Talk:Art film

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"They are generally not American, not with a large budget and usually not an English language film. "

Is this some kind of official definition? There are plenty of American and English language "art films". This article seems to imply that "art film" is synonomous with "non-American film". [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 20:35, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Time line of Great independent films

It would be best to not have more that 7 or 8 films per decade. !! please some one respond!!!Grosscha 20:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

This article needs even more additions to its list of Art film directors Paradiso 16:32, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I am concerned about this subtitle. The first part "Timeline" is good. But the second part "Great" i am worried about, because it is a subjective, vague term. I argue that the encyclopedia has to have a factual, balanced tone (therefore "notable" is a better term). And finally, I am concerned about the term "independent films". The article is about art movies. Yes, art movies and independent movies overlap, but they are not the same thing. If Kurosawa made a $100 million dollar movie produced by Sony, and it was all filled with bizarre hallucinogenic images, deep philosophical questions, and experimental montages of images and colour, it would probably qualify as an art movie EVEN though it was done through a major studio for lots of $$$. For these reasons, I suggest a more "neutral" title such as "Timeline of Notable Art Films"Nazamo 03:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ill Conceived

The article itself is ill conceived. Art film is not a genre with specific characteristic, it's at best an umbrella term and at worse a characteristic like "emo", where it really does not define the works it represents but the perception of certain traits as part of a whole. To put it in another way, very few, if any, directors would claim to make art films. Instead of trying to define what an art film is, the article should acknowledge that its just an umbrella term, a perception of certain movies not perceived as traditional or Hollywoodesque. --Clementduval 23:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merge

One month passed with no comments at all. Obvious concensus in favor of a merge. --TheLimbicOne(talk) 16:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

removing link to life of a tenis ball; seems irrelevant to greater theme, and there are surely better art films than that to link to. cheers, --zachjones4 17:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria

There seems to be a tendency to include films into the Examples section solely because they contain subjective realism, such as Adaptation, Annie Hall, and Barton Fink, none of which occur to me as art films (I've removed Annie Hall due to my convictions).

I think this page should distinguish between art avant-garde film (works by Barney, Brakhage, Deren, Warhol) and arthouse cinema (films with limited appeal that play to smaller audiences, including popular films released to foreign markets) which, while sometimes overlapping, are quite distinct. Jonathan F 02:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree they are distinct. Paradiso 06:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree too, and there was a page on arthouse films which was redirected to art film earlier this year. An art film is a film meant to be art. An arthouse film is any film that plays arthouse cinemas (but those are most likely to be foreign films, art films, cult films, controversial films, banned films and non-mainstream films). Although I have not read it, Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema - Barbara Wilinsky seems to be a good source for the arthouse film phenomenon. Overlap may occur in the pages on art film and experimental film . Two notable American arthouse theaters were the Elgin Theater and the Brattle Theater.

--Jahsonic 08:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I also agree, and I believe that there should (again?) be a seperate page for "art house". The term "art house" itself is in wider use than "art film" when describing the films and directors listed in this article, etc. There is also a seperate and distinct history to the term "art house" (referring to art house cinemas or theaters as mentioned above). An example of this would be the DVD boxed set to be released soon from Janus Films, containing 50 films and labeled "Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films". This boxed set contains a great number of the films listed in the examples section of this article.

Zeroism 00:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

    • Sure, art house could have its own page since the emergence and history of venues that play art films is of encyclopedic interest. Also, it would do to have this page finally focus on the art film (Bergman, Antonioni, whatever) to the exclusion of avant-garde film (Deren, yadayadayada), which has its own page (experimental film). Jonathan F 08:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Art House (type of films)

I have attempted to have the "art house" (from RIT) page link here. Should I have missed something in the format please do fix it up! Yottabite

