The other day I was flipping through the channels and stumbled upon a movie I had never seen before. After about 5 minutes a thought struck me - "this movie must have been directed by Robert Altman!" Did some checking and I found out that I was indeed watching an Altman film - Buffalo Bill and the Indians.
Aside from the question of whether it was a good movie or not, I was impressed by the fact that a director can have such a clear and unique vision that even a few minutes in you know who made it.
Many directors have shown this quality: Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Terrence Malick, and now the new auteur Shane Carruth (among others). And of the course the genius who started it all, Orson Welles.
These filmmakers produce art that shouts to the world, "This Is Me...This Is My Contribution".
This sort of artistic fingerprint didn't begin with the advent of motion pictures.
I try to judge my own paintings in a similar way. I take a few steps back mentally and think, "if people saw this unlabeled on a museum wall, would they know I made it?"
This sort of thinking brings up a troubling problem: when does an artist cross the line from 'clear vision' into 'self-parody and gimmickry'? Notably, J.J. Abrams has caught flak for his signature 'lens flare'. But is this a valid attack? In certain ways, didn't Fellini repeat himself movie after movie? In how many films did Kubrick portray a character with head tilted downward and maniacal eyes staring through the top of his skull? How many times has Malick shown treetops? But these are some of the greatest artists of our time.
This challenge comes to musical artists as well. The Flaming Lips created a masterpiece with The Soft Bulletin. They built on that idea with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. At this point the band obtained an unprecedented level of success and released their most accessible recording to date At War With The Mystics. I sense that they felt a backlash for 'selling out' or 'repeating themselves' or whatever (I completely disagree), but something compelled them to release the borderline unlistenable Embryonic.
I'm sure that some fans feel like it's the most Lips recording, but I don't think I've listened to it more than 5 times since it came out.
On the other hand, at least it's unique. And that should have some value, right?
Even with art that I personally find atrocious (and shall remain nameless), I have to give some points to the artist for being distinct.
In the end I guess the one thing an artist can do that is unforgivable is to be nondescript.
If you have nothing to say, better to keep quiet.
Jeffrey Dale Starr is a world traveler, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.
While there are a few artists whose trademark technique is evident from the start (like Orson Welles or Shane Carruth), it seems to me that most develop their distinctive style over time (a la Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa). I don't know if that fingerprint is necessarily a deliberate gimmick (like Hitchcock's cameos in all of his later films) or simply the product of stylistic mastery. I like to think that the latter represents a more individual expression than simply trying to be noticed. If you take Malick's "Badlands" and put it up against "The Tree of Life", there is no doubt which is the definitive masterpiece, the culmination of a lifetime of skill refinement. Badlands has flashes of that fingerprint, but The Tree of Life is a complete, seamless calling card. That makes me so eager to see a Carruth film in, say, 30 or 40 years! On the other hand, take Francis Ford Coppola or Wolfgang Petersen over their lifetimes and you wonder: "What happened!?"
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice observation - the idea that in some cases the fingerprint is developed over time. Makes me think of Salvador Dalí...his earliest work is actually kind of crummy. The seeds of the ideas are there, but he really didn't become "Dalí" until about 20 years into his career.
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