Art and Propaganda

Today's quote comes from George Orwell.

"All art is propaganda... On the other hand, not all propaganda is art."

Art is propaganda because the artist is presenting his views of the world and making arguments about how reality works. The argument is made whether the artist means to or not; even documentary filmmakers choose what footage to show and how to narrate the footage.

Jedi and the Truth

Today’s quote comes from American writer Neil Gaiman.

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.”

This is exactly why I got involved in making films. I want to tell tales that will be immortalized in the medium of film. Film has an incredible ability to influence what people believe. For example during the 2001 census in England and Wales 390,127 people put down Jedi as their religion. In fact in most areas of England and Wales the number of people who identify as Jedi is higher than those that identify as Jewish or Buddhist.

Fine Art

"The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel noble"

~ Aldous Huxley

The artist when creating art besides putting forth his worldview in the art does these things by taking the time to make his art high quality. This is becoming less and less the case in art as much modern art is created with no worldview, or nihilism which is not a true worldview, and without quality in mind.

Art

Albert Camus was a French writer and philosopher from the 1950's he is best known for his two books "The Stranger" and "The Plague"

"There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it."

Camus was a life long opponent of nihilism and this goes hand in hand with this quote as art is, according to Ayn Rand, a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. Without values art is simply a re-creation of the reality and values the artist has created and it would be nearly impossible for others to be affected by it as they couldn't relate to it.

Mistakes and Art

Today's author is the creator of the hit cartoon Dilbert and author of a very though provoking books called God's Debris, but without further ado, Scott Adam's.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

Too often young filmmakers I know expect to hit it big with their first movie and that everything they make will be perfect. But what I and others tell everyone is that your first movie is going to be terrible and most likely the next few after that too. You need to get out there and make mistakes so you can learn from them, and then after you've made a bunch of mistakes decide which one you're going to keep.

Art and Reality

My quote today comes again from Ayn Rand.

"Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature."

Ayn Rand in her book the Romantic Manifesto says that any art is infused with the world view of the creator and that the viewer can not help but come away with a message.

In the industry I work in, the Christian film industry, we are always striving to present our view of reality in a way that represents our worldview. To this end we try and present a view of man that upholds values and ideals we think are important.

At the same time to represent reality and make it believable we need to show man's true nature and that is that he is fallen. So our characters need to have flaws and struggle with problems just like we all do but hopefully in our films our characters can overcome those struggles. Too often in post-modernism and nihilistic films we see characters who represent nothing but the hopelessness of mankind or films that do nothing but showcase man's inhumanity. We need more films that show flawed characters who gain eventual redemption and overcome their struggles.