Arts: Film, Literature and Music

Great art can communicate before it is understood. -T.S. Eliot

I've had more time to explore these things these past weeks. We have the privilege of having easy access to film, literature and music like no generation before us. I have often taken this for granted, forgetting how these forms of art have power to inspire, impact, teach, entertain and allow you to experience such amazing things.

Here's some thoughts and tips that have been on my mind with regards to the arts.

High Art and Low Art

Often people differientiate between high art and low art. An example from music might be trying to compare Mozart and Britney Spears for example. I do concede that (and find it plainly obvious) that Britney and Mozart are on different levels of artistic music. However if we look at our lives, we see that both high art and low art are important. I love to listen to the classical masters, but that's not my bread and butter music. Shakespeare may indeed be beautiful and profound, but most of us need the simpler fiction for our dose of storytelling. A friend put it this way to me: high art is like those special lobster dinners - they're wonderful and special, but not what we live off of. Lets not forget the low art, our bread and butter.


Good Art and Bad Art

Although low art is important, this is different from bad art. Some might protest to this heading, that art is subjective and we cannot determine objectively whether art is good or bad. There is a standard though, if we consider God's example as the ultimate artist. Good art is good for you, bad art is bad for you. Some art reflects beauty, enlightens, or helps us grow as a person, and is good for us. Other art demoralizes, glorifies evil, reduces our humanity, and is bad for us. With the amount of art/media we get exposed to daily, its crucial that we are critical partakers. I'm mostly referring to TV here... lol.


Don't Buy New

Access to art doesn't require a lot of money. It can seem like it as movies often cost $20 and books aren't exactly cheap either. But unless you are super keen on it, or it has been very recently released, there really isn't a need to buy new. Cities have tons of great used book stores (Winnipeg's list), and many shops with used DVDs, CDs, etc. This helps give you exposure to the great classics out there too. Of the last 10 books I've bought, 9 were under $4 (a couple were $0.50), with the other being $7.


Don't Buy at All

Here's an even more obvious money saver. With books guess what, let me reintroduce you to a word most of us have forgotten since elementary school: library. Our tax money goes to pay for it, and for us Winnipeggers we have a really amazing newly renovated Millenium Library. This is the best way to try out a book without being sure if you'll like it. The books I have out: worth $30. Cost to me: nothing. There are somethings money can't buy, for everything else, there's mastercard.

Other great ideas are coming out like movie passes. I currently have one at Movie Village (in Osborne Village) where for $20 a month, I can always have 3 movies taken out and I can swap them as many times as I want. There's also many new mail order options that are very good as well.

The web has free stuff. Old classic writings are available free. For the musicians out there, the web has TONs of places to get free music, or very very cheap music. Here's the simple fact, virtually all classical music is public domain. The cost comes only from the editing and publishing. The web has really made so much more instantly accessible for almost no cost.

And last but not least: borrow and lend. I know, our materialistic society is very trophy-oriented. What I mean is that after doing X, we want to go out and buy something as our trophy/testament to doing X. Hence all the stupid T-shirts (I've been to the top of ________). You don't need the trophy, if the art was good for you then that is the most important thing. Also if you're tired of some of your stuff - why not give it away?


Variety is the Spice of Life

Embrace variety. There's so many genres and artists out there, why not try something new? We inherently love variety, but often because we fall into patterns where we stick to what we know. Make an effort to watch perhaps a historial movie, a documentary, sci-fi, anime, foreign, suspense, etc etc. Then one starts to realize how much great stuff there is out there. Use review sites and just pick out rated movies. I don't generally trust a single film critic, but I'm willing to listen if they're mostloy agreed on whether a film is great.

I think variety is most important for books. A lot of people desire to read more, so they pick a book and try to get through it. Then they get a bit bored or hit a lull and then kind of give up. Instead, I read so much more if I have 3-4 books on my shelf, and a bookmark in each. Then on a quiet evening I have a menu before me to choose from.

