But just because something "challenging" or "daring" does not make it good art. The sad fact is that just about everything that is considered art today (literature, cinema, painting, scupture, music, etc.) is crap. It is possible to do art both ways...challenging and non-challenging. The problem is that todays "artists" have no talent to do it either way.
Well done, driftless. Agree completely.
He is saying that we need to drop any moral values we have, be like them, and get edgy.
The problem with the article is he writes in the context of this time, where we have five, Oscar nominated, little seen movies, all "cutting edge", that are really attacks on conservative values. If you go back to the golden age of Hollywood, when the Code was in effect, the movies were great in spite of the Code. Plus, people watched them.
Even after the Coded disappeared, there was still constraint on the part of Hollywood as shown by self-imposed ratings. Today, even they are a joke.
Movies can have a message and that message can be troubling and thoughtful. But that message has to be meaningful and more universal than the liberal propaganda being foisted on us.
Same with film. First, it must have a good story. Second, and most important, is that the characters must be people the audience cares about or is interested in. Even the villians. If the hero is just as bad as the villian, no one is interested. Dirty Harry was a good flick because the idea of a cop that goes over the line to help citizens he cares nothing about was new and edgy at the time. Coupled with a villian who while insane, knew that society was moving towards a method where the villians rights are more protected than those he killed. The old way against the new way. And when it came right down to it, the new way was not working for the cop. So he chucked it all - his career, his life, his freedom - to stop the insanity from taking over. The liberals could not understand why it was popular just as the cannot understand why The Passion is popular. Just as the cannot understand why The Incredibles was popular. Because it is about doing the right thing against all odds. Yeah, the world is full of bad guys. The liberals wants us to live with that. I.E., Kerry stating that America should just get use to terrorism as Israel and Europe has done. The American way - the right way - is to recognize, yeah, terrorism exists, and though we may fail, we must try to stop it. That makes a good story every time.