Art Appreciation 101

STIPIMM: “Criminal” by Fiona Apple

“So what did you think?”

“I enjoyed it. I liked the guy who was playing Henry, but everyone else was not all that good.”

“Yeah, Henry seemed to be the only stand-out guy. What about the play itself?”

“Well, I’ve never really liked ‘The Real Thing.’”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the characters don’t really have depth. The story’s just kind of… fluff.”

“I didn’t know anything Tom Stoppard wrote could be considered ‘fluff.’ What do you mean when you say ‘depth’?”

“Well, layers, you know. Different aspects of character and of the story.”

“Example?”

“Like ‘Boy Gets Girl.’ The stalker only appears in the first scene, but his imposing presence is felt throughout the entire play because of how it’s constructed. It’s brilliant how they did that.”

“Well, you could say that ‘The Real Thing’ has layers too, I mean the whole thing with Henry’s trying to look intellectual, the parallels between Henry and Brodie.”

“Yeah, but those aren’t that interesting. They’re just kind of there. They don’t really signify anything.”

“Anything interesting, you mean.”

“Right.”

--

I’ve been thinking about theater quite a bit over the past week or so. Makes sense, since my wife regales me every evening with the stories of drugs, debauchery and mayhem that she experiences daily at rehearsals for “Brecht on Brecht.”

Okay, that’s a lie. There’s not much drugs and debauchery (though some, I’m told). But it’s not a lie that I’ve been thinking about theater, and art in general. It started when Bridget and I had the conversation with is (badly) paraphrased above this past weekend. It got me to thinking quite a bit about the nature of art.

Something about our conversation stuck in my craw that evening. I finally realized (just a couple of days ago) that it was this: it is taken as axiomatic that having layers of meaning (i.e., “depth”) is one of the measures of good art. Perhaps that’s a good thing; the last thing we need is someone calling “The Berenstain Bears” art. But it’s taken too far in most discourse, to the point where just having layers of any kind is a praise-worthy achievement.

I would contend that we’ve watered down the idea of “layered” work. What we mean when we say something has “depth,” is not really that it has “layers.” I mean, I could take the Steven Seagal movie “On Deadly Ground,” and find what could be called “layers” (capitalism vs. Nativism; man finding redemption through revenge; “What does it take to change the essence of a man?”; lots of arm-breaking). What we really mean when we say “layered,” is 1) that it has layers of meaning that we think are worthy of note; 2) that they’re brought out well in the execution of the artist. “On Deadly Ground” might have layers worth examining, but with an action-focused story, not to mention Steven Seagal’s Oscar-worthy acting, the execution isn’t worth spit. “Debbie Does Dallas” may have well executed sex scenes, but the lack of story depth beyond the premise of nubile teenagers trying to raise enough money to go to cheerleading camp makes the movie fall flat… at least after the climax(es).

Sounds pretty “Art Appreciation 101,” right? Fine. Here’s where I go off-track: in terms of number 1, where we value art based on the quality of its layers, I think we art-goers are quite easy and forgiving when we’re presented with something that is excellent in execution, but otherwise lacking in depth.

Let’s take “The Princess Bride,” one of my favorite movies. But what the hell is so good about it? Depth of story? Give me a break. We like it solely for the execution: silly, snarky, anachronistically funny, and smart (whatever that means). It’s entertaining. There are a host of films that are of questionable depth that our dear Gen-X/Y culture loves anyway. And it would be okay if it wasn’t for this: when we like a film or a play or a book or whatever for its execution, we subconsciously search for and find meaning even where there isn’t one, or at least one that we would otherwise give a damn about.

My personal example for this is “Pulp Fiction.” Here’s a movie that basically wears its lack of depth like a badge. It’s a great movie simply for its narratives: putting interesting (yet mostly one-dimensional) characters through extraordinary circumstances. And yet, we’re tempted to try to make it more important than it is. “Ooo, what’s in the briefcase? Marcellus’ soul? Is that why he has a band-aid on the back of his neck?” “Harding vs. Coolidge… is that some political statement?” “By going to a nonlinear format, he’s trying to shake up our notions of time.” Oh please. He did it because it’s cool. Leave it at that.

But even when something does have layers, are we really that much better off? Is the story of “Chinatown” really that much better than that of any other hard-boiled noir thriller? Again, it seems it’s the execution that we admire as much as any layers.

Indeed, I’m discovering something about my artistic outlook that I’m not too happy with at the moment: the range of the kinds of layers that I find “worthy of note” (as I mentioned in ‘1’ above) is very small. So small in fact, that as I think about most of the films/plays/art I like, two words keep coming to mind: “So what?”

“Hey, you should see ‘Manhattan!’ It’s got a lot of layers about the nature of love and desire.”

“So what?”

“I really like Manet’s painting ‘Olympia.’ The way she stares back at the viewer, daring you to look at her naked form, making you a part of the scene.”

“So what?”

“Boy, that Shakespeare knew how to write ‘em. Especially ‘Hamlet,’ which is just has layers upon layers of meaning.”

“So what?”

It’s revelatory that the two movies that I’ve long considered my favorite (“Dr. Strangelove” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors”) have themes that are harder for me to say “So what?” to (the insanity of nuclear war; the amorality of life). Maybe I’ve been reading too much about Brecht, who thought that art without any practical importance or use was just that, useless. Does art have to speak to something important for me to really consider it worthwhile? More to think about.