Letters: Art, Movies, Death (June, 2004)

Art: A Value to Whom and for What?

Regarding David Kelley's article "Art and Ideals" (Navigator, January/February, 2004): On numerous occasions in The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand fails to differentiate between the artist and the consumer of art. At one point she will seem to be writing about the artist, then suddenly start referring to the consumer of art, then veer back to discussing art from the perspective of the artist. Kelley's essay "Art and Ideals" suffers from the same flaw. The author asks a series of questions, toward the beginning of the article, that address the problem from the point of view of a prospective artist, and those questions are in essence: "Why produce a work of art?" After discussing conceptualization and abstraction, Kelley then asks: "Why are we drawn to artistic means of dealing with normative issues?" Question: Who is that "we"? We the artists or we the consumers?

At the end of the same paragraph, Kelley declares: "The reason [that we need art] is that art has the power to overcome the limitations of abstractions," and he elaborates by saying that art possesses "the immediacy, the power, the reality, the felt constraint, and the sheer presence of the world as we perceive and react to it emotionally." Presumably, this "we" refers to us as consumers of art.

Kelley continues: "To keep our abstractions tied to the world, therefore, we need to re-embody them in concretes, to clothe them in specific forms that unite the universality of the abstraction with the specificity and immediacy—the reality—of the particular. This is especially important in regard to the normative abstractions that guide our lives. If these standards exist in our minds only as pale abstractions, they will lack the reality and the motivating power to guide our actions." Who is the "we" in "we need to re-embody them in concretes"? Artists or consumers of art? Does Kelley mean that artists feel this need to "re-embody" abstractions, and that we non-artists, the consumers of art, are the accidental beneficiaries in that we may appreciate the results of their efforts? But if it is the non-artists who "need to re-embody [abstractions] in concretes," why are we not all artists?

In his final paragraph, Kelley mentions the "function" of art as if it were disembodied, and I think this is part of the problem. There are artists and there are the rest of us, and we need to differentiate between the two. Art has a function for the artist, too, and this appears to be the focus of the series of questions with which Kelley begins his discussion, yet it falls by the wayside as he moves to the question of the value of art for mankind in general. I find the first question more interesting: Why produce a work of art at all? It is a pity Kelley did not answer that.

Michael Marcus

David Kelley responds:

Michael Marcus is right that I did not discuss the differences between the respective motivations of artists and consumers of art. He has raised a good question, which I will address in a moment. But first let me explain my intent.

My goal was to highlight a fundamental need that art fulfills and that explains its omnipresence in human cultures: the need to embody abstractions in concrete form. In doing so, I abstracted from the differences between producers and consumers of art. That doesn't imply, and I certainly did not intend to suggest, that the function of art is disembodied. Every work of art is produced by a particular person (or group) and enjoyed by specific people, all of whom as individuals differ in motivation. Abstracting from those differences doesn't mean the differences do not exist, just that they were not relevant to what I wanted to focus on. In the same way, I used the words "we" and "our," not to suggest that all of us are or should be artists, but to speak of a common need that all human beings have.

To return now to Marcus's question: That common need is what leads us to want the experience of art. In a division-of-labor economy, individuals can have that experience without having to produce the art themselves—but only if and to the extent that the artists aim to produce works that will satisfy that need. That is, the same basic need explains the core motivations of both producers and consumers. Of course artists also have their own personal goals: internal ones like the joy of creation and external ones like fame and fortune. But those are derivative. A serious artist would not take joy in creating something worthless; an honest artist would not value money and prestige if they were not earned by good work. In this respect, artistic creation is like any other mode of work, from medicine to steel-making to banking: the value of the product in serving the needs of human life is what sets the standards of excellence and should be the primary motive of the producer.

The Virtues of Lost in Translation

Regarding Russell La Valle's review of Lost in Translation (Navigator, April 2004): Although La Valle correctly describes the plot and characters of the movie, he fails in describing its spirit. He writes that the film "depicts loneliness and despair, broken only by unexplained moments of empathy, which we are led to believe are the most people can expect from life." However, Lost in Translation is actually a sweet and touching film, one that is also innovative in its beautiful scenes of Tokyo, distinguished by fine acting from both Scarlet Johansson and Bill Murray—who was nominated for an Oscar—and by first-rate writing and directing from Sofia Coppola, who received Oscar nominations for both. (As La Valle pointed out, she won for best original screenplay.)

