Aesthetic evaluation and film

Andrew Klevan

• Editorial: Manchester University Press
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526132574
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoría: Film & Video

This book provides an in-depth, holistic examination of evaluative aesthetics and criticism and how they apply to film. Suitable for students of films studies and philosophical aesthetics, undergraduates and postgraduates, it also provides a supportive framework for academics researching or teaching in the area.

PART I
What is evaluative aesthetics?

1.1 The origin and definition of aesthetics

The concept of the ‘aesthetic’ is best considered as a cluster of interrelated meanings, and Part I will attempt to elaborate its multifaceted nature. Its Greek origin is aisthesis, meaning perception by sense, or feeling; more precisely it derives ‘from the Greek nominal aisthetikos, sensitive or sentient, derived in turn from the verb aisthanesthai, meaning to perceive, feel, or sense’ (Costelloe 2013: 1). Aesthetki is ‘the science of how things are known to the senses’ and aisthema is ‘the sensation of any object’ (Day 2010: 155). To perceive is to become aware of something through the senses and not only through sight. Thinking in terms of sense perception also links aesthetics to experience: the importance of the experience of the object before us.

The original etymology of aesthetics does not explicitly contain an evaluative component. This is partly why aesthetics is the umbrella title for a range of interests related to appearance and perception (not only of artistic products, but also of other artefacts, of people, and of the natural world). However, the interest in aesthetics that emerges in the eighteenth century is explicitly concerned with matters of value, and in particular the judgement of beauty. This period also marks the beginning of formalising aesthetics as a field of philosophical enquiry. For Alexander Baumgarten (1714–62) the field of aesthetics would provide a foundation for explaining, and justifying, human judgement about what is and what is not beautiful¹. Paul Guyer defines Baumgarten's work as the ‘study of the perfection of and pleasure in the exercise of sensibility for its own sake, as manifested in the production of works of artistic beauty’ (1998: 227). There are a number of important elements in Guyer's definition of Baumgarten's work. There is the foundational interest in works of ‘beauty’, and also the ‘pleasure’ taken in these works; and not simply pleasure, but a particular type of pleasure, the pleasure taken in the ‘exercise of sensibility’; and, furthermore, a pleasure with no ulterior motive than enjoying the production of beauty. Aesthetics would be concerned, therefore, with the beauty of the work and with the pleasure caused by the beauty of the work as it stimulates, and refines, the capacities of perception, responsiveness, and discernment. It might be assumed that artworks exist for these interests, and would naturally attract them, but it is important to recognise that this need not be the case. Aesthetic engagement has not been the only, or even primary, mode of engagement with artworks: medieval criticism, for example, was interested in scholarly explication, clarification, authentication, contextualisation, correction, and commentary (see Day 2010: 65–9). These are still favoured modes of engagement, especially in academic study.

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines ‘beauty’ as ‘an excellent specimen or example of something’, and the ‘best feature or advantage of something’ (Pearsall 1998). It means more than simply very attractive. In the contemporary study of aesthetics, beauty is often employed as a synonym for excellence, or as an umbrella term that encompasses the wide array of merit qualities that exist (for example, graceful, subtle, eloquent, or intricate)². As its main definition, the Dictionary also describes beauty as ‘the combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, form that pleases the … senses’, and there is, once again here, reference to the appeal to the senses, and to pleasure (with the pleasing of the intellect and moral sense also referenced). Another core feature of the aesthetic that appears in this definition is ‘combination’ (and it is one to which this study will repeatedly return).

The aesthetic should not be equated to the artistic. Firstly, this is because aesthetic interest extends beyond art and artworks. An aesthetic point of view can be adopted with regard to everyday objects, furniture, houses, clothes, nature, food, and people. The form of all these things may also be evaluated. Secondly, it is widely recognised that there are forms of artistic value that are not aesthetic. For example, we might value the knowledge gained from an artwork, the educational, moral or political instruction provided, the personal well-being generated, the emotional experience undergone, the theories or theorisations engendered, or the contextual and historical (or art historical) links created. All these may be of value, but they are not necessarily generated by the aesthetic value of the work. From an aesthetic point of view, a film may not be good, but it may have other good values, and may be valued for good reasons³. Equally, artworks, including films, are created with values in mind other than aesthetic ones, and they may be appreciated accordingly. The famous, paradigmatic example from the world of art (and the philosophy of art) is that of Marcel Duchamp's ‘ready-made’ urinal – entitled ‘The Fountain’ (1917) – which may have artistic value but not much aesthetic value because the value is exclusively, or nearly exclusively, cognitive, conceptual, and contextual (Fig. 1.1). Indeed, Duchamp's urinal was thought to be deliberately ‘anti-aesthetic’ because it was not aiming to ‘please’ the senses through the arrangement of its form⁴.

1.1 ‘Fountain’ by Marcel Duchamp (replica), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.

