Posts by giovanni tiso
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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?
Both. You can't be wrong about taste, can you? Perhaps a better question would be: in deciding whether to commission or not the work, should the council listen to, say, a poll of residents, or a committee of critics? And I would suggest that's not an easy question to answer either. You'd think that perhaps the critics would choose works that stand the test of time better, but then you look at history and it's littered with artists and artworks that weren't well regarded at all by contemporary critics (as opposed to the public) and are now considered masterpieces. Besides, perhaps the residents are more legitimate stakeholders.
As for the BFI vs. the imdb lists of best films, again, I can't see a disparity of objective value nor a problem. They're different lists produced by different categories of people. They are both interesting and useful. They tell us nothing about objective value because there is no such thing.
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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.
Of course, you say?
From where I sit, you've only established that the value judgments of critics differ from those of the general public. But that tells me nothing about inherent quality. Critics are simply a subset of the public that is trained to formulate judgments on certain formal aspects of a film or book etc. I appreciate that this training is valuable, but it's still a form of taste, however sophisticated.
A work of art has no quality without people apprehending it (if humanity was suddenly annihilated, the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel would immediately cease to have any formal and aesthetic characteristics). And people's perceptions and value judgments of those qualities differ. So where does this independence from personal taste come from?
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I'm adding you to my list of "cool people who don't drive" (which includes at least one living Nobel Prize Winner). I also see it as my way of saving lives. A quiet hero, is what I am.
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But what’s the point if it’s all subjective? Argument is for those who consider that you can use facts, evidence, logic and rationality to some purpose.
Argument and conversation are what allow us to assign value to things, I dare say intersubjectively (I hope Danyl was sitting down just then), which is not the same as objectively. And the social activity of assigning value to things is not just useful to decide whether and in what way Citizen Kane is better than Robot Monster but also to prioritise public spending, make laws and establish whether putting up a Wellywood sign in Miramar is or not a good idea.
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For your distraction and diversion
a diversity of literary odditiesOkay, three things.
1) I WANT The Thermodynamics of Pizza
2) Who hasn't read Blessed are the Cheesemakers? It's a lovely book.
3) I haven't read Le Petomane, but I've seen the film. Twice.
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Formulaic?
And how.
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Next time you watch a DVD, pause it 17 minutes into the film. Trust me—any film. What’s happening at that point in the story? Most likely, the essential character conflict has just been laid out.
This reminds me of somebody I knew who pitched a screenplay to a producer in Rome and the advice he received by these two seasoned screenwriters is that he needed to kill a secondary character two thirds into the film. Now every time I watch an Italian film I wait for that to happen and guess what - it almost always does.
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I know a really tall bloke but he's nothing compared to the Sky Tower.
He might be if you put a giant needle on his head.
Aucklanders... sheesh.
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Nicely done sir.
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Can't you just say "taking into account the period"? Absolute speed is clearly not the best way to compare Owens and Patton; something more like 'relative dominance in the field' seems a better measure.
But why do that? Isn't the faster runner the objectively better runner?