Film Art and Filmmaking

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CHAPTER
Film as Art: Creativity,
Technology, and Business
Motion pictures are so much a part of our lives that it’s hard to imagine a
world without them. We enjoy them in theaters, at home, in offi ces, in cars
and buses, and on airplanes. We carry fi lms with us in our laptops and
iPods. We press the button, and our machines conjure up movies for our pleasure.
For over a hundred years, people have been trying to understand why this medium
has so captivated us. Films communicate information and ideas, and they
show us places and ways of life we might not otherwise know. Important as these
benefi ts are, though, something more is at stake. Films offer us ways of seeing and
feeling that we fi nd deeply gratifying. They take us through experiences. The experiences
are often driven by stories, with characters we come to care about, but a
fi lm might also develop an idea or explore visual qualities or sound textures. A fi lm
takes us on a journey, offering a patterned experience that engages our minds and
emotions.
It doesn’t happen by accident. Films are designed to have effects on viewers.
Late in the 19th century, moving pictures emerged as a public amusement. They
succeeded because they spoke to the imaginative needs of a broad-based audience.
All the traditions that emerged—telling fi ctional stories, recording actual events,
animating objects or pictures, experimenting with pure form—aimed to give viewers
experiences they couldn’t get from other media. The men and women who made
fi lms discovered that they could control aspects of cinema to give their audience
richer, more engaging experiences. Learning from one another, expanding and refi
ning the options available, fi lmmakers developed skills that became the basis of
fi lm as an art form.
The popular origins of cinema suggest that some common ways of talking won’t
help us much in understanding fi lm. Take the distinction between art and entertainment.
Some people would say that blockbusters playing at the multiplex are merely
“entertainment,” whereas fi lms for a narrower public—perhaps independent fi lms,
or festival fare, or specialized experimental works—are true art. Usually the art/
entertainment split carries a not-so-hidden value judgment: art is high-brow, whereas
entertainment is superfi cial. Yet things aren’t that simple. As we just indicated, many
of the artistic resources of cinema were discovered by fi lmmakers working for the
general public. During the 1910s and 1920s, for instance, many fi lms that aimed
only to be entertaining opened up new possibilities for fi lm editing. As for the matter
of value, it’s clear that popular traditions can foster art of high quality. Just as Shakespeare
and Dickens wrote for a broad audience, much of the greatest 20th-century
music, including jazz and the blues, was rooted in popular traditions. Cinema is an
art because it offers fi lmmakers ways to design experiences for viewers, and those
experiences can be valuable regardless of their pedigree. Films for audiences both
small and large belong to that very inclusive art we call cinema.