[SPOILERS] The Dark Knight Rises (2.0)

I don't think there's anything wrong with believing that.

But there's something wrong with not believing that.

No artist owes anything to society.

I never said they do. I just don't agree the notion of "art for art's sake."

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

No artist owes anything to society.

Cinema is not a purely individual thing. It is not the equivalent of a poem scrawled in a private journal. It is made at exorbitant cost through the hard work of many, many people all working in collaboration. On those grounds, at least, the director of a film has some obligation to put those resources to good use.

Absolutely agreed to that point Harmsway, but that's an obligation to studios, audiences, financial investors, etc. Not amorphous, nebulous society. Your example is a case of services rendered in exchange for payment, as opposed to the idea that an artist who fails to produce a certain kind of content has failed his duty to society as a whole, which is balderdash.

What I'm talking about is an obligation to audiences.

Except that you've set your standard for all audiences. If a majority of people like a filmmaker you dislike, the majority are wrong and so is the filmmaker. The obligation is, in fact, merely to your own sensibilities, which is all any of us can judge anything by, but you like your pronouncements to have more drama by declaring subjectivities as absolutes.

Harmsway wrote:

On those grounds, at least, the director of a film has some obligation to put those resources to good use.

The definition of "good use" is open to interpretation.

We can follow Sharky's line of thought and insist that directors hold a mirror up to society and use their medium as a social commentary, and sometimes that can be a good thing - but look at Paul Haggis' IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH, which was two hours of pretentious, bloated, self-important Hollywood liberalism. Haggis met the condition that he provide social commentary, but did he put the resources to good use? I would say no.

On the other hand, Christopher Nolan does not engage in social commentary. But what he has done is create a popular film trilogy that stands out from a glut of superhero films. Will history remember THE DARK KNIGHT RISES or THE GREEN HORNET as the better film? I'm certain it will be the former. So whle Nolan might not have that socio-political context embedded in his films, I would argue that he has put his resources to good use.

Prisoner Monkeyballs wrote:

Will history remember THE DARK KNIGHT RISES or THE GREEN HORNET as the better film?

Who is history dictated by? Popular consensus? If so then, yes I agree with you.

In 5 decades from now, I promise you THE GREEN HORNET will be deemed "criminally underrated" and "Phlemmingesque,"

I think Nolan has what could be considered to be socio-political commentary in his films. Batman's stand to rehabilitate the city instead of destruction and rebuilding by the League of Shadows, the use of excessive (and illegal) force to hunt down dangerous criminals, and the contrasting of the benevolence of good men versus the corrupt power structures that contain them. None of this, however, is new to the superhero genre. When Superman flies halfway around the world to prevent a bomb from going off in Paris, we don't think of it as a symbol of the United States flexing it's military muscle overseas in a show of imperial might. We think "Oh, the man in tights is going to save people. Good for him." In short, sometimes things are meant to be taken at face value.

As far as a director's obligation, film exists for two purposes. It exists to entertain and it exists to make money. Those are the only two obligations a director or a producer has. Whatever other self-righteous opinions they want to put in the movie is optional. If said opinions are a benefit, by all means. If they aren't, it should be left out.

Entertainment, but at what cost?

Largo's Shark wrote:

Entertainment, but at what cost?

About $14 a ticket.

On a more-serious but equally-sarcastic note, how dare Christopher Nolan make a film intended to be entertainment first and foremost. He clearly does not know what audiences want. And if audiences demand entertainment before anything else, then they clearly don't know what thy're talking about.

Luckily, we have Sharky to guide us in these things.

Nolan's BATMAN films are entertaining?

I'm not sure a dichotomy pitting entertainment against art is altogether very useful.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Nolan's BATMAN films are entertaining?

To you, no. To thousands of other people, yes. I don't ask that you suddenly start liking them yourself, but at least accept that people do see something in them that they find entertaining. If they didn't, the films wouldn't be grossing as much as they have/are.

I'm not sure anything Sharky says is altogether very useful.

Then again, I suppose forums need iconoclasts.

Harms wrote:

I'm not sure a dichotomy pitting entertainment against art is altogether very useful.

I'm not presenting one. I'm just saying entertainment alone isn't enough. I want to be enlightened of the human condition.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Then again, I suppose forums need iconoclasts.

Why so serious?

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

If they didn't, the films wouldn't be grossing as much as they have/are.

I call it media hype and mass psychosis.

Prisoner Monkeys is wearing his executioner's robe in a Nolan Batman thread? Reminds me of Mi6.

The Nolanites still want to burn me at the stake.

It's 5:58 AM and I'm still going strong.

Largo's Shark wrote:

The Nolanites still want to burn me at the stake.

Wow. Persecution complex, much?

Burning people at the stake was a medieval punishhment for witchcraft and heresy, and the people who were branded witches and heretic were generally the people who were seen as being a threat to established beliefs.

The obvious subtext here is that you believe yourself to be a threat to fans of Nolan's films, and between your grandiosity on the subject of Nolan and the aforementioned persecution complex, you evidently think that you and you alone can see the supposed banality of Nolan's films, and that you are eloquent and persuasive enough to convert the vast majority of Nolan fans to your way of thinking.

The irony in all of this is that while you clearly think you are being burned at the stake, the way you are going about it is much more in line with the townspeople who are ordering the witch to be burned.

At the end of the day, you are entitled to your opinion. And despite what you might think, I have read and thought about everything that you have said on the subject. So I can confidently say that so far, you have completely and consistently failed to convince me of anything. I find your arguments specious, sprurious and as underwhelming as they are unconvincing, amounting to nothing more than "I think I know what is best for audiences, and if they can't see that, then they're idiots", at which point you proceed to hold up your own previous arguments as proof of the existing line of argument. At best, I think we're right back where we started; at worst, you have pushed me even further way from your way of thinking. If you think that makes me an unsophisticated lout, then I'm an unsophisticated lout, and happily so. I hate to disappoint you, but I never needed or wanted your approval in what I do or don't watch.

I happen to like Christopher Nolan's films. I enjoy them; I am entertained by them. I like the stories he tells, the themes he explores and the way he goes about it. And what's more, I can acknowledge that there is another opinion out there, and why people might have formed it - which is more than I can say for you. I have never said that you should like Nolan's films because they are popular or they make lots of money, only that you should let audiences be audiences and decide what they like for themselves. They don't need or want you to go around telling them what they should and should not like, and they never asked for you to do it in the first place. Just the other day, one of my Year 12 students announced that "PROJECT X was the best movie ever!". Me, I thought it was shit, but I didn't say that. I encouraged him to expand his tastes a little, to maybe rent something a little older over the weekend. I didn't tell him not to watch PROJECT X.

But you have taken it upon yourself to do exactly that with Nolan's films, and then you wonder why people respond poorly to it.

Too long, didn't read.