[edit] Very Ill-Conceived

This is simply to reinforce the points made by Clementduval which seem to me entirely just. Cinema is an art. The notion of a non-art film is to say the least problematic and therefore the notion of an art-film similarly so. Any list of supposed "art films" presents immediate problems. Kubrick's 2001? Scorcese's Raging Bull? Lee's Brokeback Mountain? (but no Citizen Kane, one notes). If such popular mainstream Hollywood films are included, then why not the films of Ford? or Peckinpah? Why not Fantasia? Why not Bambi? There is no way in which one establish any kind of objective meaning for the term and I don't suppose there is a single film-director who would accept its validity. As Clementduval points out it is simply a convenience term with which says something only about popular perceptions of cinema. To attempt to display it as an objective criterion is confusing and misleading. The relationsip to the more critically respectable French term, widely used in Europe, "film d'auteur" is not made at all clear (and cross-reference to it produces a somewhat bizarre "List of auteurs"). As for "arthouse" this is surely something different. The term is a local American one with barely any currency outside the United Staes and, if I understand it rightly, refers to the cinematic fare provided (more or less exclusively) by certain kinds of movie theatres. Speaking as a non-American, to whom the word has little or no meaning, I would find a rather more specific and objective explanation of this phenomenon very welcome. Agantuk 17:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Agantuk, thank you for your comments. First of all, I would like to remind you that this is an article "in progress." It still needs lots of work, additions, and research, preferably from editors with a MUCH greater knowledge of films and cinema than my own.................. You said "Cinema is an art." Sure, for Citizen Kane, but what about the Die Harder series or the Lethal Weapon movies? I think that you could argue that different films are on a continuum that runs from pure entertainment at one end and pure art at the other end. Let's say we pick Resident Evil: Apocalypse as a good example of pure entertainment (this movie has every mistake and misstep you could imagine...plot holes, poor acting, poor dialogue, etc....but a lot of stuff blows up, and there are some cool costumes and weapons, so if you put your mind in neutral, it is sort of fun), and then you could put a film such as Kurosawa's Dreams (1990), with its bizarre images, hallucinogenic sequences, etc, as a pure art film................. You said "Any list of supposed "art films" presents immediate problems." I agree. The list was already here in the article when I first started trying to improve the article. The list is a crazy mixed bag of popular films, experimental films, auteur films, etc, reflecting the interests of different editors. Along with others, I have been trying to categorize the films by year/director. Now that this is done, I think that people interested in this article can vote/discuss on the talk page for which films/directors should be in, using references to external experts' opinions and reviews...........As far as there non being "any kind of objective meaning for the term," the new edits have tried to acknowledge this by showing that there have been varying definitions, some of which are very vague....... Now, as far as your comment "...I don't suppose there is a single film-director who would accept its validity."...this may be true, but a respected film theorist(cited in the article) has defined art films, in terms of how they are different from mainstream films..........The relationship with the "...critically respectable French term, widely used in Europe, "film d'auteur" is not made at all clear"... I agree. More work is needed. As far as your comment on "arthouse", this is a good point... the article should be clearer that this is a US term, which is used very loosely. Please contribute or edit, as you have many good points and ideasNazamo 19:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. My comments were not aimed at anyone in particular and we are not in fact as much in disagreement as might appear. I do not really dispute the continuum between films that have little artistry and those (in the case of Kurosawa's wretched Dreams - quite his worst film in my view) that arguably have too much. Hence the 'convenience' use of the term in a world where we all fight shy of using subjective words with relatively clear meaning like 'serious' and 'trivial' or 'entertaining' and 'thought-provoking'. In effect it is a purely judgemental term masquerading as an objective one - a sort of positive euphemism. But, whatever it is, 'art film' is clearly not any sort of fixed, determined category and the first thing that surely ought to go is the list because a list is totally inappropriate for a category that has no fixed sense. It's a bit like concocting a list of 'nice food' or 'beautiful women' or indeed 'serious films'. It seems to me the article should be reduced to a reasonable minimum that simply recognises the use of the term, explains the problems of definition with it, clearly indicates its relation to other related or similar terms and - here I am not in dispute with you - gives a brief account of critical attempts (however misguided) to give it an objective definition (on the lines of "For Critic X, an "art-film" is defined as....For critic Y...."). In effect to give a brief (and it only deserves 'brief') critical history of the term. I do not really want to meddle myself because I don't have sufficient knowledge of the critical history (which is the crucial thing) and also because I dislike the term too strongly and that is not a good basis for editing. "Arthouse" I think should be a separate entry. It has a meaning that is distinct and that is I would have thought, in its origin, even fairly objective (films shown by arthouse theatres)even if nowadays it is also used loosely as a synonym for "art film" (cue for cross-reference). This is not the case either with 'art film' or 'film d'auteur' (that's another list that ought to go) which are both inevitably matters of subjective judgement. Sorry to bore on like this, but it seems to me in its way quite a testing, if not test, case. I actually have no difficulty in imagining the sort of definition that would satisfy both of us and be useful to any enquirer (it would be extremely interesting to know for instance when people first started talking about 'art films' and what specific developments in cinematic history or perhaps rather in the history of film-advertising or film-distribution lie behind the fact that they did). The difficulty as ever is getting there. Agantuk 23:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we develop a consensus on how to trim the list of films?

