Friday 17 April 2009

Art vs. entertainment

If you look at every form of human expression, writing, music, film, drawing/painting, it is always divided into an "art/independent" stream and a "blockbuster/commercial" stream. You get movies like 007, Air Force One, American Pie against the more "thinking" films such as John Adams, documentaries, Britney Spears vs. Aaron Copland, John Grisham vs. Toni Morrison, and Japanese comic vs. Yoko Ono. Provided there is a small area of intersection.
I think this division comes from the purpose behind expression. Some pieces are created with entertainment as its ultimate objective while others are motivated by inquisition and enlightenment of the human condition.
Good "overlaps" in my humble opinion are films like Munich, Traffic, and Platoon.

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