Posts by philipmatthews
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Fair enough. I find very little to argue with there.
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They're different lists produced by different categories of people. They are both interesting and useful.
That was my point: in response to the idea that there is a consensus, I was saying that there is more than one kind of consensus. The critical consensus -- that BFI list -- strikes me as more useful than the other because it is informed by tastes or judgements you described as more "sophisticated":
I appreciate that this training is valuable, but it's still a form of taste, however sophisticated.
What does sophistication mean in this context? I take it as meaning a more developed ability to discern artistic quality, based largely on training and experience. Your implication is that some tastes are more sophisticated than others.
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I do hope Mr Wood realises that while starving in a garret may have created some great works of art it is not, in itself, a necessary condition for being an artist.
The likes of Andrew Drummond, Neil Dawson and Bill Culbert aren't exactly starving in garrets. They're just producing stuff that looks a lot more interesting than that Weta sculpture.
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I appreciate that this training is valuable, but it's still a form of taste, however sophisticated.
I would argue that critical judgment is actually about more than taste; that trained critic you refer to can appreciate a film or a book or a piece of music as well-made without personally liking it. He or she is likely to be better at doing that than the general public due to the very training you talk about.
If you got 10 art critics to assess Richard Taylor's rugby sculpture, they would likely dismiss it as kitsch, as bad art. If 10 people off the street assessed it, their judgements are likely to be less harsh. Which group is right?
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So is it a good book, or a bad book?
Looking at its accolades, at that Wikipedia page, you would have to say it is a good book. But not one a teenager could as easily grasp. What this entire argument has boiled down is whether there is such a thing as quality independent of personal taste. And of course there is.
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Science fiction author Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron, claiming that the film was plagiarized from the two "The Outer Limits" (1963) episodes that Ellison wrote, namely "The Outer Limits: Soldier (#2.1)" (1964) and "The Outer Limits: Demon with a Glass Hand (#2.5)" (1964).
Must hunt those down. Be interesting to see what and how much Cameron, er, borrowed.
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As someone pointed out a few pages ago, we arrive at judgements of what is 'good' or 'bad' by an overall consensus.
There's critical consensus and there's popular consensus. Critical consensus tells you that the world's film critics keep voting for Citizen Kane. Popular consensus, or at least the IMDB version of it, tells you that The Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever and that Citizen Kane is worse than LOTR: Two Towers. But you don't get Shawshank -- a film whose cult appeal I've never understood -- on the BFI list. Not one critic voted for it.
Similarly, if you polled the world's book critics you wouldn't get a list that looks like the Whitcoulls top 100.
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Re: Waihopai. It's a funny thing but in none of the coverage I've seen, heard and read of that verdict yesterday did the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer appear. Or Christian activist ethics in general. Maybe I missed something but the story doesn't make a great deal of sense without that dimension. You'd think the media are afraid of talking about religion ...
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Amongst the weirdness: Sarah Kate Lynch! How did that happen?
But I really need a copy of Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich.
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Is it reading CCO as CIA? Maybe it's onto something. As in, Did you see the CIA satellite, the C dot?