Edgar Degas, "David and Goliath"
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a "philistine" is "3. ... An uneducated or unenlightened person; one perceived to be indifferent or hostile to art or culture, or whose interests and tastes are commonplace or material; a person who is not a connoisseur."
Perhaps the very reason for the mysterious disappearance of such a germane descriptor is that we are so inundated with Philistia that we cannot see it, like a fish in the sea. Only a Noah will float.
One has only to review the "reviews" of Terrence Malick's To the Wonder to discover the inane blatherings of our very own American philistian moviegoers, who apparently equivocate between animal stimulus and good art. Take, for instance, this particular jewel presented graciously to the Amazon passer-by's innocent perusal. Please try to read this comment in its entirety, considering it a spiritual exercise in order to "know thy enemy":
"I'm educated, I went to college. I can appreciate works of 'art' and I have done. However, to watch this movie is to waste time and money on a kaleidoscope of someone else's brain vomit. If I hadn't read the synopsis, I very seriously doubt I would have had a clue what this movie was about. Scattered images and very little dialogue thrown together in a pathetic attempt to seem 'arty' [sic] when, in fact, it comes off as very contrived and forced. When filmmakers come up with this tripe, I can only imagine that they have simply forgotten the 'point' which is to entertain the viewer. I was not entertained. Only shallow people attempting to exhibit nonexistent depth are even going to pretend they enjoyed this viewing experience. However, if you marvel at seeing wonderful actors spin around in the sun and actually NOT act (or even speak audibly); if you enjoy watching a movie presented very similarly to a dream I had last night; or, if you are out to impress that cute blond in your liberal arts classes by feigning intellectualism -- then by all means, go for it."
Thank you, Kellie from Miami. You were very entertaining. I feel less shallow now. "Are you not entertained?," says Maximus. I was entertained. Are you entertained?
That the idea of the beautiful in a piece of artwork and the idea of entertainment held by many Americans are not synonymous, I think you will agree, but in the interest of culture I will provide some delineations. In doing so, I accept the risk of appearing to be one of those "shallow people attempting to exhibit nonexistent depth." ;)
Entertainment. When we seek entertainment, we are usually relying upon someone else's effort to make us laugh, smile, gaze in wonderment, recoil in mock horror. In so doing, we are asking that person or other entity to satisfy our expectations, to fulfill our pre-conceived notions of what will make us happy or afford us some distraction from the weariness of life. Entertainment never transcends the sphere of the immanent.
Ms. Kellie from Miami seeks the same. She would very much like to have all of her instinctual desires recognized and catered to by the filmmaker. She refuses to be brought out of herself in order to encounter a mode of experience that is superior to her own. No. That would make her uncomfortable, and we cannot have "educated" people being made to feel uncomfortable, especially if they have attended "college" and thus understand how to appreciate "'arty'" things.
Sorry, Kellie. Art is ecstasy.
Culture. When we seek culture (and I am referring to the Arnoldian scheme when I say "culture" -- see the final paragraph of "Violence and Cinema"), we are seeking something beyond ourselves. We are seeking something we have not attained, and in this seeking we accept that we must toil with difficult ideas, with difficult perspectives that will at first confuse us when they seek to liberate us from the animal and the mundane.
To take up the banner of Culture is similar to the Christian ideal of taking up the cross. It is a way of intellectual perfection that always looks for the more potently significant in life, even at the expense of the comfort and pleasure of an easy romance or a gratuitous battle sequence. In truth, the way of Culture is the way of the spiritual, of understanding the world and oneself as realities infused with spiritual magnitude, and of seeking to understand the meaning of that magnitude. The way of Culture, of perfection, is infinite, as humankind is infinite.
Thus, to the "'point.'" To be a philistine is to pin down, to ground, to crush things into a swallowable morsel for one's disposal. Yes, to be a philistine is to be a consumer both of products and of ideas -- to dispense with them, to put them in their place so that whatever small-minded existence one possesses may continue without disturbance.
(The idea of philistinism is thus easily pinned down -- it hardly wriggles -- while the ideas expressed variously in such a film as To the Wonder are not so easily placed, nor should they be.)
I dare say Ms. Kellie from Miami has put Malick in his place. For her, the eminent filmmaker with a long and fascinating career as an artist offers the world nothing but "brain vomit."
The person of Culture disagrees.
He can see for her the waves of the Florida sound begin to rise in tumultuous clamor, washing further and further their dross upon the shore. They will take her up with the zombies that dash toward the sealed ark, and she will float for awhile in a hell of thrashing bodies and silted water until she sinks, unaware like a fish in its sea.
But then again, she is a person ... with the sort of infinite potential displayed by Malick in his exploration of human capacities. She can change, though she be Delilah of the Sea Peoples.
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