Here we have Nicolas Cage, Mr. Darcy, Stanley Tucci, Morgan Freeman, Peter Sarsgaard and Christoph Waltz Talking About Art. You know, that old thing. The question of, “If we as actors don’t actually create anything–books, paintings, poetry, music, scripts–can we call ourselves artists?” comes up; that is, are screenplay writers (/composers) artists while their mere interpreters actors (/musicians) are not?
If this is boring to you, just skip to minute 1:46 when Nicolas Cage says, “When I see a great violinist like HIlary Hahn…” and they all go on to talk about our girl.
I’ll bet they saw her forthcoming Bach CD in the back of Tiger Woods’s car.
Ok, Amanda! We all know that Nicolas Cage is having money problems, so, it’s not such a huge leap to assume that you paid the man to mention Hilary! Come on, Amanda! Come on!
Which reminds me:I’m gonna need next month’s retainer in advance… -AA
Nice thoughtful conversation between 6 smart and talented men. I enjoyed it very much.
The real question is not what is art. The real question is how did we arrive at the place where the movie star receives disproportionately more value attached to his or her contribution than let us say the failed writer who receives nothing and has no exposure. It is not an accident that the gap is not unlike the gap between what the NEA gets and what the DOD gets.
And both of them are cultures amongst themselves.
The system sucks. You can’t get work if you eliminate the middlemen.
Movie stars discussing WHAT IS ART is patently absurd.
The real question is what has value and why.
Tim Barrus, Paris
Today everything is art and everyone is an artist. Both hooray and too bad for humanity. Today the definition is soo loose as to both terms. Each of us has a right to decide what it means to us. Art has both suffered and gained new facets for that. Intellectuals can argue convincingly what it is and what it is not, then comes that gifted novice and unwittingly shows them new grounds of what art is and is not. Art is an endless perception changing and growing with new people and new times, it both reaches back to establish its disciplined origins and simultaneously then leaps forward to claim serendipitous unfamiliar territories. It just can not be defined without 100 exceptions and 100 more exceptions to those exceptions. Its absurd to come to a finite conclusion and its sterile to practice a singular definition.