The Presentation of Art

So, until my A Nightmare on Elm Street review marathon begins, I thought I'd fill the time with a few articles. For today's, I want to touch on something I place great importance on - the presentation of art, or, the correct way of absorbing art.

What I mean by "the presentation of art" is how one watches a movie, how one listens to a song, how one takes in a painting, etc. It’s how the art is presented to you, and how you let it be presented to you. I know I probably shouldn't be, but I get really upset and even annoyed when people don't experience art correctly or don't put in the time and effort to really let themselves take in a piece of art. To me, it's a huge disservice to the artist and art, and is a huge disservice to the person themselves because they miss out on, and, more importantly, deny themselves, the opportunity to really take something in that could in fact truly touch and affect them had they given the art the attention it deserved.

One of the plainest examples I can give of this is when I learned that a friend of mine had never experienced The Wizard of Oz. I was stunned, horrified. My mind almost could not process the fact that someone did not grow up with The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is one of the great American films in the history of cinema, right up there along with To Kill a Mockingbird, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind. It not only stands as one of the greatest films America has ever brought into the world, but it is as great and American as other pieces of art such as The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, Grant Wood's American Gothic. It operates on multiple levels, as high art and as a children's fairy tale. Not only a fairy tale, but a rare, genuine All-American fairy tale. My point is that The Wizard of Oz is so embedded and ingrained in American culture and society, as well as a genuinely incredible piece of filmmaking, storytelling, and music, that the fact that someone I knew had never watched it was dumbfounding for me. At that moment, I took it upon myself to present The Wizard of Oz.

As I stated earlier, although I acknowledged that I probably shouldn't get upset as much as I do when I hear that people don't let themselves experience art in an effective way, I pride myself in my endeavors of helping people do so. The most common form of this is hosting screenings of movies at my house. When I show a movie at my house I take it upon myself to make sure watching conditions are at a premium so that my guests can truly take in the movie. Whether they like or dislike the movie matters not to me, only that whatever they feel about it is rooted in a genuine experience of the movie. Too many times I've heard of people disliking a movie, only to hear a second later that they watched the movie while doing something else, or did not give the movie their full attention.

In this same way, with my friend, I took it upon myself to "present" the movie to them. This was soon before The Wizard of Oz was going to be released on blu-ray. I thought that this provided me with the perfect means of presenting the movie, and provided my friend with the perfect means of watching it. Since we go to different universities, we only get to see each other so often, and when the time to have a showing of the movie came, we missed the window of opportunity and The Wizard of Oz would have to wait for the next time we saw each other.

During this time that we were apart from each other, my friend informed me that he was going to watch Wicked. Now, as much as I love The Wizard of Oz, I love Wicked. It may not have the quality of Great American Art that The Wizard of Oz owns, but the musical is charming, it’s fun, and plays on characters and settings we all know and love because of The Wizard of Oz. However, the fact that my friend had never seen The Wizard of Oz had slipped my mind.

At a time after he had watched Wicked and we were on the phone talking about it, I remembered and brought up the fact that he had never seen The Wizard of Oz (something INTEGRAL to truly experiencing Wicked), and he relayed to me that he watched The Wizard of Oz the night before on his computer.

My heart sank.

My heart did more than sink, it plummeted to the bottom of the darkness within me and crash landed with the force of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

For a moment, I couldn't speak; I was speechless.

Now, he enjoyed Wicked a lot. But my problem was that he didn't allow himself to take in and experience the love for The Wizard of Oz he could have felt, which would have then led to an even greater love for Wicked. Instead, to him, it was just like, "I saw some old film on my computer monitor, and then I saw a really awesome musical the next night!" I was gravely distraught. More than. I couldn't really believe it, and even now as I type this it just weighs so heavily on me that what took place was such a grave and missed opportunity. I mean, yes, he watched the movie, but never is a computer screen the way to take in a movie. I can just imagine him huddled over his computer, watching the movie, almost passively even.

Furthermore, it's not even just the fact that he watched it on a dinky computer, but the fact that his viewing of the movie was tied to the watching of Wicked, that in his mind or heart The Wizard of Oz does not stand on its own, or have its own identity, that Wicked was the main event and The Wizard of Oz was just some old movie his cousin told him to watch the night before so that he could have some frame of mind for the Wicked. The fact that The Wizard of Oz ONLY served as a preface, a prerequisite, to Wicked. It really tears me up just thinking about it and typing this down.

Now, you must be wondering what then would I consider the way to watch the movie. I recognize that environments and situations are impossible to replicate. But movies are meant to be watched as movies, not the way you watch a YouTube video. In a theater, on a television set. In a theater seat, a sofa, recliner. With popcorn and soda. Or not. In a way that you can take in each and every word of Judy Garland's, hear, and feel, the heartfelt sincerity in her voice as she sings "Over the Rainbow." I think back to my experiences with The Wizard of Oz and memories flood my mind and heart of summer days and fond nights spent as a child sprawled on the living room floor in front of my T.V. as The Wizard of Oz played on VHS, on syndication, and me being wide-eyed with amazement and love. Nights of sitting on the couch with family around me, all of us individually experiencing, and at the same time sharing, The Wizard of Oz with each other.

And it's not only those moments, but it's how The Wizard of Oz as a movie and memory and story and fairytale, how it becomes apart of your childhood, how it stays, or changes, in your soul as you grow up. Now, again, I know that these kinds of things can’t be consciously made or reproduced, and that basically it seems like I’m asking for people to experience what I experienced. But, I just would hope that people would allow themselves to be able to fully enjoy things because many times they inevitably end up ruining things for themselves, much in the way that people that have patience enjoy gratification much more than those that suffer from self-indulgence.

