Originality, Freedom and Form

Every discipline has its fundamentals. Chemistry is built on the periodic table; football greatness stands on blocking and tackling. Painting rests on the foundation of color, line and perspective. Musicians build upon the scales and chord progressions. Writers don’t write novels; they craft sentences. If you want to create art for the glory of God, master the fundamentals of your medium and allow your creativity to build upon that foundation.

A famous guitar player visited a local high-school music classroom for some question and answer time. One student asked, “How much did you practice when you were my age?” He answered, “I played my guitar nonstop day and night, surely more than 6-10 hours a day including band rehearsal. And NO, it did not come naturally as I struggled to discover my unique voice on a very difficult to control, loud, feeding back Gibson Byrdland, but I never gave up!”

Another student asked, “How do you memorize a song?” He answered, “To truly be one with our music, we must be naturally driven to play till it hurts. By playing our favorite licks or songs over and over and over again, the song & patterns become part of us. It takes enormous work ethic and dedication to ‘nail it’.”

Originality builds upon mastering the historic fundamentals of your craft. If you master your craft, you can create what you dream. It is a perpetually frustrated artist whose imagination constantly writes checks that his skills can’t cash! Creating art to convey a message without understanding the form, structure, and techniques developed in your discipline is like trying to perform surgery on someone without going to medical school. As a communicator of truth, remember that excellence in your work earns you the right to be heard by the culture.

When I was learning the guitar I practiced religiously. However, as all guitar players know, you get to a place where many people quit. It’s learning the F-chord. You must barre the entire first fret and then place your remaining fingers in an unnatural position and then SQUEEZE! Playing the F-chord actually hurts! Many a beginning guitar player has put his instrument in the basement after encountering the F. Every discipline has an F-chord. You must persevere past it if you hope to walk in greatness.

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- an excerpt from an upcoming book on the arts by pastor and author Carey Waldie. Visit his website at http://www.careywaldie.com.

Rebellion, Freedom and Art

From Paul Gregory Alm's "Songs Without Borders" (in the September/October 2014 edition of Touchstone Magazine):

"This is the great irony in the popular art of the last sixty years. Its forms thrive on rebellion and the overturning of conventional limits and expectations and even of morality. Popular art often seeks to break conventional patterns and to ignore what society expects. Singers cry out for personal freedom. Painters disregard normal rules of color and perspective and form in order to transgress a boundary. Writers sketch narratives that investigate the immoral or amoral, or sometimes abandon standard narrative altogether.

But the irony is that for such art to work, in order for it to make a statement, such rules and boundaries and markers have to be in place. If one wishes to deface a wall with graffiti or some other outrageous markings, the wall must be there to be defaced… If one wishes to scale a barbed-wire fence marked "no trespassing" and wave his arms and say, "Look at me," there must be a fence to scale. If one wants to sneer at conventional rules of behavior, there must actually be rules that govern how most people act… 

Those boundaries and rules are increasingly absent in today's society. But without such restrictions, popular music and art more and more become a rebellion in search of something to rebel against." 

I'm not sure I fully agree with the entirety of this author's analysis - surely some conventional patterns and expectations are worth challenging - but I find his broader idea thought-provoking. What happens as the rebellion against all the moral walls created by social, moral and legal boundaries becomes increasingly successful? After all, there is more than one kind of wall. Some keep us prisoner; others keep us safe. We may think we are destroying our captor when we are actually destroying our protector. 

Dying To Be Entertained (The Hunger Games And Philosophy)

In a previous series of posts, I used The Walking Dead and Philosophy to look at the worldview issues in AMC’s hit series. Since the release of Catching Fire is not too far away, I am going to use The Hunger Games and Philosophy as a springboard to dive into some key themes in the Hunger Games Trilogy.
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In the opening section, Brian McDonald (“The Final Word On Entertainment”) and Anne Torkelson (“Somewhere Between Hair Ribbons and Rainbows”) look at the power of the arts to shape both individuals and cultures.

McDonald begins with Aristotle’s claim that art is mimeses, imitation, intended to “delight and instruct.” Artists accomplish this by showing the most noble aspects of life within the boundaries of the Golden Mean:

"At the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue."

Art that does not elevate the soul in this fashion is merely empty spectacle. Those who wish to entertain should not seek to be innovative envelope-pushers, good art won’t promote extremes. Virtues such as bravery are destroyed by deficiencies (cowardice) or excesses (rashness) in real life.

Torkelson looks specifically at the power of music. The Greeks believed that bad music resembled bad character: graceless, without rhythm or harmony, and lacking truth. Good music mimicked good character: fearless, courageous, self-controlled, and wise.

