Lurking in the background of this idea of criticism as a testimony, a travel memoir full of narrative truth, is the idea that consumption of good art isn’t good enough. Simply watching movies doesn’t necessarily train you to watch movies better (nor does watching good movies make you a good person). It tends to just train you to watch more movies. In the land of life, liberty, and entertainment, the ideal human is the ideal consumer, one who consumes and disposes with nothing in between—life as a bed-bound Netflix binge—your soul nothing but the pattern of your purchases. This version of the human reduces us to organs of appetite, a mouth attached to an ass—consumption and disposal become indistinguishable acts. What is absent is digestion, time in between. In the act of encountering art, criticism is the time between.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 18:44:07 +0000
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