Watching People Multitask at the Oscars

Sunday night I watched the Academy Awards, despite not having seen any of the nominated films. In years past, I found the Oscars occasionally entertaining but mostly annoying (and often embarrassing). I often wondered why the Oscars came off in such a clunky fashion when they’re meant to celebrate the movie industry—shouldn’t the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, of all people, be able to pull off a polished awards show? In the end, though, I guess some people are more comfortable than others in front of live audiences, and some people do better than others at reading jokes they didn’t write. Sometimes, I watched with the sound turned off so I didn’t have to listen to people limp through lame jokes and look ill-at-ease. All I really wanted was to see who was there, what they were wearing, and who would win the big honors.

Now I look back at those days with longing. This year’s awards show was groomed till it barely had a hair out of place—everything seemed to have been calibrated to within a millionth of an inch, but any sense of fun or spontaneity appeared (to me) to be lacking. I longed for someone to fumble their lines and appear to be something other than an automaton or a walking billboard. Don’t get me wrong: I still enjoyed seeing who was there and admiring the gowns, which, if anything, are distinctly more tasteful than they used to be. My problem is that instead of movie stars being movie stars, everyone seems to be busy representing something. I’ve got no problems with people speaking up about issues that are important to them, especially when they affect the movie industry, but I mainly watch the Oscars to be entertained, and I thought everybody else did too (but maybe not).

There are probably just as many fine people in the film industry as there are anywhere else, and I feel that most of them are well-intentioned, but that doesn’t mean their opinions about the state of the world today are any better informed than anyone else’s. I feel that most of the media and entertainment outlets today are the source of misinformation that at its worst is no better than propaganda and that some of the people propagating it may not even be aware of what they’re doing. They are passing along information or putting out ideas that they may or may not have formed in good faith but that in any case go beyond the purpose of entertainment and/or the creation of art.

I had this discussion with someone the other night. Plainly stated, I feel that any artist, no matter what his medium, is only responsible for doing the best artistic work he or she is capable of. I don’t think all entertainment rises to the level of “art,” and that’s perfectly OK. Some people aspire only to entertain but occasionally rise to the level of art because they transcend the limits of the ordinary. Sometimes art has a “message,” but not always. Sometimes, you’re just looking at what happens when someone sets out to create something, and whether it “means” anything or not is an open question.

There’s a poem I first read in graduate school in the form of a note of apology from someone who ate plums someone else had left in the refrigerator. It reads very much like a note you might actually leave for someone in such a circumstance, except for the cadence of the language and the placement of the words in lines. So what does it mean? In my opinion, it doesn’t so much “mean” anything other than to reveal that by looking at ordinary things in a certain way, you can transform them into art—or maybe the art is already there and all you’re doing is cutting away the extraneous material to reveal what’s already present. I’m not an art theoretician, but I can see it working either way.

What I do know is that art is one thing and advertising is something else (not that advertising can’t have great artistic merit, because it can). What’s different is the underlying purpose of art versus advertising. Art exists for its own sake, though it may also delight you, horrify you, or make you think. Advertising is an attempt to sell you something, and propaganda is a particularly sneaky form of it. My wish is that people would just go back to what it is they are good at doing and leave off the propaganda. I think propaganda has long had a place in popular culture, so it’s really nothing new, but its uses have been especially egregious in recent years. How about if we left advertising to ad people, news to news people, entertainment to entertainment people, and art to artists? My feeling is that everyone is so busy multitasking that news, entertainment, literature, and many other things have been muddied so that you no longer know what you’re looking at. Occasionally, an authentic voice breaks through the fog, if it can manage to make itself heard in the din, but we’re living in a very noisy world.

I’m not against movies (or books) with messages. What I’m against is propaganda masquerading as entertainment and news, and people running around saying things when they don’t know what they’re talking about. Rather than asking for “more matter with less art,” like Hamlet’s mother, I think what I’d really like to see, at least from Hollywood, is more art and less matter. Then it might be fun to go to the movies again (if I could afford it). What Sunday night’s Academy Awards really needed, in my opinion, was for Cher to show up in one of her trademark over-the-top outfits and throw everybody on their ear, as in days of old. On the other hand, if more journalists were out there actually doing their jobs, perhaps people in Hollywood wouldn’t feel as if they had to do it for them, which I suspect is what happens on occasion. So maybe it’s really the journalists I have a beef with, and not the movie people (or at least, not all of them).

Don’t mind me. I get cranky when I’m in the bardo for years at a time. But could somebody see about getting Cher back into the loop for next year’s show? Or at least the girl with the swan outfit?

The Thing That Keats Said

Last week, I came across Donna Tartt's novel The Goldfinch at the public library. A brief description of the plot on The New York Times bestseller list, along with the writer's reputation, reeled me in. The novel tells a fictional story about a real painting, Carel Fabritius's "The Goldfinch," a 17th-century Dutch masterpiece, whose actual home is in the Netherlands. In the novel, a bomb rocks New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art while the protagonist, 13-year-old Theo Decker, is visiting with his mother. Theo's mother dies in the attack, and in the confusion, he smuggles "The Goldfinch," which his mother adored, out of the museum.

Theo's impulsive act, undertaken while he's deeply in shock, becomes, along with his mother's death, the defining fact in his life. Unable to think of a way to return the painting without causing trouble, he keeps it, taking it out of hiding now and again to marvel at it secretly, though he's increasingly wracked by guilt and fear over his possession of it.

