Greatest Culture...

[ashulman]

There's no question that the last 100 years has been the American century as many have called it, for better or worse. But before the fall, I think we have to give the nod to Germany. If you look at rational thought, represented by philosophy, science and literature, you'd have a hard time stacking up to the collective influence of Einstein, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Mann, Freud, among countless others and you have the foundations for the modern mind. Throw in music and you're on a whole other level.

[The Atheist]

Actually, there's a great deal of debate on the boxing forum I visit about who the greatest are.

That's why you need to distinguish between the proper noun "The Greatest" which can only be Ali, and the adjective "greatest" applied to boxing.

It's as subjective as all the others.

[The Atheist]

Your biggest problem seems to be that you cannot realize that the majority of the world's population has historically not been in Europe, and centred more in Asia, which developed faster than Europe for several reasons.

No, I don't forget that at all; Europe has never had the majority of population, as anyone who can count will tell you.

Nice of you to completely avoid presenting evidence for your claims, however. Is that an admission that your "facts" were in fact "fantasy"?

Even when you try to present examples of Chinese influence, you come up with a couple of false positives:

Printing and the idea for paper both came to China from Africa. Printing had been old for centuries before China got in on the act. Certainly the Chinese refined manufacture of paper from papyrus to fibres, but I would have expected you to know that the root word for "paper" is "papyrus" and that China - as they still do - picked up someone else's discovery and went with it.

You're also assuming I don't have a good grasp of world history and you would be utterly incorrect. I understand exactly where Chinese influence was and has been, and it has never dominated the world.

At times the Chinese did indeed have as wide an influence as the Roman Empire, but you totally ignore the irrefutable evidence that the Chinese influence did not create a lasting legacy of culture in any way, whereas it is equally obvious that the Roman did.

Except for gunpowder.

Thanks, China.

Instead of worrying about what you think I do and don't know, why don't you attempt to make an actual case for your revisionist historical beliefs? I'm pretty sure I could make a more coherent case for Egypt than China.

[The Atheist]

But even the best films are inferior art.

That's a widely-held belief, but I can only disagree strongly with it.

Shakespeare is a good example. His plays are more than the sum of the words, and a good rendition can give a lot more than the bare words, or an inferior production.

Movies are just stage plays done for mass audiences, and the best of them can actually offer more than the story that spawned them.

[Mr.lucifer]

Mal-4-mac, you need more experience with film. Not even citizen kane is the pinnacle of film. The best directors of the 20th century are just as good artists are the great writers and great composers of the 20th century. Film already has a reputation as a high art. Besides,its been around for little over a century. Its has come a long way for a newer medium.

[Mr.lucifer]

Movies are just stage plays done for mass audiences the best of them can actually offer more than the story that spawned them.

Im sorry but that is an over-simplification of what films can do. Besides, art films are for a refined audience like serious literature.

In fact, I'd argue that film has produced artists just as good as the great playwrights of the 19th and 20th centuries. Mike leigh is just as great as an artist as Tom Stoppard or Harold pin-tar. Ingmar Bergman is probably as great as August Strindberg. In fact, they rival some of the best novelists of the 20th century. I doubt anyone rivals Kafka, Proust, and Joyce, but those guys are among the best of the best. Ozu is certainly the greatest Japanese artist of the 20th century, and Tarkovsky is definitely the best narrative artist of Russia since Tolstoy died.

Documentaries are the newest and most relevant of non-fiction. Shoah is maybe the best work of art about the holocaust. West of the tracks maybe the best work of post-war art from china. There has been film equivalents of epic novels. Satan-tango and Lav diaz's oeuvre are great examples.

[Emil Miller]

There's no question that the last 100 years has been the American century as many have called it, for better or worse.

My general impression of Europe is that in the 20th century it became a trash factory, destroying all of it's great traditions, self-inflicting crippling psychic wounds, and systematically dismantling all of the tools it once used to make beautiful art.

And there you have it.

[hypatia_]

i hate when people say a certain medium of art is not considered "art" based on it's length of existence. every form of art was new at some point. and in my opinion, one medium does not trump another, in any case.

[stlukesguild]

If we are talking 20th century popular music, I think the British are the equals of the Americans: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Radiohead, The Smiths, Pink Floyd, Joy Division, The Stone Roses...that is a pretty impressive list (actually, to be specific, they are all English).

The problem here is that you are focusing upon a single branch of "popular music"... ie. rock/pop from the Beatles forward. Undoubtedly there are some impressive names here... but the United States wholly owns Jazz which a good many would argue is a far greater musical genre: W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbeck, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, John Coletrane, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Dizzie Gillespie, Count Basie, and the list goes on and on. You could then add the jazz/blues vocalists to this list: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Julie London, etc... Then what about the Blues? Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Turner, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Slim Harpo, etc... on through Stevie ray Vaughan, etc... And what of R & B? I'm speaking of the original Rhythm & Blues in which acted as the transitional movement from jazz to rock & roll in which the rhythm section of the old jazz big bands broke away after the big bands were no longer financially viable: Cab Calloway, T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, etc... Bluegrass/Country/Western? The Carter Family, The Stanley Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, etc...

And then... American rock isn't all that bad either: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Big Mamma Thornton, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, CCR, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimi Hendrix...

