Thoughts of the People of Classic Film.

[hbenthow]

I thought it would be interesting to create a thread about the thoughts of various classic actors, directors, and other show-business people on various subjects. The concept for this thread is that anyone can post the opinions of any classic director, actor, or other such person involved in film-making, on just about any subject (but preferably one that involves film-making in some way), and hopefully, these posts with provoke interesting discussion on varied subjects.

The source can be an interview, an autobiography, or just about any other source that comes firsthand from the person you are quoting. The opinions of the person whose thoughts on a subject you are posting do not have to be things you agree with. Any quotes posted should not be taken as a statement by the poster. That said, you are free to agree or disagree with the various quotes.

I'll start with Jean Renoir's thoughts on realism, from the interview Jean Renoir Parle de Son Art. I took this from two parts of the same interview, thus the separation toward the end.

We know that in the story of all arts, the arrival of perfect realism coincided with perfect decadence. Earlier I used Greek art as an example. There are many examples. That one came to mind. Forgive me if I repeat myself. For example, the art of tapestry. The first known tapestry was the Bayeux Tapestry. Queen Matilda and her ladies passed their time weaving a tapestry while her husband William conquered England. Obviously, the wool she used was very primitive, probably greasy. The dyes were very primitive, probable vegetable-based, and some mineral-based. Only a limited palette of colours was used in this tapestry, yet this tapestry is probably one of the most beautiful in the world. Moving ahead several centuries, tapestries are still very primitive. For example the Apocalypse tapestries of Angers. We see before us a marvelous world, not a dream world but a real world. The characters in the tapestry are modern. Every day on the street you meet people, like the saints, kings, queens, sinners and angels in the tapestry. And God knows the technique was primitive! One fine day, good King Henry IV makes a huge blunder and kills the art of tapestry, kicks it in the head. With Sully. Which makes me wonder if the legends aren’t complete fibs. Henry’s stupidity about tapestry makes me doubt all the legends about his goodness. This is what he did. High-warp tapestry was invented, replacing low-warp, and it became possible to interweave the threads in a more subtle way manner. At the same time, enormous progress had been made in dyes. The king decided to fund and elevate those making high-warp tapestries. The art of tapestry advanced, increasingly capable of imitating nature. Soon it was no longer necessary to simplify matters for tapestries. They copied paintings, almost perfect likeness of paintings by Boucher or Watteau. Today tapestry is capable of total realism. Every shade is possible. Ten shades of green, all shades of blue in the sky, from that of a pale cloud to deep blue. The outcome? The tapestry is finished. Now, artists like Lurçart try to artificially revive tapestry by shunning realism. Alas, something tragict occurs. It’s an artificial attempt. It doesn’t give us the Bayeux Tapestry.

It sometimes makes me wonder whether man’s gift for beauty isn’t in spite of himself. His intelligence – What a devastating force! Intelligence is terrible. It makes us do stupid things. What if intelligence pushes us towards ugliness? What if intelligence makes us slaves, admirers of all that is ugly? What if our tendency to imitate nature is simply a tendency towards ugliness? The things we choose to imitate in nature aren’t the most beautiful. I wonder whether in primitive times, all objects, not just art, were beautiful. It’s a disturbing question. When we look at ancient Etruscan pottery, it’s all beautiful. And don’t tell me every Etruscan potter was a genius. Why is it that when technique in primitive, everything is beautiful, and when technique is perfected, almost everything is ugly except things created by an artist talented enough to overcome technique? It’s a disturbing question. This makes me wonder, in relation to our discussion on the performing arts- I wonder if our technical advances don’t simply herald complete decadence. Technical perfection can only create boredom, becuase it only reproduces nature. Imagine we are able to perfectly recreate a forest with cinema. We can see the thickness of the bark of the trees. The screen is even larger. It surrounds the audience. We’re really in the middle of the forest, we can touch the trees and smell the scent of the forest. There will be machines to emit the subtle odor of moss. What will happen? People will ride a scooter to a real forest and not to the movies. Why the hell would anyone go to a movie when they can have the real thing? So imitating nature can only lead to the death of an art form.
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[It’s] extremely troubling that when we examine the history of art, we discover that the average object in a technically advanced era is ugly. The only exceptions are the great artists. This means we live in a era when one must be a great artist or nothing. That’s terrible, in my opinion. It removes from everyday experience the possibility of artistic creation that can be present in every action. In ancient times, it existed in daily activities, in the way a fire was lit. Now we don’t have the time. We have to rush to the office to earn a living. Obviously, we had other problems before: no hospital or anesthesia, and childbirth was painful. Now it’s not. That’s a big difference. Fine, but we are not discussing the pros and cons of progress in general. I’m talking about the way progress afffects art. It’s obvious that in a non-technical era, each action was an artistic act. To light a fire, one had to arrange the wood to draw air correctly, and if it wasn’t done well, using a method that resembles, that of artistic creation, the fire simply wouldn’t light. In France, something like that remains that other countries no longer have. It might seem a joke, or inferior, but I don’t think so. I’m proud we have it. Cooking. The French have kept the meaning in cooking. The French retain the artistic sense of seasoning, herbs, cooking time. They retain the meaning of what can’t be explained. The technique can explain everything. It gives a solution for everything. A true chef doesn’t use a technique. He works instinctively, using his senses. We’ve finally arrived at the big question: intelligence and the senses.