What better way to start a blog than with my thoughts on the broadest of topics, creativity. To clarify, by creativity, I'm referring to the works in a plethora of fields. Movies, music, literature, fine arts (and all that they entail), comic books, television, and most fields where new works are forged.
This entry is spurred by a recent discussion I had. I heard a number of my co-workers discussing the inadequacy of modern works, specifically when compared to works from previous eras. Where are the new Great Gatsby-s, where are the new Ready to Die-s, where are the new Casablanca-s (and I doubt those three works have ever been coupled together)?
With some investigation, and informal polling of friends and officemates, this perception of the decreased quality of today's cultural landscape is interesting, but this idea is not a recent one. Certainly there is evidence to support the detractors of modernity. New York City Opera recently closed after investors could not be found, leaving the Metropolitan Opera House as NYC's only large venue for the genre. Sequels, reboots, and remakes dominate the movie landscape, with original movies becoming scarcer and scarcer. Studies are being done regarding the complexity and note variation in modern music, and the overall variability is less than in previous ages. Art critics lament the trend that historical traditions and interpretive intricacies are giving way to so-called "pop-art" and exhibitions based on straightforward themes.
And yet, creativity today is anything but dead, and, if anything, is more readily available than ever before. When surveying the landscape of creative fields, we'll have to hone the discussion to specific areas. I'd suggest stories (a combination of literature, television, and movies) and music. Admittedly, these fields could be sliced into countless variations, but simply to provide us with a point of entry, we'll focus on these two fields. Let's start with stories.
At a recent dinner, I was discussing one of my favorite, recent movies, The Dark Knight Rises, and one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby, prompted by a comment that Gatsby, up there with Moby Dick, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the Great American novel, and stories like it, don't exist anymore. I opined that The Dark Knight Rises might be such a story, and was promptly ridiculed for making such an assertion. After all, Gatsby is a masterpiece, perfectly encapsulating an age, highlighted by value sets, notions of love, and a crushing, and revealing, narrative. Conversely, The Dark Knight Rises is, by some counts, the 10th movie including some version of Batman, who also has an extensive history of comics, television, and even radio broadcasts providing source material. How could I possibly compare the two?
First, I think it's important to remember that, at their core, these are all stories, accounts of specific events (to put it as simply as possible). Now, how well this is done can be measured by any number of factors, and yet, there is the perception that this is not done as well as it may have been done in the past. But how do we measure a story? Is it by originality? If so, whereas Batman has a number of previous incarnations, the thematic elements of Gatsby are original, highlighted by how emblematic the story is of the era in which it was written. The focus on originality, however, loses a lot of what makes some stories great. There are repeated elements in The Dark Knight Rises, especially with it being the conclusion of a trilogy, but the most interesting element of the film is its ability to hearken back to previous events and themes. Consider the previous film in the trilogy, The Dark Knight, and the Joker’s message to Batman that the people would turn on each other if provoked. Whereas, sadly, Heath Ledger could not appear in the movie due to his death, his character’s shadow is cast over the entire film. The events he set in motion are realized by the time The Dark Knight Rises takes place.
In this way, connecting common threads, finding ways to reevaluate characters, and redefining elements that have been established over the course of multiple films (or books or television programs) is The Dark Knight Rise’s strength, not a weakness.
I don’t want to presume to say that unequivocally that The Dark Knight Rises is better than The Great Gatsby, but merely to suggest that the complexities of the novel, and stories like it, are still being produced today.
Moving into the realm of music, it’s difficult to pick the specific era, or even genre to hone in on. For example, for hundred of years, classical was the standard by which music was evaluated and realized in the Western world (admittedly, other genres existed, specifically when one looks outside of Western cultures). Even within the classical genre, different periods and eras are marked. Music shifted, and it continued to transform and change. The one area I would like to focus on, however, is class. The simple truth is, only rich people made music. To have the resources to study, practice, and hone the skills necessary to become a musician, you needed to have well-to-do parents or be a once-in-human-history prodigy. Today, you need to have enough money to get a computer and then you’re set to go. Granted there are other costs (Internet, mics, possible instruments), but the Internet has made the production of music more equitable, and while it may not always work out really well (See: Justin Bieber), there are countless examples of small time musicians gaining a more steady following after a successful Internet campaign. In that way, music is less about how much money you have, and more about how well you can perform.
This is critical to remember when discussing the even larger questions of what music should be. From the interpretive to the interpersonal, music is great for what it allows us to feel, and more opinions, from different types of people, allows more of us to feel a wider variety of things.