And are we ignoring the contributions of black musicians after the 1950s? Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the whole of Motown, Michael Jackson, Al Green, the Temptations, etc...

[Ecurb]

The problem with film (at least it’s a problem to some people) is that it is such a corporate art form. First of all, the “auteur theory” of film, in which the director is the key “artist” is clearly silly. Why is the director so much more important than the screenplay writer, or the producer, or the cinematographer? For drama, it’s the other way around. Shakespeare is the great artist, not some famous director.

Of course in the case of some less corporate films (e.g. the European classics), the director is the screenplay writer. In those cases, the “auteur” approach makes more sense.

It seems to me that some critics want an “artiste” to admire as much as they want a work of art. (Tolstoy, whom we were discussing in the other thread, certainly did.)

Literature used to be a cooperative enterprise: Homer was telling stories in a shared tradition, doubtless borrowing not only plots but phrases. We don’t even know who “wrote” Gilgamesh. Modernism, however, worships individuals. So in order for film to be a “true” art, there needs to be ONE artist to admire.

[PeterL]

i hate when people say a certain medium of art is not considered "art" based on it's length of existence. every form of art was new at some point. and in my opinion, one medium does not trump another, in any case.

I hate when people assert that only the arts that they like are art at all, and call the mechanical and other practical arts something else.

[stlukesguild]

But even the best films are inferior art. You might say that America is unequivocally top for popular entertainment, but for "Culture" with a capital C you have to produce better arguments if you want to pitch for yankees.

I'm sorry. I'm as big of a cultural elitist as anyone on this site... but that's just pure ignorance? Please explain to us just what imaginary separation there is between what you deem as "Popular Culture" ("Entertainment", "Low Art", etc...) vs "High Art"/"Culture"? Silly me... but I thought the novel began as a literary form deemed as "Low" popular entertainment. The same was true of opera. How are the grandiose theatrical paintings of Peter Paul Rubens inherently superior to the greatest Hollywood films?

The whole division between "High" and "Low" was promoted by the upper classes as a means of maintaining an illusion of cultural superiority after popular culture became increasingly dominant. We have little record of the popular music of the past centuries due to the simple facts that the masses generally didn't have the time or financial ability to create or support music. Whatever popular music there was rarely survived due to the fact that the amateur popular (folk) musicians lacked the ability to read or write (and thus preserve) music. With the innovation of recording technology the best popular music... be it Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones etc... is not only able to survive... but also is able to reach a far larger audience than ever before possible. Ravel, George Gershwin, Milhaud, Shostakovitch, Osvaldo Golijov, Philip Glass... nearly any Modern "classical" composer you dare name has been profoundly impacted by popular music... and written music that blurs any distinction between "classical" and "popular" music. There is no reason to assume that "Summertime", "Stormy Weather" or "Norwegian Wood" will not continue to be recognized (as they now are) as "standards" or "classics". Neither is there any reason to assume that "Vertigo" is not every bit as great as "The Liver is the ****'s Comb".

But certainly... we are all open to a logical reason why Die Zauberflote, Hansel und Gretel, Offenbach, Andy Warhol, and Johann Strauss Jr. are all "High Art/Culture" while Miles Davis, Casablanca, F.W. Murnau, and R. Crumb are all "Low Art/Entertainment".

[stlukesguild]

...in order for film to be a “true” art, there needs to be ONE artist to admire.

That is surely one of the dumbest things I've read here in some time. You are living in a 19th century Romantic fantasy of the sole artist/visionary/prophet. This is one of the greatest masterpieces of Western painting:



The painting may have been painted by as Many as four different artists (Giorgione, Giovanni Bellini, Titian, and Sebastiano del Piombo)

Here is another such example... one of the greatest paintings of the early Renaissance:



Painted by Fra Angelico and Fra Fillipo Lippi.

Then there is this:



St. Peter's is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest works of Art of the Renaissance. Obviously it wasn't constructed by one man... but neither was it designed by one artist. Among the major names that were employed in the design of St. Peters are Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bellini.

The fact that more than one artist is employed in the creation of a work in no way inherently diminishes that work or excludes it from the realm of "true art".

[stlukesguild]

First of all, the “auteur theory” of film, in which the director is the key “artist” is clearly silly. Why is the director so much more important than the screenplay writer, or the producer, or the cinematographer?

I think you need to educate yourself upon just how a film is created. The "screenplay" is important... but it is the director who controls just how that narrative will be interpreted through the artistic form that is film. The narrative was certainly important in these paintings...





... but the form that the work takes is painting and ultimately it is the painter whose vision is central... it is the painter who decides how the narrative will be interpreted.

In film, the director has the ultimate say over the music, cinematography, editing, etc...

Even if this were untrue... even if the work were wholly the product of collaborative effort... which it is to a good extent... that has nothing whatsoever to do with the artistic merit of the work.

[JCamilo]

The thing is movie technology changes way too fast, so it is an artform much more dynamic for a proper judgment of vallue. Of course, we all feel many directors are notable, but lets see how many are timeless. In my opinion 2001 can stand up with Picasso or Joyce and comedies with Ben Stiler do not make it less or more artistic than traditional artforms.

In the end we will judge by the top not by something in the gutter.

Also, would say: of course america is the top pop music of XX century. Specially if you consider only american manifestations.American Tango and Samba sucks donkey balls.