Vocation #6: Art is life

Art is life. Art is an outward expression of the experience of life in one shape or another. Whether it’d be confusion, frustration, sadness, anger, it’s whatever makes you want to scream, cry, read, or write. Whatever conclusions you draw from another person’s art is also part of art, your responses are part of art. After realizing what it meant to direct in 2018, I decided I did want to choose filmmaking as the craft of my choice for self-expression. Before that, I didn't even notice I had a need for self-expression. I finally realized that I liked dancing for self-expression, that I liked reading for learning / exploring, that I liked motion pictures for entertainment, but I enjoy art for therapy. 

Art was a need, not a want, for emotional stability and self-help therapy. When I see their anger, their pain, how excruciating that might have been, it does bring me relief and peace. When I see novel ways of constructing whatever concepts they might be trying to construct the piece around, I also get entertained. Renaissance paintings and pre-impressionism are extremely impressive, however it’s a language I understand but don’t speak. Modern art is more like first nature, I can use it, choosing a modern medium such as film with less than 130 years of history is quite fitting. 

Toward the end of the 19th century, people were obsessed with the spectacle of moving images. This was the genesis of motion pictures, a spectacle. In Jordan Peele’s sophomore film Nope, he discusses this phenomenon of a spectacle. People came to theaters expecting a spectacle for a while, not art, drama, or emotional catharsis. In 1894, the Lumiere brothers held the first public screening in Paris with short reels like Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat and Workers Leaving the Factory. That was generally considered the first public screening of motion pictures. I need to read more into this, but I was under the impression that the Lumiere brothers came from a very wealthy family. Since the genesis of motion pictures, it was something invented for fun, screened for fun, and people came for fun. I like fun.

It didn’t take long for motion pictures to evolve to having colors, sound, visual effects, special makeup and all that. It became a medium for narrative storytelling. I like hearing stories, and I like telling stories. It started as therapy, continued as entertainment, now grew into a profession because it has allowed me to survive in such a competitive modern world without feeling drained spiritually, only physically, emotionally, politically. But I was going to be drained in that way regardless, let me have my spirit so I can at least hold on.