Socrates claimed that the music we absorb shapes the souls of individuals, cultures, and even the laws of the city. Mousike, the realm of the Muses, is so powerful that the government needs to make sure it exhibits mimesis, celebrating and promoting all that is known to be good. Assuming the city is just, imitative music will nourish the soul of both the people and the culture; conversely, innovative, envelope-puushing music in a good society will almost necessarily corrupt it. McDonald quotes cultural critic Philip Reiff's blunt assessment of the situation:

 “Every true culture expresses and celebrates the power of re-creation [mimesis].” 

If Reiff is correct, false cultures are those that de-create the good through extreme innovation detached from historical moral norms. Herein lies the problem with the Capital. The city clearly lives, promotes, and is entertained by a life of extremes. The Hunger Games are perhaps a logical culmination of this sickness.

Are You Not Entertained?

       Because of the nature of the entertainment industry, my friends and I consume entertainment produced primarily by non-Christians, which means it will contain chaff that needs to be separated from wheat.  Not surprisingly, the three of us disagree on what is chaff, and how much is acceptable. The Walking Dead of Modern Family? Breaking Bad or The Office?  Mad Men or Men of a Certain Age?   
     What follows in a discussion as "iron sharpens iron." It is not the end of the matter.  Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.
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A. Weber: When it comes to entertainment, I like John Stonestreet's template:

• Is it true (does it show the world honestly)?
• Is it good (is it of high quality)?
• Is it noble (does it make us want to be better people)?

    There are some other questions that follow from those three questions: With whom/what does the story want us to identify? What is the source of redemption? Does the sin tempt us, distract us, or appall us?What are the assumed messages about the world? A couple examples:

• Though I am drawn to Game of Thrones, it doesn't fit this template.  The writing was good (high quality), and the story was true (actions have appropriate consequences), but even though I  wanted to be Ned Stark, I felt in some way dirtied by the amount of evil in the book, like I had wallowed in a world from which I emerged a little more hardened, a little more disillusioned, a little more broken than before. That's not noble.
•  The first two seasons of The Walking Dead mostly fit.  Though the quality of the writing has dropped, the series has been mostly good (especially Season 1), true (it shows how the evil and the good wrestle within all of us) and noble (I can clearly see good and bad characters and their actions, and I cheer or jeer appropriately).  Based on how Season Two ended, I'm not sure my opinion will hold.
• I'm almost done with Season Two of Men of Certain Age.  It is very good; it is largely true, but it's "hit and miss" handling sin in a way that always enobles me.  The characters played by Ray Ramano and Scott Bakula sleep around and gamble, but if I see real world consequences, and I'm not seduced into their weaknesses with them, I'm okay with those situations being portrayed.  As Season Two winds down, I would say the show overall contrasts the emptiness and pointlessness of sin with the reward of commitment, faithfulness, and character.

K. Meszaros: Those criteria are fine, but you are picking and choosing your examples.  Saw, Boogie Nights and Show Girls could be made to fit the above criteria depending on how you define your terms.  I suppose they were all done well to some degree; each one said something true about the world, and I don't think anybody walked away wanting to be a serial killer, porn star, or stripper. They even be more determined not to be any of those things than before.  I would go with some criteria like this:

• Does the writer intend for us to root for the bad guy or for evil to prevail?  (The Oceans movies, Pirates, or The Godfather)
• Are there consequences for evil actions?  (Ben on Lost)
• Is there a lot of nudity? (Basic Instinct, Show Girls, or Boogie Nights)
• What is the trajectory of the main characters? (Do they get worse or better?  See The Shield or Sopranos)
• Is redemption a key part of the show? (Lost or Star Wars)
• Is sin viewed as desirable? (The American Pie movies or any daytime soap)
• Is evil an unbeatable force? (Constantine or just about any slasher film vs. Stephen King's Desperation)
• Given that we have almost limitless entertainment choices, if something is iffy, can I find a cleaner substitute?  (Why watch Transformers when I could watch Thor?)

S. Smith:  I'm not sure how you conclude that movies that entertain with torture, porn, and stripping can be in any way noble.  Do you really think people walked away better people for having seen it? Sure, they can claim they do, but I think simply viewing the subject matter undermines whatever decision they make to not be like that or treat people that way. I think Stonestreet's criteria does exactly what you want it to.

KM: Okay, take the question, "Does it make me want to be a better person?"  In Saw, the killer is torturing people because he is dying of cancer and they are taking life for granted.  It’s actually a pretty in-depth story, just with bloody torture.  One could easily say, “Saw makes me appreciate the blessings God has given me - including life.” Sure, the presentation is pretty awful, but doesn't AW's  criteria of nobility only ask about the end result?  And I don't think his view automatically excludes nudity.  That would, for example, exclude Schindler's List.