It is certainly true that these characters are both in troubled relationships with their respective spouses, but the film makes clear that they have an exceptional relationship with each other, and this fuels both of them. Despite La Valle's dire portrayal of these people as "depressed" and "desperately trying to experience something," they actually seem re-energized at the end of the film. Though, as La Valle writes, the characters' goodbyes may be "bittersweet and unfulfilling," they are very fulfilling to the viewer.

I think it would be unfortunate for your readers to be steered away from this fine movie. It is exceptional, original, and unusually satisfying.

Mike Smolens

Russell La Valle responds:

Mike Smolens says that, while he agrees with my representation of the plot and characters of Lost in Translation, he takes exception to my description of its spirit as morose and emotionally bankrupt. On the contrary, he suggests, it "is actually a sweet and touching film" but offers no evidence to substantiate that assessment. In a movie, we can use only what the characters say and do to try to deduce the film's sense of life (Rand's "emotional atmosphere") and to figure out the ideas and values behind those emotions. Note, then, how the female protagonist Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson) characterizes the movie's emotional detachment: She wanders from her hotel, visits a religious shrine, and, after regarding it vacuously, is suddenly induced to call a friend back in America and to declare, "I don't feel anything!"

To compound matters, director Sofia Coppola brings Charlotte's character in contact with the male protagonist, Bob (Bill Murray)—an equally depressed, disoriented, and sleep-deprived soul-mate—and we are then witness to a celebration of loneliness and despair, where there is virtually no opportunity for love and fulfillment. I do not think this depicts "an exceptional relationship"; I think this reflects a defeatist Naturalism of the saddest sort—one that all but negates the possibility of life as a joyful experience and happiness as the reward for pursuing one's values.

Only the film's ending, with its cryptic "had we but world enough and time" moment offers a respite from the preceding two hours of relentless postmodern hallucination, but it's much too little, much too late.

I will say that one gets the feeling from Lost in Translation, and from Sofia Coppola's 1999 debut feature-film The Virgin Suicides (a disturbing examination of teenage angst), that if Coppola figures out how to exorcise her own fears and demons—the tragic interplay of time, regret, celebrity, and displacement—she could possibly turn out a distinctive film. But Lost in Translation is not that movie.

Dealing With the End of Life

I was taken aback to see the article in the April Navigator singing the praises of euthanasia, Dr. Kevorkian, and the Hemlock Society ["Honoring the Choice to Die," by Michelle Marder Kamhi]. Ayn Rand always promoted life as an absolute and a positive. I certainly understand that dealing with impending death is difficult, but for a society to tolerate assisted death would be to undermine the values of a free and life-affirming society. I treasured the time I had with each of my parents in their end-of-life decline; there was always joy in small things. Kevorkian is a cynical and small-minded man who sets himself up as the priest who can pity these terminal patients. He is no hero. I think your having such an unfortunate article is disappointing.

Paul Fisher

Michelle Marder Kamhi responds:

In responding so negatively to Navigator's publication of my article, Paul Fisher appears not only to have missed my point but also to have misconstrued the ethical keystone of Ayn Rand's philosophy. As she made clear, in "The Objectivist Ethics" and elsewhere, the ultimate standard of moral value for each individual is not "life" in the abstract, but one's own life—in all its contextual particularity.

My mother knew little of Objectivist philosophy. Yet what she had come to realize very lucidly at age ninety-four was this: Her circumstances had so altered that her life was no longer worth living to her. So she did what very old people who are not "terminally ill" do when they no longer want to live: she stopped eating. In effect, she decided to commit suicide by the only means open to her—slow starvation.

This is a common phenomenon. Healthcare workers even have a term for it: "failure to thrive." Like most euphemisms, this masks the dreadful reality—a process in which the body slowly digests itself, gradually wasting away, leading to growing incontinence, fading consciousness, organ failure, and eventual death.

The ethical question for society then is: Must elderly patients who wish to die be doomed to the anguish and indignity of slow death by starvation, or should a more humane alternative be available to them? Whatever else one may think of Dr. Kevorkian, his actions imply an unequivocal stand for the latter course. To that extent I admire him, and I see no contradiction of Objectivist principles in so doing.