General Discussion Thread

[Haiz]

I was asserting that they were, as I said, as good as or better than Harrison Ford. I'm sorry if you took it the former way instead of the latter.

isn't that a rather subjective opinion though? by what measure is one actor better than another? i'm not trying to pick a fight i'm just genuinely curious. for the record i have heard about Zero of the actors you mentioned, so consider me ignorant ^________^


(i have to admit i barely care about contemporary actors though, if i remember someone's name it's mostly because of exposure through the internet i consume)

[LooNEY_DAC]

isn't that a rather subjective opinion though? by what measure is one actor better than another? i'm not trying to pick a fight i'm just genuinely curious. for the record i have heard about Zero of the actors you mentioned, so consider me ignorant ^________^


(i have to admit i barely care about contemporary actors though, if i remember someone's name it's mostly because of exposure through the internet i consume)

I would say that it's a mix of both subjective and objective, and the objective parts are very hard to verbalize: it's just something you know when you see. I say it's both because its inverse, bad acting, is obvious to and agreed upon by most people, but tastes do affect your personal perceptions, so, really, it's both.

Have you ever seen a movie (/play/whatever) you thought was garbage except for that one actor who caught your eye the moment they appeared? Or one that would have been garbage if it weren't for the main actor?

[Haiz]

I would say that it's a mix of both subjective and objective, and the objective parts are very hard to verbalize: it's just something you know when you see. I say it's both because its inverse, bad acting, is obvious to and agreed upon by most people, but tastes do affect your personal perceptions, so, really, it's both.

Have you ever seen a movie (/play/whatever) you thought was garbage except for that one actor who caught your eye the moment they appeared? Or one that would have been garbage if it weren't for the main actor?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMM

maybe i'm just really bad at noticing acting. I can probably recognize bad acting, but beyond that I mostly see the characters in movies as characters, rather than their actors? obviously, a good actor will play a character well enough for me to like them! but it's incredibly rare for me to care about that actor beyond that movie to be honest. Like when pirates of the caribbean was still in cinemas and everything was ZOMG JOHNNY DEPP IS SO BRILLIANT!!! and yeah, jack sparrow was really fun, i gotta admit johnny depp is good. but then he keeps appearing in more and more movies and I don't think he's all THAT good because he keeps doing the same things just in different contexts? does this mean he WAS a good actor, or that he's just a good actor SOMETIMES, was i just TRICKED into thinking he's a good actor, or is this a just SUBJECTIVE OPINION on my part? ? ? maybe the really good actors of the past were super good actors always, who knows not me.

I have several friends who have a tendency to get hooked on particular actors and then watch every single movie they played in, no matter how bad. i've never had this urge. but there are several actors i appreciate as people, like if i see something they said in an interview that made me happy. a lot of those would be, for example, the actors from game of thrones, and that is a fun situation for me where i think the actors are great at playing the characters, but the characters are terribly scripted (in my opinion, biased by having read the books), and no matter how much i'll like their acting it can't make me go back to watching game of thrones.

basically i have no good answer to this question because i think good acting can vary from role to role, and some actors are good at some things and bad at others, and it can also depend on your taste in movies as well as characters i guess!

[LooNEY_DAC]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMM

[snip]

basically i have no good answer to this question because i think good acting can vary from role to role, and some actors are good at some things and bad at others, and it can also depend on your taste in movies as well as characters i guess!

Which is why I said it's both. I do not disagree with your last paragraph at all.

[Lazy8]

I wasn't trying to "shove them down your throat"; I was asserting that they were, as I said, as good as or better than Harrison Ford. I'm sorry if you took it the former way instead of the latter.

Mm-hm. You were only complaining about "the current generation" being "ignorant" for not being familiar with the pop culture of your time, in a matter that's highly subjective anyway. And that hit kind of a sore spot for me.

[LooNEY_DAC]

Mm-hm. You were only complaining about "the current generation" being "ignorant" for not being familiar with the pop culture of your time, in a matter that's highly subjective anyway. And that hit kind of a sore spot for me.

I'm sorry I hit that sore spot.

[Haiz]

Which is why I said it's both. I do not disagree with your last paragraph at all.

ha, that is true. maybe i didn't need to go all indepth on my ~*actor appreciation experience*~

but like (haiz. stop)
from an art history student perspective (nooooooooooo)
it's all about context!! (oh my god ignore me)
because like
acting is a skill/craft. an art if you will
but every culture and generation have their own set of what is seen as Conventionally Good Acting, so of course these are the things actors will train in to become good! so that means there IS an objective opinion on what actors are good, i suppose.
but
you listed a bunch of actors from the past. does that mean none of the present actors can ever be equal to these, or just that you measure from your own generation's perspective on what constitutes as Supreme Acting Skills?

TAKE NIKE FROM SAMOTHRAKE FOR EXAMPLE
that is a broken sculpture. ancient greeks would probably think it looks terrible now. i can't really speak for ancient greeks as i don't know their opinion on ruins and broken sculptures, but I'm just gonna assume they would like it better whole and painted.
but we, the humans of Today, think this sculpture looks splendid without arms. the way the wings sproud from the armless shoulders really appeal to us in a different way than the unbroken sculpture would have.

so what if
the teribble actors of our time
will be seen as brilliant in the far future? would that make them the Objectively Best Actors, despite somehow failing to do what it takes to appeal to their current audience?