It is important not to fall prey to a popular misconception – that the previous paragraph might also seem to be promoting – that aesthetics is equivalent to Formalism: an adherence to form at the expense of content (for example, subject matter). Nor is it equivalent to Aestheticism if this is taken to mean an exaggerated devotion to beautiful forms, once again at the expense of content. Aesthetics does not discount or demean moral, political, emotional, cognitive, or conceptual content. This content is important, and often essential to an aesthetic evaluation, but the engagement will be with the value of its expression through the form of the work. This contrasts with those occasions where, for example, ideological, contextual or conceptual content, even if it relates to formal or presentational matters, is the primary concern and the basis of the evaluation. Equally, not all values relating to the visual, aural, and sensory, the features ostensibly underpinning aesthetic interest, are automatically of aesthetic value. Something may be visually, aurally, and sensually valuable to some of us at some time for some reason – pornography would be an extreme example – and be of little aesthetic value.

Some people might be interested in the form and media of art while not being specifically interested in value. This is reflected in a disciplinary division. ‘Aesthetics’ is sometimes used as an umbrella title to cover everything in what might broadly be called the ‘Philosophy of Art’ which would cover a wide spectrum of topics: for example, ontology, definitions of art, spectatorship, and the characteristics of fiction. If Aesthetics is understood in terms of its eighteenth-century heritage, then these areas may be important to it, but only in so far as they help with judgement. The philosophy of art might be interested, for example, in characterising the particularities of an art or medium. The constitution of an artistic medium could be explored without an interest in the aesthetic consequences; equally, however, this exploration may be put to an aesthetic end of ascertaining what might work well in that medium. A particular story may work well in the short form of a novella, and then perhaps as a film, but not as a longer novel or television series⁵. When undergraduates study courses entitled ‘Aesthetics’ they are often studying a more expansive syllabus concerned with the philosophy of art; and when they study courses entitled ‘Philosophy of Art’, aesthetics in its evaluative sense may only be one component. The philosopher Robert Stecker divides his introductory book, Aesthetics and The Philosophy of Art, into two sections, each reflecting one half of the title. He writes that ‘Aesthetics is the study of a certain kind of value. This value derives from certain kinds of experience, and is identified in judgments that an object possesses this value in virtue of its capacity to deliver the experience […] Aesthetics … is primarily a topic within value theory’ (2010: ix, 7). This is the conception of aesthetics that motivates this study. Nevertheless, someone might be said to have a genuine interest in aesthetics, in aesthetki and aisthema, in the presentational, tactile, textural, or sensuous features of objects, people, or artworks, without having evaluative intent. Strictly speaking, therefore, it is helpful if the area of aesthetics interested in value is specifically labelled ‘evaluative aesthetics’⁶.

1.2 The aesthetic attitude

The ‘aesthetic attitude’ or the ‘aesthetic point of view’ consists of ‘adopting a … voluntary state of mind toward a certain object or event … when we take an aesthetic interest in it, and appreciate it aesthetically’ (Guter 2010: 20–1). There has been some debate in disciplinary aesthetics about whether this state of mind is special or unique, and whether it can be precisely distinguished. There is no need to award it an exceptional or unusual status, to isolate it as a special faculty, obscure and recondite, or to imagine that it ‘comprises a single, pure phenomenon’ (21). I think of it as a disposition which wishes to engage with the form and style of an artwork, and where there are many aspects to the engagement: for example, sensory, imaginative, intellectual, emotional, pleasurable, and evaluative. The attitude might be adopted automatically because of a predisposition; alternatively, it might be encouraged through education or through books like this one. It can be recognised by way of contrast. In my experience, living in the United Kingdom, many academics, journalists, and broadcasters do not view films with an aesthetic attitude. Their prime interest is not in the form and style of a work, but in its subject matter, or in its milieu, or in the biography of its director or performers, or in the reception of its audiences, or in its cultural or political import, or in its place in a particular history. To perceive primarily from the point of view of these interests is not to perceive from an aesthetic point of view⁷.

The aesthetic attitude has been described as disinterested, but this description can be misleading. Disinterest need not imply indifference, or emotional detachment, or lack of care about content or subject matter (although some philosophers of criticism and aestheticians do advocate these implications, for example, Clive Bell with regard to subject matter (1913))⁸. It need only imply attention to the work with no prior or ulterior motive, or broader practical, theoretical, or sociological interest or purpose. There is a famous, simple example, originally provided by Edward Bullough, about a ship surrounded by fog. If the fog presents a danger to the ship then our interest in it is (justifiably) practical; if it does not present a danger then we are free to appreciate the fog's beautiful shapes and textures, and the mood it creates (1912). Some philosophers prefer the phrase for its own sake to disinterest: I attend to the film for its own sake, and not for other instrumental reasons. Engaging from an aesthetic point of view, I would not think it is good because it is good for me or will improve me as a person, or because it is practically useful, or because the subject matter is interesting in itself. I may aesthetically value a film about the destruction of the rainforest, but it will be because of its formal presentation of an important topic, not simply because the topic...