I for one find myself in the odd position of agreeing with
Jim Doherty that "The Long Goodbye" is an awful movie while
disagreeing with his statements below.
Art isn't a mirror, it's a hammer.
And if you don't get it (and with much of what passes for
"modern art" these days, I don't), that's beside the point.
That said, just because it's art doesn't exempt it from
criticism. In fact, just the opposite.
I thought "The Long Goodbye" sucked. I thought it could have
been so much better. I was unsurprised by the revelations
that Altman didn't like Chandler's work.
That said, there's no "moral" expectation to which art can or
should be held to.
All the Best-
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From: JIM DOHERTY
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 10:22 AM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: The Long Goodbye
Miker,
Re your comment below:
"Art has no moral obligation."
That's about the silliest thing I've ever
heard.
All people have an obligation to be moral, to
do
right, to be honest, honorable, and charitable,
and
this applies to one's profession as it does to
all
other aspects of one's life.
Would you say that a cop has no obligation to
conduct
himself morally? Or a physician? Or a lawyer?
We
may not be particularly surprised if anyone in
those
professions acts immorally, but we feel we have
a
right to expect moral, or at the absolute
minimum,
ethical behavior from them nonetheless, and we,
as a
society, exact a price if they don't measure
up.
Why should an artist be exempt from a standard
we
expect of all other members of society.
To say that art has no moral obligation is to
excuse a
child pornographer as long as his photography
is
artistic. It's to excuse a plagiarist as long as
he
improves on what he stole. It's to say that
novel
that's little more than a racist screed needs
no
justification as long as it's well-written and
tells a
compelling story.
You may say that an artist doesn't have to
conform to
MY personal standards of morality or YOUR
perosnal
standards of morality in order to justify
himself, but
to say that an artist need not conform to ANY
standard
of morality when he's producing art simply
because
he's an artist producing art is just silly.
JIM DOHERTY
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