............. this is what university is doing to me, make it stop


(sorry for dragging this out, i just think it's an interesting subject, philosophically)

[LooNEY_DAC]

ha, that is true. maybe i didn't need to go all indepth on my ~*actor appreciation experience*~

but like (haiz. stop)
from an art history student perspective (nooooooooooo)
it's all about context!! (oh my god ignore me)
because like
acting is a skill/craft. an art if you will
but every culture and generation have their own set of what is seen as Conventionally Good Acting, so of course these are the things actors will train in to become good! so that means there IS an objective opinion on what actors are good, i suppose.
but
you listed a bunch of actors from the past. does that mean none of the present actors can ever be equal to these, or just that you measure from your own generation's perspective on what constitutes as Supreme Acting Skills?

TAKE NIKE FROM SAMOTHRAKE FOR EXAMPLE
that is a broken sculpture. ancient greeks would probably think it looks terrible now. i can't really speak for ancient greeks as i don't know their opinion on ruins and broken sculptures, but I'm just gonna assume they would like it better whole and painted.
but we, the humans of Today, think this sculpture looks splendid without arms. the way the wings sproud from the armless shoulders really appeal to us in a different way than the unbroken sculpture would have.

so what if
the teribble actors of our time
will be seen as brilliant in the far future? would that make them the Objectively Best Actors, despite somehow failing to do what it takes to appeal to their current audience?

............. this is what university is doing to me, make it stop


(sorry for dragging this out, i just think it's an interesting subject, philosophically)

Actually, I was kind of reacting to these guys as though they'd just returned from an exhibition of, say, Andy Warhol  and were saying he was "the best ever", but had never seen (for example) a Rembrandt, Reubens, Van Gogh, etc ad infinitum. Andy Warhol was a very good artist, but to say he's the best without even a cursory glance at the Old Masters rubs me the wrong way. I was just listing a few "Old Masters" of film.

[Ragnarok]

ha, that is true. maybe i didn't need to go all indepth on my ~*actor appreciation experience*~

but like (haiz. stop)
from an art history student perspective (nooooooooooo)
it's all about context!! (oh my god ignore me)
because like
acting is a skill/craft. an art if you will
but every culture and generation have their own set of what is seen as Conventionally Good Acting, so of course these are the things actors will train in to become good! so that means there IS an objective opinion on what actors are good, i suppose.
but
you listed a bunch of actors from the past. does that mean none of the present actors can ever be equal to these, or just that you measure from your own generation's perspective on what constitutes as Supreme Acting Skills?

TAKE NIKE FROM SAMOTHRAKE FOR EXAMPLE
that is a broken sculpture. ancient greeks would probably think it looks terrible now. i can't really speak for ancient greeks as i don't know their opinion on ruins and broken sculptures, but I'm just gonna assume they would like it better whole and painted.
but we, the humans of Today, think this sculpture looks splendid without arms. the way the wings sproud from the armless shoulders really appeal to us in a different way than the unbroken sculpture would have.

so what if
the teribble actors of our time
will be seen as brilliant in the far future? would that make them the Objectively Best Actors, despite somehow failing to do what it takes to appeal to their current audience?

............. this is what university is doing to me, make it stop


(sorry for dragging this out, i just think it's an interesting subject, philosophically)

And now I'm imagining a bunch of future people seeing, say, one of the 'worst' artists of our era and concluding that this person was a genius.

[Lazy8]

ha, that is true. maybe i didn't need to go all indepth on my ~*actor appreciation experience*~

but like (haiz. stop)
from an art history student perspective (nooooooooooo)
it's all about context!! (oh my god ignore me)
because like
acting is a skill/craft. an art if you will
but every culture and generation have their own set of what is seen as Conventionally Good Acting, so of course these are the things actors will train in to become good! so that means there IS an objective opinion on what actors are good, i suppose.
but
you listed a bunch of actors from the past. does that mean none of the present actors can ever be equal to these, or just that you measure from your own generation's perspective on what constitutes as Supreme Acting Skills?

TAKE NIKE FROM SAMOTHRAKE FOR EXAMPLE
that is a broken sculpture. ancient greeks would probably think it looks terrible now. i can't really speak for ancient greeks as i don't know their opinion on ruins and broken sculptures, but I'm just gonna assume they would like it better whole and painted.
but we, the humans of Today, think this sculpture looks splendid without arms. the way the wings sproud from the armless shoulders really appeal to us in a different way than the unbroken sculpture would have.

so what if
the teribble actors of our time
will be seen as brilliant in the far future? would that make them the Objectively Best Actors, despite somehow failing to do what it takes to appeal to their current audience?

............. this is what university is doing to me, make it stop


(sorry for dragging this out, i just think it's an interesting subject, philosophically)

Careful Haiz, your nerd is showing.

