I wrote this in response to a debate going around about shortening attention spans and the death of art by commerce.

I saw Trash Humpers by Hamony Korine on Friday in a packed, adoring theater at the Nuart. It is a film shot on VHS with no plot that involves, among other things, characters in old-people masks fellating trees and humping garbage cans. It was wonderful and completely esoteric film that most of the moviegoing public would hate. That public was not there.

Quality work will find an audience; that audience’s size will generally be determined by the universality and quality of the piece, as well as the volume and effectiveness of its marketing and distribution. Korine has a small but dedicated following; Spielberg’s audience is larger and less-dedicated. People make decisions on what to see based primarily on their own taste (and wallets), and the taste of those they trust in such matters, then the marketing.

Wanting to see Avatar instead of a ten hour polish movie doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you a different kind of person. Less people want to eat bull testicles than chicken; this doesn’t make chicken worse than testicles. Many people would question our choice of doctor, food or religion based on knowledge, values and specializations they have that we don’t.

What’s important is to do the work, then honestly evaluate that work’s quality and potential audience. There’s no conspiracy against art, we just happen to live in a country whose cinema depends on audiences buying tickets. Fortunately for Von Trier, Haneke and Korine, the economics of european cinema is based on taxpayers instead of moviegoers, most of whom seem to prefer Avatar to Antichrist.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Jason

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