PSYCHO was a work of art from the moment it appeared, no matter how few people were ready to accept it as such. This applies to any number of movies we now love and admire. We never needed anybody to write an “R. Mutt” signature on them to accept them (although it’s possible that some people did need some such kind of imprimatur.)

I first saw KISS ME DEADLY when I was maybe 20 or 21 (the year after its release) — I immediately knew it was a major work of art (although how major it took me decades to really realize). No one in the USA had payed the slightest attention to the film when it came out in 1955. I won’t go into the reason for that blindness, just, I didn’t need any “R.Mutt” signature to tell me that this movie was a masterpiece of the first order — which no urinal, no matter how signed, could ever be.

I don’t know, could have been, but Mark Twain is the more popular American novelist than Henry James in Japan. I also like Mark Twain more. To me BOY is the Japanese story more than Western influence.

Long, windy passages; women who reject the world; conspiracy in the wings; characters who recreate and reimagine the world rather than look at it head-on. Though watching Boy last week, I wondered if it was inspired by What Maisie Knew. Could Oshima have been a James fan?

I can understand what Brian means I think. The toilet urinal becomes aesthetic when R. Mutt puts it in the gallery, seeing it there it becomes ‘the fountain’ because it’s approached aesthetically.

Wasn’t it the case that commercial movies was not seen as art by most people at one time? For example, PSYCHO was just the horror movie, nothing else, scary like roller coaster ride. But when cinephile sees it PSYCHO has aesthetic appreciation. Maybe this is what Brian is thinking about.

But I don’t understand what it means, ‘the film is about’. Always the film is about more than one thing for me.

I just don’t see how “the film is about” has to be a necessity. I never ask myself what a film is “about.” Does that mean that I am incapable of aesthetic understanding? Come to think of it, that might be the case. Woe is me!

I would argue that access to “the almost countless things the film is likely to be simultaneously ‘about’” is engendered only after an initial “the film is about” utterance is made.

Approaching the materiality of a work of art aesthetically is what gives rise a) to the aesthetic object; and subsequently b) aesthetic understanding. It is the originary attempt at signifier formation and meaning determination that causes the aesthetic object to begin to spew forth signifiers and meanings in such abundance.

The first “the film is about” may be arbitrary, but its vital quality is its necessity. Maybe the distinction between auteurs and non-auteurs can be understood as a difference between directors who make works of art capable of generating aesthetic understanding when approached aesthetically and those who do not.

“I read a Henry James novel published in 1897 called “What Maisie Knew,” about a child of divorce who bounces back and forth between her soon-remarried parents like a tennis ball. The relationship of James’ language to the psychology of his characters and then to their actions is dense and fascinating and pleasurable. It is also a very emotionally charged story, something you almost don’t notice until it flattens you. The experience of reading the book was enhanced by the fact that I was reading an edition published in 1947 that came from my father’s library. I loved it.”

http://www.salon.com/books/awards/2007/12/13/book_week_picks/index2.html

Nicholas, this is true for me too, especially when I’m watching the foreign film because I can miss the nuance of language.

Also I have to pay more attention to actor’s face and voice tone and body to understand. Seeing the actor this way makes it more part of the mise-en-scene. Sometimes actor is main part of mise-en-scene for director like Cukor.

In Japanese movies there’s the different acting tradition from Western movies, so seems artificial to some Western viewers. For example, small gesture is important. I wish I could write more but no time!

Whenever a great director expresses admiration for a film – perhaps especially for a film that has a poor critical reputation – I tend to assume the film has a thematic or stylistic connection with that director’s work (PARADISE ALLEY, for example, makes much more sense as a Leos Carax film than it does as part of Sylvester Stallone’s oeuvre). But logically there’s no real reason why this should be the case. I can kind of see how SHOWGIRLS might contain Rivettian traces (CELINE AND JULIE GO STRIPPING?) – but STARSHIP TROOPERS!!!!