I was reading the paper the other day when I saw a Q&A column about this topic. Apparently people out there in the neon wasteland have been racking their brains trying to pinpoint the particular city the movie took place in. They had examined all the visual clues (always rainy, busy automobile-clogged streets, desert accessible by a thirty minute drive) taken into account what cities the director and writer had grown up near and other such minutiae.

Why are people doing this? Why can't an artist intentionally make something abstract (for aesthetic reasons or whatnot) without the obsessive fans picking it apart cell by cell until they've discovered the "true" or "hidden" meaning. Some things are just not meant to be relevant to the individual experiences of the viewers (consumers) of art.

I went through the same thing after recently reading "The Metamorphosis". Not only was it abstract, it was devilishly simple in meaning. Yet the book was followed-up with a breakdown of every scene in the book as interpreted by philosophers, professors and theologians. These scholars tore the story apart, robbed it from its beautiful simplicity, and attached their own jaded, tunnel-vision theories to it, and in my opinion completely missed the point. Only one or two of the conclusions seemed to be supported by what is actually stated in the manuscript, and usually these were quickly followed by absurd Freudian interpretations. One guy even tried to prove that the book was a word-for-word parody of the Gospel of Christ. Can't a story about a guy turning into a bug just be about a guy turning into a bug anymore? (I know that the story wasn't that lacking of an exegesis, but there's no need to compare and contrast it with ancient Asmatic texts to formulate an appropriate exposition of the novella.)

So my question is twofold. Can art stand on it's own, or is it necessary for intellectuals to interpret it (sort of like each person doing their own audio commentary on a DVD) so that the rest of us can understand it? Secondly, is the search for certainty in the abstract a useless hobby or does it have relevance?

What are you fellows' thoughts about all this?

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Ham-fisted ham fisting.

I reckon Se7en's geographical is relevant. Or rather, the fact that the city is anonymous is the point.

I don't think Kafka was big on hidden meanings. Metamorphosis is just supposed to create an ominous kind of mood, and it does that pretty well. Or maybe I'm just very superficial.

€0.02.

The thing to understand about art is that it's a relationship. If A = Work of Art and B = viewer, art would be the arrow in A --> B. That is, "art" is just a fancy word for expression.

This relationship, this art, is dependent both upon A and B. So it's silly to have experts claim an absolute interpretation of a work of art, since that completely ignores the fact that expression/art is user specific by basically assuming a constant B. In the same vain, it's equally silly to deem what the artist wanted to get across to be the absolute art since that ignores B altogether.

So...

No, it isn't necessary. Though there's nothing wrong with an individual breaking down a work of art. The problem comes in when you assign that person's deductions not to the person themself, but to some faux absoluteness of the art work. Doing the latter stifles individual interpretation, basically turning off B, thus turning off expression, which is the art itself.

[quote]Secondly, is the search for certainty in the abstract a useless hobby or does it have relevance?
[/quote]

Language necessarily brings about a "certainty", by calling to mind images and associations with each word/concept presented. There's no getting away from that. It's part and parcel of symbology. The mistake again is ascribing one person's certainty as a universal certainty.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

Art is such an abstract concept that trying to interpret it is meaningless. I'm sure there's some bozo out there who thinks some of our comics are art.

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Poop.

One or two of BeNN_MaKK's could be considered bad modern art.

Wangs.

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dcomposed:11-06-05: If I was a viking invading your village, you'd be the first to get raped.
Crabby: 10/5/06: i would love to feed you fresh fruit while bathing you.

So...so moving...

a more fitting question than the one posed in the subject line would be "which genius decided to plop the numeral in the middle of that title?"

another good question is "why have two of my all-time top five favorite movies inspired GD threads today?"

finally, what i always wondered was why a movie that so jealously protected its setting for two hours suddenly and carelessly gave morgan freeman the line "california, stay away from here" in the last scene.

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

A question I've pondered many a time!

Wasn't that just some cop's name?

I do.

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Batman created by Bob Kane

Perhaps they should have looked at movie-locations.com.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

I'm pretty sure it takes place in Chicago, and the end takes place in some Illinois backwoods place.

It takes place nowhere! It is not supposed to be anywhere!

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Poop.

Los Angeles, mother fuckers. Didn't you read the link?

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

That's as may be, but I'm pretty sure that...

[u](Ass-Raping robot) + (asiangirl sucky)[/u] = teh funneh
(Cowboy Physics) - (wirthling suckage)

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Chicken Feather Bed Bugs Bunny Hop Sing Out Side Street Walker Texas Ranger Cookie Dough Boy Wonder Years

That's as may be, but I'm pretty sure that...

[u](Ass-Raping robot) + (asiangirl sucky)[/u] = teh funneh
(Cowboy Physics) - (wirthling suckage)[/quote]

That's true to nine decimal places.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

You forgot to carry the Non-Sequitor Donkey.

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Poop.

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leggo my dcomposed! ®

You try carrying a that damn donkey!

Besides, he goes toward infinity and throws off the whole equation.

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Chicken Feather Bed Bugs Bunny Hop Sing Out Side Street Walker Texas Ranger Cookie Dough Boy Wonder Years

Art: Something's in there, alright. Question is, how do you get it out? Or do you just leave it there?

What are you supposed to look at? What are you supposed to be seeing? Or do you just say I like it or I don't like it, or this matches the curtains and would fit nicely over the sofa?

Maybe there's nothing there after all.

Most of the time I think there is, though. The artist packs stuff into his work. Not always "meanings." Just... There are things to notice, and you don't notice them until you're alerted to them. Just like you walk in the woods and don't notice oaks and elms and ligustrom and rhododendron until you learn to distinguish them. You just see trees and bushes.

Do you need intellectuals to tell you what to look at? To distinguish palmate from pinnate leaves? Never would have occurred to me to do so if a botanist hadn't told me. So maybe yes.

But I'm sure botanists don't know everything there is to notice on a walk through the woods. They can't help seeing monocots and dicots everywhere. Meanwhile the geologist sees sedimentary and igneous all over. The entomologist sees benthic macroinvertebrates or whatever. Which is fine, a particular kind of consciousness, a sharp focus.

And maybe sometimes it's alright to just walk and not notice anything in particular and see what comes to you.

So, whatever. Experience the named or the nameless. Both come from the same place, and questions about art will never be resolved because that place is mystery.

Deep, eh?

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What others say about boorite!

btw the film takes place behind a Se7en E11even.

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What others say about boorite!

Nietzsche said something to the effect of:

Art is an illusion that admits of itself as an illusion. Therefore it is true.

So we know from this that Se7en takes place in True, Minnesota.

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Sex Piano.

boorite, I never want to play Literati against you.

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Poop.

Wangs.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Donfs.

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What others say about boorite!