SS:  Is it possible that some people could take something positive from Saw?  Maybe, as long as Saw doesn't provide a justification or create sympathy for torture and violence.  But what about just the idea that it uses torture as entertainment?  Perhaps "nobility" should not be measured just what you do when you leave (the end result), but by what's happening to you while you watch (the process).
    Same for Showgirls and Boogie Nights.  There might be a story arc with a form of redemption, but let's be honest: they make us want to see more naked women. This does not promote truth or nobility, no matter how good I may think it is, or how hard the filmmaker is trying to send a positive message.

AW:  Here's a different example (and a little less extreme).  I don't like Pretty Woman because it does not make me want to be a better person. It makes me want to find a stunning hooker in need of rescuing and rescue her, and I don't mean with the help of Jesus.  I don't think the movie is true on two key points: assuming all I have read is true, prostitues are not as happy as Julia Roberts; and relationships that start like theirs do not work in the real world.   Pretty Woman may have been "good," but it was not true or noble.

KM: So what do you do with sitcoms?  As much as Joey should come down with HIV on "Friends," he can’t because it ruins the situation which makes the sitcom work.  And in order to be funny, the characters have to warped.  You’re not going to find many role models on sitcoms, because by nature they are not trying to be real people; they are creating stereotypes to satirize both good and bad things. This may bother you, but it doesn’t me because I know they are not trying to show real life.  So, it's not "true" at all, but can't it still be good and noble?

AW:  The fact the sitcoms reset is one thingI dislike about them. People start to think they can live episodic lives, and their real world lives are becoming disastrously fragmented as a result.  This does not mean individual episodes do not contain good things, but the medium sends a message.  When life is broken down into unconnected episodes, that is part of a worldview that people absorb. Sure, they can be noble and good, but it's tough for them to be true (though that's probably the case for everything on television simply because of the medium).
    My bigger concern with today's comedies is that they make me laugh at things I shouldn't. The Office is funny, but should I really be laughing at Oscar and Dwight?  Good, true, noble entertainment should make my emotions match the real world. I want to laugh or cry at the right things, otherwise life gets very confusing.

KM: So what funny things can Christians watch?   Tommy Boy makes fun of drug addicted gluttons.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles makes fun of another overweight dude.  Jim Carrey spends Dumb and Dumber trying to get laid.  Every comedy purposely distorts the world and makes fun of sin.  I don’t know how you get around it.  Sometimes, laughing at serious issues helps to change our perspective in a good way while our guard is down - it's the spoonful of sugar.  Isn't that why God gave us a sense of humor?

AW:  If the Bible were a long-running TV show, would it be acomedy, tragedy, or both? Perhaps you are right about comedies; I can see  Ecclesiastes working great as an Old Testament version of Men of a Certain Age.  On the other hand, I'm pretty certain King Saul would star in an early version of Breaking Bad. Either way, the genres would have to capture how honest, deep, whimsical, dark, light, beautiful, true, noble, good, and hopeful the Bible.  I'm trying not to settle for less from my TV.

Amazing Monsters

“A genius as an artist, [Pablo Picasso] was often a monster in his relationships – especially with women – because of his controlling, devouring personality. ‘When I die,’Picasso predicted years before the filming of Titanic, ‘it will be a shipwreck, and as when a big ship sinks, many people all around will be sucked down with it.’
       

When Picasso died in 1973, at the age of ninety-one, his prediction came true.  Three of those closest to him committed suicide (his second wife, an early mistress, and a grandson), and several others had psychiatric breakdowns.  ‘He amazes me,’ said his friend, sculptor Alberto Giacomett.  ‘He amazes me as a monster would, and I think he knows as well as we do that he’s a monster.’ Indeed, Picasso referred to himself as ‘the Minotaur,’ the mythic Cretan monster that devoured maidens.
       

One mistresss, Marie Therese, described how Picasso set about painting: “He first raped the woman and then he worked.”  Another told him, ‘You’ve never loved anyone in your life.  You don’t know how to love.’  Picasso himself was brutally blunt,, ‘Every time I change wives I should burn the last one.  Then maybe I’d be rid of them.  They wouldn’t be around now to complicate my existence.’
       

Picasso’s destructiveness was rooted in his childhood but was reinforced by his early acquaintance with Nietzsche through friends in Barcelona. ‘Truth cannot exist…truth does not exist,’ he used to mutter. ‘I am God, I am God.’”

 - From Os Guiness, “The Meaning of Truth,” in Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith.