I don't doubt, for example, that one can approach The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, etc etc and come away with an appreciation of Humphrey Bogart and, by extension, existentialism. But it doesn't strike me as a necessary result of having watched them: otherwise America in the 1940s should've looked like a postwar Le Deux Magots on a Friday night. As Michael Stipe reminds us, deep aesthetic contemplation is one possible outcome of art, but so is having something to listen to while washing dishes. [...] That is to say, the ability to pull a certain deeper meaning out of a work arises only in part from that work, where multiple layers of meaning might be available (or perhaps only one); it depends more on the disposition of the person approaching the work.Well, yes and no. When Roland Barthes unpacks the symbolic meaning of everyday things, or Clifford Geertz talks about what's really going on in a Balinese cockfight, or feminist film critics say that screwball comedy is inherently sexist, they're not pointing out possible interpretations; they're calling attention to messages we've already received without necessarily realizing it.
I think that Nick's right to point out a difference between viewers who approach To Have and Have Not looking for meaning and those looking to have a good time, but I don't think it's the difference between getting something deeper out of a movie or not, just whether you're aware that you've gotten it.
4 comments:
Yes.
Though of course the feminist film critic gets the opposite message out of the screwball comedy by examining it.
Well, fair point. In the right circle, quoting Michael Stipe in favor of one's position is like when a Protestant quotes C.S. Lewis.
The point I was trying to point to was pedagogical. Whatever one thinks of Geertz, et al, there's a substantial difference between how you teach people who see those connections on their own, and people who need to be prompted and led to those connections. The people in Professor X's class (and the people likely to be in my class in the fall) will have no opinions on To Have and Have Not, nor are they likely to have an interest in forming any. That's not to say the task of so educating people with this disposition is impossible, just that it's very, very difficult.
Nick: I agree with everything you've said, and would only add that, if they've received the lessons of these movies without realizing it, how important is it that we make these people notice what's happened? Sometimes critical thinking about these ideas requires this kind of self-awareness, but lots of times it doesn't.
Noah: I know! But you try telling them that.
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