For the Christians out there I think this is a great way to add variety to reading the Bible. Reading cover to cover is tough (Leviticus will knock you down like nobody's business), rather I recommend this system:
-one bookmark starting from Genesis
-one bookmark in psalms (read a psalm a day)
-one bookmark starting in the major prophets (Isaiah)
-one bookmark starting in the Gospels (Matthew)
-one bookmark starting in the Epistles (Romans)
Its a nice way to get a cross section of the Bible and keep motivated.


So now what?

Go read a book! Listen/play some music! Watch a film! There's tons of other art out there besides simply literature, music, and film. Come to the Rodin Exhibition with me and check out some sculpture for example. Our workaholic society has a disregard for the quiet, stately enjoyment of art. In its busyness we forget we need art. We are creative beings and need oulets for that creativity, lest we let it die. Go get some, trust me - you'll be better off.

Love to hear about your thoughts/experiences. My friend was recently interviewed and shared some really good thoughts (Link).

More Resources

The web has plenty of offerings when it comes to art, check out what I've come across:
Movie Links
Music: Online radio, Sheet Music Sites
Literature: Sites with Ebooks online

Allan is Currently Tasting:
Books: Manufacturing Consent, Jan Wong's China, Discipleship, browse my libraryshelf
Music: Learning Schubert's (transcribed by Liszt) Der Muller und der Bach, Op. 25 No. 19
Film: Godfather I and II, Trois Coleurs: Bleu, Lawrence of Arabia

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Where did you come from where did you go

Its been quite awhile since I last updated, its good for me to pause and try to sum up where I am and where I'm going. I leave Schloss Mittersill in 12 days, and I don't think I'll be back anytime soon. Since my last update its been a nonstop rollercoaster ride as summer is the busiest season here. I have often tried to summarize what life at Schloss Mittersill is like - well in many ways the summer is very un-mundane. The summers especially, as we have groups constantly in and out.

Arts Conference (pics)- We just finished up the busiest conference of the year, in which I took full part as a delegate but also helped out with music and audio/video setup each day. An amazing conference - gathering musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, actors, writers from Europe and North America. It was such a moving time to really consider the gift and calling for artists to be creative in our world. I think our culture totally doesn't appreciate the arts - its just some nice hobby to do, but not really important to the larger scheme of things. One of the speakers pointed out the first occurence in the Bible where we are told of someone being filled with the Spirit was actually the artist God commissioned to work on the tabernacle (Ex 35). It was great, there were workshops on painting, acting, percussion, musical arrangement, sculpture, etc. Highlight for me would be playing in a worship team with a amazing guitarist, cellist, percussionist and a jazz pianist (3 of which made a living as a musician).

Other thingies - Hard to summarize the past couple months, but a few highlights: Been doing a fair amount of hiking (pics1, pics2), and learning more about enjoying the beauty of nature. World Cup (pics) was a big thing, and especially neat as so many different nationalities come through and its interesting to watch the Swedes play with actual Swedes in the room, or Germans, Dutch, Brits, Poles, etc. As I'm the one doing technical setup for a lot of these groups that come through, I get more of an opportunity to actually get to know them. Neat opportunities come up out of that, a Swedish confirmation group of around 35 invited me to lead their worship night on their last night at the Schloss, it was a special experience and I've been really thankful to be a part of what God's doing with these groups.

Comings and Going - Many friends have left me at the Schloss, as there has been so much change within the Schloss Community. Sadly I know that in 12 days I will be the one that leaves. Its been a great time for me, from here I'll go to Cambridge for a 2 week student outreach, then visit a friend in Oxford for a couple days, and then fly to Toronto to visit my sisters. I'm sad when I think about leaving, yet excited for the steps ahead. The theme of the Arts Conference will stick with me, as a calling to what it means to really follow Jesus, whether in an artistic or just a broader sense. What he calls us to is a long obedience in the same direction. Here I am, getting ready to end another chapter, may it all be obedient in God's direction.

I've uploaded a bunch more pictures on my flickr page.

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