Consider if I watched Terminator: Salvation on a summer day, hanging out with my friends, half-watching the movie, but if asked my opinion of the movie I would say that I enjoyed it. My feelings for the movie would be skewed by the good time I had with my friends, when in reality, I hate the movie (it's awful, but I'll rant on it later).

This “proper way to absorb art” thinking is exactly why popcorn is the time-tested food of choice for the theater. Popcorn is a food that can be eaten passively as you watch a movie while also being tasty. Eating popcorn is mechanical: your arm reaches down, grabs some popcorn, and your arm brings it to your mouth, all without your eyes or mind having to divert its attention away from the screen. It’s a mindless action. Once, my friend decided to sneak in chicken wings into the theater as we watched The Dark Knight. I have to be honest, this really kind of irked me because, well, because it’s chicken wings! The process of eating chicken wings is the exact opposite of popcorn. It’s messy, there’s bones involved, you have to see where you bite; It’s at the very least a minor (and thus complete) distraction from the movie. This careful approach to watching a movie is also why people must turn off their cell-phones during the screening, because doing so is not only a courtesy to others, but it’s also a courtesy to yourself. It helps you become wrapped and submerged in the movie rather than being distracted by the obnoxiousness of a ring tone, or even a vibration (though I understand if you feel you have to have your phone on vibrate so you can be reached in cases of emergency).

This “correct presentation” does not just apply to the world of cinema. Take paintings, for example. Why do you think that museums are largely characterized by wide, encompassing white walls with paintings placed at intervals and a generally quiet atmosphere? It’s because when you look at a painting, the museum wants you to be able to look at and concentrate on that painting alone, without any outside interferences or hindrances. The surrounding white walls, along with the enforced quiet, allow your eyes and mind to home in on the painting itself.

With regards to the realm of music, when I listen to an album, I make sure that when I listen to it I am of the presence of mind to be able to fully engrossed and enveloped by the music. For example, I would never listen to an album I am excited to listen to while doing homework or reading a textbook, because it’s a disservice to the music.

With regards to comics and television, it becomes a smidgen more complicated, because by nature and design comic and television series are by design serialized. Writers of comic books and T.V. shows take into account the month or week long breaks between issues or episodes when they write. This is why I’ve always considered reading a comic series as it is released or a T.V. show as it is first aired to be of a purer form than reading a collected trade paperback for comics or a complete season of a T.V. show on DVD. Those waits in between installments are part of the experience. It’s part of the art for the writers, thinking about these breaks. For television, even within the episodes the writers take into account the commercial breaks. It all gets thought about and applied to how they write an episode. I know that reading a trade paperback that collects six issues of a comic title, or running through a complete season of Lost on DVD can be a much more convenient, but then the art is not being taken in the way they were written. These breaks between installments are important to the audience as well as the writers too. Think about the anticipation for the next installment the break creates, the time it allows for reflection of the installment. The break allows for feelings to build up, change, remix, and its all a part of the “truer” experience. You can see a difference in the quality of the feelings of a person that read The Death of Superman as it happened month to month and a person that waited and read it as a trade paperback, or someone that was caught up in the moment of the Friends phenomenon as it happened and someone that got into it through DVDs. I don’t want to sell short or undermine anyone’s passion or feelings for a material they experienced through trade paperbacks or DVDs, but it does seem to me that there’s a quality of genuineness in the former that’s not completely there in the latter (of course, this mostly applies to if a person made a conscious choice to do the latter rather than the former. If a person chooses to watch a T.V. series on DVD simply because they missed out and the originally airing was out of their time or because it was unavailable to them, then that’s different).

Everything I’ve talked about has been on the subject of how addressees receives art on the first experience with the music, the first impression, and people can argue that given a inadequate first encounter with art it can always be revisited. While this is true, I can’t stress enough how important the first experience and first impression is. Say you watch a movie that, under appropriate circumstances, you would have loved but instead you watched it during the middle of a family party and you were in a bad mood and thus your opinion of the movie is low. Then, after a passage of time you watch the movie again and this time the conditions are what they should have been the first time, and you like the movie this time. Even though you enjoy it now, it may have been a movie you loved but first impressions unconsciously affected your feelings.

To come to the point, I think it’s all about servicing the art form you’re being exposed to and exposing yourself to, to accepting the nature of an art form. Music isn’t just meant to be heard, but really listened to. Movies aren’t just meant to be seen, but to be watched. Doing so in any other way denies yourself from an opportunity that could have led you to be truly affected, and the loss of magic that art can make you feel. Articles about “rightness” in art tend to sound pretentious, and I’m more than certain that this one probably sounds it to, but my intentions are the good and well-being of the audience and art itself first and foremost than my own imposition of beliefs in others for the sake of the feelings of superiority, and I hope that I’ve motivated you to take more care the next time you listen to an album, or the next time you see that big summer action blockbuster. If you have arguments or questions, please feel free to let me have them. I’d love to open up a dialogue about this issue.

==========================================================
ANNOUNCER: Well, that's all for this entry. I hope you enjoyed the article and your time spent here. We here at no1important studios invite you to come again for another riveting entry. And remember, "Like it? Share it!" This is Jovan signing off, good morning. And, if I don't catch you later, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

cut to NO1IMPORTANT LOGO card

cue NO1IMPOTANT jingle

Fade to BLACK