The interplay of opposites -- a cataclysmic act of violence, an object of rare and haunting beauty in its midst, a boy who is both innocent and guilty -- runs throughout the novel. Theo is a Hermes-like character, growing up to combine the qualities of a thief and dissembler with a rare sensitivity and passionate nature. In the midst of his self-destructiveness and suffering, he is aware of the moral dilemmas imposed by his situation and is somehow a better person than many of his actions suggest.

Since "The Goldfinch" is the central image of the novel, described repeatedly and in loving detail through Theo's eyes, it necessarily becomes an object of meditation for the reader. What is it about this little goldfinch, in addition to its purely monetary value, that sets such a complicated series of events in motion and affects Theo (and even his harum scarum friend and co-conspirator Boris) so deeply? It seems to be the recognition of a common destiny. The bird is chained to its perch, trapped and circumscribed by events, but it gazes directly and unflinchingly at the viewer in a manner that Theo comes to recognize as -- despite everything -- life-affirming. In the midst of somber circumstance, its spirit remains strong, its gaze sending a challenge to the viewer: I've embraced the eternal yes. Will you?

I'm reminded here, a bit incongruously, of the film Waking Ned Devine, a rollicking story rather removed in atmosphere from the rich solemnity of The Goldfinch (whose tone has much in common with the shadowy, gold-flecked interiors of the Dutch masters it celebrates). In Waking Ned Devine, there is a communal attempt to trick a lottery board into distributing winnings to the surviving friends of the actual winner, who has died. One senses in the scheme not meanness but rather a generosity in the spirit of the deceased Ned Devine himself. The trickery is good-natured and serves the greater good.

In the case of The Goldfinch, the painting is taken by a 13-year-old with the instincts of a thief but a certain purity of heart and is stolen in turn by his amoral but happy-go-lucky best friend, eventually falling into the hands of an international gang of criminals. The final resolution is a twist of fate beyond anything Theo could have imagined, with good and evil very much entangled. But did the purity of Theo's feelings for the painting somehow protect it just enough to tip the balance toward good? It seems this could be true, since the restoration of the painting then inspires Theo to rebuild his own life along more hopeful lines.

This story illustrates the way fate, personified here by the spirit of trickery, may move through the lives of people, sometimes with their knowledge and sometimes not, to achieve an end larger than all of them (though it may enlarge some of them in the process). The way this works, however, remains a mystery. Was it all accidental? Was some of it shaped by the desires of the characters at a level deeper than they could understand? Is truth beauty and beauty truth, as Keats said? You have to decide for yourself.

Pictures Never Seen Before

At the local Gallery Hop last Friday night, I covered a lot of ground, enjoying both the art on the walls and the street life. The Gallery Hop is an event in which a group of artistic venues sets out their punch bowls, crudites, and fancy cookies and welcomes visitors for a special viewing of their exhibits. The event has become a downtown tradition, and you never know who (or what) you might see.

Most of the galleries are well-known and long-established regulars in the local arts scene: those at the local universities, the public library, the Downtown Arts Center, the Living Arts and Science Center. It's especially exciting when there turns out to be a quirky artists' collective behind a nondescript door you've passed thousands of times or when a place you always associated with one purpose suddenly reveals a secret identity: a historic church with a modest corridor that doubles as a gallery for a former basketball star (now a talented folk artist) working with wood, or a restaurant that unexpectedly serves a pop-up exhibit. Finding art in unexpected places always enhances the sense of adventure.

Does looking with intention transform your vision? Would I have noticed how beautifully the tall old-fashioned window in ArtsPlace frames the steeple of the church across the way if I had been casually passing through? It stopped me in my tracks, but would I have seen it if I'd been there on business, with my mind on something else? This question reminds me of the time I went to see Orson Welles' Touch of Evil downtown on a humid summer night. I walked to my car afterwards thinking how noirish and mysterious everything looked, as if the movie's frame of reference had widened to include our familiar rain-soaked streets. I doubt if I'd have had the same thought if I'd just been running to the store for a gallon of milk. The film gave me a new lens for viewing and helped me see what I didn't see before.

Another time I noticed this in a big way was my first visit to The Getty Center in Los Angeles. The building itself is a work of art, and you could wander around quite happily just taking in the hidden courtyards, the changing light on the walls, the views across the garden, and the shadows created by a staircase. I had been doing just that when I suddenly found myself outside, on a patio that looked east and north. The museum has a commanding hilltop view of a wide swath of West Los Angeles, but from that perspective the most arresting element in the landscape is the freeway, with its sinuous, ever-moving lines of traffic, gliding like living things through a dramatic gap in the mountains, rushing onwards with something between a hiss and a roar far below you.

I'm sure framing the landscape as living art was a conscious intention of the architect, and I have to say he succeeded. The view is breathtaking. I gazed down at the scene for quite a while, mesmerized by the scope and grandeur. Years later, when I was in Los Angeles on a regular basis, frequently traveling to and from school on that very highway, I could never pass The Getty Center without remembering that first view. What always struck me was how my role had shifted from onlooker to participant. Instead of just observing the scene, I was now in it, part of that river of purposeful, fast-moving, ever-changing traffic.

Driving on the 405 requires skill and attention. Without that first revealing look from the side of a mountain high above, would I ever have realized the wonder and beauty of what, at ground-level, can be a frustrating, exhausting, and very mundane experience? Maybe not. For that I have to thank the visionary who looked at the scene with an artist's eye and framed it so that the rest of us could see it. Art doesn't imitate life; it provides an opening into it.