Hi, Encyclopedias normally don't have long lists of examples, whether of types of books, types of movies, or examples of a genre. They explain the type or genre, and then give the most widely-recognized, widely cited examples. In the case of this article, though, there is a bit of a problem...The term "art film" is used in many different ways, and so there is no convenient top 10 list of films that all major critics/film writers have agreed upon. The term "art film" is often used to mean "underground film," "auteur film," "independent film," "experimental film," etc. This makes things tricky. One solution would be not to list ANY film names. This is appealing, but I think that it would be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."...........I have tried to make the list a little more justifiable by putting a disclaimer at the top, saying that this isn't a definitive list, it's just a sample. As well, the disclaimer points out that these films MAY have SOME art movie characteristics...No one is claiming these are 100% pure art films (that is a joke : )........I argue that the list serves a valid purpose: it points people in the direction of films that have been called art films, so that they can learn more, and make their own decisions. To get to the main point: If we accept that the list is a necessary "evil", how can we trim it. I suggest that we only allow one entry per decade per director, preferably their most-acclaimed film. Ideas? Suggestions?Nazamo 21:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, the pruning of examples in the "Notable Films with Art Film qualities" section has started, since no other editors have given suggestions on how to proceed. As you can see from the "History" section, the approach has been to give each director one entry per decade. If a director had 2 or 3 films, the most influential or most-acclaimed (festivals,awards, etc.) film was picked, and the other films are listed in a footnote. In some cases, when a director had 2 or 3 films in a decade the one film that was picked was selected because it is the most well-known film to audiences (e.g., it had a wider distribution or more showings in festivals). The 2000s section arguably has too many examples. More concerning, though, is the large number of 2006 examples. Based on what i've read about "art films," the conferring of the status of "art film" is partly based on the content of the film (ambiguous moral qualities in protaganists, meandering plot, experimental shooting techniques, etc.), and partly on the judgement rendered by leading film critics and cultural commentators. If the film only came out in 2006, I argue that there has not been much time for professional critics to evaluate and debate the film. How do readers feel about waiting until a "critical mass" of reviews and columns are available on films before putting it in the list?Nazamo 17:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
P.S., another guiding principle which I am trying to use is to have a good representation of non-Western films in the lists (films from India, Iran, China, South Korea, Japan, etc).Nazamo 17:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to convert "notable films with art film qualities" lists into paragraphs (with discussion/context etc)

Hi, the lists of films with art film qualities are growing. This is a natural part of lists on Wikipedia. If you start a list of "Notable jazz guitarists" and it starts with Wes Montgomery and George Benson, pretty soon there are 100 names, some minor figures, some are obscure, and some are people's uncle who plays at the local wine bar. In the electric bass article, for example, a decision was made to eliminate ALL lists of notable people, because of their propensity for unchecked growth. I would like to propose that we convert the list of "notable films with art film qualities" to decade-by-decade paragraphs. That way, directors from the same "school" or continent can be grouped together, and general observations can be made about "French New Wave" directors or "Asian films". I argue that converting the lists to paragraphs of text will make the information more useful to readers. As well, it acts as a "brake" on unchecked growth, because then contributors have to integrate their new proposed films or directors into the text, which is harder than adding a bullet. Please indicate if you agree with this proposal, or give comments...Nazamo 14:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)P.S. I also propose that the list of directors, which will probably grow to 100 names if it is left as a list, be combined into the proposed "narrative timeline of films and directors".Nazamo 14:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

A week has passed without comment or input, which I will assume means that other editors concur with this proposal. Accordingly, the list of films and directors will now be converted into a paragraphs.Nazamo 01:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
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