there's a scene in hal hartley's "henry fool" where the mentor & the student have a crucial moment of disagreement. the student's poem has been accepted for publication while the mentor's "testament" has been rejected by the same publisher. to add insult to injury, the student confesses to disliking his mentor's magnum opus:
"If I told you when I read it, it was
no good, what would've you done?
-I would've respected your opinion.
-There's no accounting for taste.
Well, is there?
Is that
a measure of a man's worth?
To drag what's best in him out into
the street so that every average...
slob with some pretense to taste
can poke it with a stick?
Maybe. Maybe it is."
artists take big risks but, in the end, that's not the point. neither is the simplistic, "i don't like it" from the audience. none of this advances the understanding of the art. period.
what art needs, what it deserves, is more thoughtful reflection, not more opinions. anyone can have an opinion & claim legitimacy by simply saying, "i don't like it." but they're just farting in the wind. & walling yourself behind some vague "aesthetic" position like "linear narrative" w/o considering its inadequacy as a critical tool is just as worthless. dragging around a pre-set aesthetic prevents the receptive immediacy that art requires & inhibits reflection. as human beings we're already burdened w/enough bias, most of it unconscious. nowadays, people don't even pretend to have a "pretense of taste" before they offer up their immutable opinions. henry would have more to complain about. i'd have to agree w/him.
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