Just some of my own thoughts (not even talking about anything that was said here anymore, just rambling now), I think that the nostalgia filter in general is... well, not dangerous per se, but not a healthy mindset to have either. I see this attitude that everything was so much better in the Good Old Days, but a lot of that is due to the simple fact that it's only the good stuff that survives. Everything else gets forgotten, specifically because it wasn't any good. I experienced this firsthand when I decided to listen to the Billboard Top 100 hits from previous decades (made it somewhere into the early 70's), and yeah, there were the few hit songs that everybody remembers, but most everything else was completely awful. At least to my ears.

That, and I have a definite nostalgia filter for a lot of 90's songs. Even if I know that they're awful.

And now I'm imagining a bunch of future people seeing, say, one of the 'worst' artists of our era and concluding that this person was a genius.

In which Ed Wood is remembered as the peak genius of the filmmaking art.

[Haiz]

Actually, I was kind of reacting to these guys as though they'd just returned from an exhibition of, say, Andy Warhol  and were saying he was "the best ever", but had never seen (for example) a Rembrandt, Reubens, Van Gogh, etc ad infinitum. Andy Warhol was a very good artist, but to say he's the best without even a cursory glance at the Old Masters rubs me the wrong way. I was just listing a few "Old Masters" of film.

in what way can you compare Warhol, Rembrandt, and Gogh, who come from wildly different contexts? how can you know the Warhol-lovers have never seen paintings by Leonardo da Vinci? what exactly makes the old masters so great that the current generation HAS to love them? and why do we say these guys are the great masters with such certainty, what if there were even GREATER MASTERS that are lost to us forever, and we're the ignorant ones? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS because this is EXACTLY what excites me so much about art history!!

you can't really compare artists with one another unless they have drawn the same things, and even then you can't say which is 'best'. if all the other actors haven't played Indiana Jones or Han Solo, how can you tell which one did it best? is it possible to measure? are good actors measured by their versatility, their charisma, most oscars, most well-recieved roles? where is charlie chaplin placed on the List of Varying Greatness?

in my humble subjective opinion, both "X is the best actor" and "clearly Y and Z are better" are subjective opinions. to the current generation, saying X is the best is just a way of conveying a great love for something, without stating a catch-all Truth. saying X is the best, doesn't mean Y or Z are not the best either, all of them can be the best in some way, for someone. someone saying their girlfriend is the best person in the world doesn't have to be an ignorant statement, even if the person hasn't known the Great Girlfriends Masters of the Past.

I think people showing excitement and love about something is a beautiful thing, and if we had to constantly second-guess such statements we would never dare to think anything is great because we can NEVER know the past and how it compares to the present for sure!!

Careful Haiz, your nerd is showing.

HAHA WHAT, noooooooooooo

and yeah i'll be careful *barrels into discussion with the grace of a drunk elephant*

[Hrollo]

These days I just abandon the notion of "art" entirely. There is skill, which is objectively measured but only in a specific context, and then there's subjective, personal liking or disliking of a given piece, which is partly a function of knowledge of the context, and partly purely emotional; and I'm less and less sure there's anything else in between the two.

[urbicande]

And now I'm imagining a bunch of future people seeing, say, one of the 'worst' artists of our era and concluding that this person was a genius.

Even some of our supposed good ones.  There are plenty of people who think Jackson Pollock was a genius and I can't stand his stuff. 

[Piney]

in my humble subjective opinion, both "X is the best actor" and "clearly Y and Z are better" are subjective opinions. to the current generation, saying X is the best is just a way of conveying a great love for something, without stating a catch-all Truth. saying X is the best, doesn't mean Y or Z are not the best either, all of them can be the best in some way, for someone. someone saying their girlfriend is the best person in the world doesn't have to be an ignorant statement, even if the person hasn't known the Great Girlfriends Masters of the Past.

I think people showing excitement and love about something is a beautiful thing, and if we had to constantly second-guess such statements we would never dare to think anything is great because we can NEVER know the past and how it compares to the present for sure!!

I was about to jump in to say the same thing. From my experience being in "this generation," saying "so-&-so is the best something-or-other" is a way of saying "they're good and I like them a lot," not an end all be all definitive statement. I'm familiar with several actors on the list, but I wouldn't go touting any of them as "the best actor," because I'm not specifically a fan of any of them - for example. I mean, I would say "so-&-so is a really good actor," but I'd reserve using "best" for my favorites.

(And not to bring SSSS into it, but how many of us have said "Minna Sundberg is the best artist" or "SSSS is the best comic"? I have, and speaking as an art student who studies comics - neither of those are objectively true.)

[Haiz]

These days I just abandon the notion of "art" entirely. There is skill, which is objectively measured but only in a specific context, and then there's subjective, personal liking or disliking of a given piece, which is partly a function of knowledge of the context, and partly purely emotional; and I'm less and less sure there's anything else in between the two.

Yeah!! exactly!!! the thing about art history is that people have always tried to define art, to decide what is good art, and there is always someone who shows up and is like "you know what, no" and then there are ripples and there are waves and there is a tsunami of change, and i love how useless subjectivity is against the force of sheer art, i love how everyone is an artist in their own right i just really love art ok