a snail glued to the floor Conrad's story still...well, is still a story, whereas I think 2001 is in many places loose to the point where the audience is making up the story more than the author is, and so while I praise and value interpretive elements in an author's work, there's a fine line I think Kubrick violated badly enough with 2001 to make it more of a mobile photography shoot than a film in places, I WILL say I can see why people could easily like "Nostoromo" and 2001 for that pacing--though why I honestly cannot say.

And, in any case, BOTH are still art, and certainly more so than a blank canvas or 4:33.

;)

-I didn't mean to suggest Lucas was better than Kubrick--he's NOT. ;) Setting aside Indiana Jones and other "fun" movies, I WOULD say a a director Kubrick trounces Lucas and is easily in the Top 4 (I'd say Welles, Spielberg, Kubrick, and Coppola, just off the top of my head) directorially. I DO think the three original Star Wars films are better than 2001, but that's no knock against Kubrick, I think 2001 IS an attempt DIRECTORIALLY to try something wonderful and new, and in that respect it suceeded.

As a STORY I would say Star Wars is better only because, again, I think 2001 is mostly devoid of an inherent story.

Kubrick vs. Lucas is like Muhammad Ali vs. Leon Spinks:

9/10 Kubrick KILLS Lucas...but its just this on instance I ahve to lean with the weaker director and writer (let's face it, Star Wars IV-VI was great, and the Indy movies he did with Speilberg were fun, but besides that and, well, American Grafiti, that's decent, his work's CRAP, and Kubrick is one of the best directors of our age, and maybe THE best cinematrography-wise.)

I therefore demand my license BACK. :p

What?! No Hitchcock?! :-)

OK - a symphony is not a story. It may tell one but it isn't the same. And I don't have to prove it is the same because, well, it just isn't just like an orange isn't an apple. A novel and a symphony are both art and a orange and an apple are both fruit, but they are not the same.

So you simile has a flaw in that you make an assumption that they have a similar strycture when they don't have to. Listen to some minimalist music where the same phrase is repeated over and over again but embellished each time around and imagine hearing a book in a similar manner where the same sentence is repeated but another word is added each time. Your analogy falls apart. And musicN even vocal musicN is often layered such that the complexity of the individual sounds make up an entirely different whole. Try reading or listening to two stories (say Les Miserables in French and English) at the same time. It would be confused jumbles. That is why music isn't literature. Trust me, I arrange music for church and studied music theory at UC for a time. Music is not literature.

OH!

OK, I see where the issue is, Draugnar...

First:

I have sinned against the Gods of Movies by not including Hitchcock!!! :O

FORGIVE ME!!! (Add him to Kubrick, Spielberg, Welles, and Coppola--There, Top 5 Directors Ever! Now--who's the BEST?! ... No, I'm kidding, that'd create 200 more posts...plus, the obvious answer is Orson Welles since he both had "Citizen Kane" and was basically the most awesome movie man ever, arrogant and always assured that he was right and that he would have his loud voice heard...MY HERO!) :p

The OTHER issue...

When I likened a score to a sentence, I didn't mean that it was so in the sense both conveyed a STORY, but rather that both require signifiers in their STRUCTURE, ie, notes to correspond to the intended sounds and moods the composer wishes to convey and words to correspond to the themes and story the author wishes to convey.

That's all I mena with that analogy--

"A sentence must have words, so a score must have notes" merely means that the two must contain some signifiers to stand for sounds, ideas, and so on...they both need that basic rule of strucutre, that's what they have in common, that's all I mean.

Music is NOT literature, I agree.

Do you agree that both, however, require a strucutre, however loose and however changeable, the same way that you can play a game many ways, but without some kind of rules its just people running around with no aim, no goal, no penalty for kneeing that guy in the crotch... ;)

meh Citizen Kane...

agreed, awful, awful movie.

...

How about his radio adaptation of War of the Worlds that scared the hell out of NYC?

Or his performance as Shylock in his adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice?"

(Or that wine commerical where he's TOTALLY drunk!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFevH5vP32s XD

crazy talk... awful movie indeed... my ears are burning.

Citizen Kane = boring.

And no, I do not agree that music needs the structure like literature does, Literature is language whihc requires structure to communicate. Music is sound and absence of sound and there are no rules to require that people understand it or even get the same feeling from it as the composer originally intended. I can sit at a piano and make it up as I go along and it is still music althought ther emay be no specific structure: no key, no tempo, no time signature. It's just freeform playing what I feel but it is still music.

P.S. Yes, I play piano, some guitar, and virtually all the brass instruments with a focus on trombone, flugelhorn, and french horn.

@Draug

Is the French Horn not the most enjoyable instrument to play? IMHO, it's the most beautiful sounding of any brass instrument. Of course, it also sounds the worst if you do it wrong...

War of the worlds - was NYC really scared? If someone had gotten hurt by Orsons stunt, like say someone getting killed in a mass panic, that would have been the end of his career. Haven't seen him in MoV, because its an old movie, and almost all old movies are really, really bad, like CK! Anyone who claims to have enjoyed that film is a f***ing liar! i've had too many beers.

I love all three of my principle brass instruments. Trombone, when played properly (not blasting like the marching bands do) is a very emotive instrument. Listen to Rimsky_Korsakov's Concerto for Trombone sometime and hear just how the instrument was meant to be played.

French horn is second in the classical realm, but Flugelhorn is a beautiful jazz instrument when played by a master like Chuck Mangione.

As a trumpet player, I am insulted to not be included as a principle brass instrument. And yes Draug, good trombone players are amazing to listen to. There aren't enough jazz trombonists either. that's honestly the instrument I like to hear solo most

I think Draug meant *his* three principle brass instruments.

ahhh, then I rescind my comment. Sorry Draug

I did say *my* three principle brass instruments if you'll reread the post. :-)

And jazz trombone was my instrument of choice. Not only was I lead bone in Hughestation my Jr and Sr year, but I was lead bone in the UC SMI jazz band the summer I went there before going into the Corps.

My favorite solo was Stan Kenton's Chiapas. We played that at a national band competition in Orlando my Sr year. Hughestation also took state three years in a row.

But alas, the money is in IT unless you are lucky enough to get discovered, so my second passion became my career.

Yeah, I was 2nd Trumpet Jr year when my jazz ensemble went and played at lincoln center. Playing at the Rose Theater was quite intimidating...especially since I am not a good improv player haha. I did a much better job senior year as lead.

That is impressive though what your band did. What competition was this that you went to Orlando for?

I forget the name of the competition but it was one of those "battle of the bands" invite only things. Both the Jazz (Hughestation) and marching bands were invited, but that was because they knew the only way Hughestation would get there is if we had the financial backing that comes with the marching band. Don't gte me wrong, they were good, but they weren't Hughestation good. I mean, we were state champs all three years I was in the band. :-)

@Draugnar:

But if you play a piano, you ARE still having some structure, namely, you are producing sound through your own intention.

That's IT.

Notice I didn't say "X,Y, and Z words have to be in a sentence."

Just WORDS.

The same holds with music--whether it's Mozart's Requim, "The Mikado," "Hey Jude," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The Nutcracker," "Who Let the Dogs Out?," the Star Wars theme, or simply John Lennon going "Numbah nine...numbah nine...numbah nine...)

A sentence must have words, ANY words/A musical score must have notes/sounds, ANY sounds, so long as they are intentional (again, the same way that Dickens can't take credit for some student crossing out the "ens" in his name to spell "Dick" because...well, he's bored, and idiot, or both, Mozart cannot take credit for that fart you let loose right in the middle his aria "THe Queen of the Night."