What do you think the main turnoff is for most people have toward "arthouse" movies?

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

Film is meaningful to me, so as a viewer

I'm speaking from a filmmaker's perspective.

I don't care what general audiences think

Neither do I, as a movie watcher.

There is so much great cinema out there so I won't waste my time watching formulaic "entertaining" (which honestly entertain me less and less the more I explore film) pictures when I can watch meaningful artistic expressions.

Agreed. If I was interesting in cinema just for experiencing films, I would not care what anyone thinks. But as a filmmaker, there is much more difficulty in deciding how to make films. As a filmmaker, I want to bring my artistic vision to life, appeal to a fairly good sized audience, and possibly get some political or social message across.

Occasionally there are films that find a balance between the two, such as Psycho and Gravity.

Some filmmakers choose to please the masses, others choose to challenge them

A balance can be found between the two.

 

[MiniJamesW]

Yeah, it's a problem I have been dealing with for a while now. A balance can be found but it is rarely ever achieved. Although, the original auteurs such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and the other great Hollywood directors show that films could be at once great entertainment for current viewers and great art for film enthusiasts. Its ironic that the French New Wave critics/filmmakers who sought to champion the commercial Hollywood film instead pushed film enthusiasts away from them with their innovative experimental techniques and use of film as a purely personal and political medium.

When I think of finding a balance between commercial and artistic cinema though I think of the New Hollywood of the 70's with directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Cimino, and many others. I suppose, however, that we won't find the audiences today that seeked to be challenged as those of the 70's.

Also my favorite films tend to be ones that were popular in their day. Postwar Japanese filmmakers like Ozu and Naruse made films for the average Japanese woman not for the film buff or the film critic.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Well, I don't think of film on the basis of audience expectations.

I think there are many filmmakers and critics which don't think of film on the basis of audience expectation and this is where the disparity usually occurs. As a filmmaker you have to decide what you want from filmmaking, there are probably almost as many threads on indietalk about getting commercial returns from filmmaking as there are on various aspects of cinematography. If you are just making films for your own pleasure then make them however you wish but if you want to make films which are commercially viable then audience expectations must be an extremely serious consideration all the way through the filmmaking process.

I think as a filmmaker, any type of filmmaker, it's a mistake to dismiss formulaic films. While I agree as a film purist that there is much to hate in the type of fare produced by people like Michael Bay there is also a great deal to learn and even admire. Creating energy and pace is essential at times in virtually every type and genre of film and it's not easy to do. Even more difficult is maintaining a high level of energy and pace, it takes a very astute understanding of the perception of tension and attention spans of the target audience and it takes a great deal of skill to achieve. I can slam Michael Bay's shallow unoriginal plots, weak shallow character developments and a host of other faults along with the best of them but there's a great deal I feel I can learn form studying his output, even if formulaic blockbusters were not my bag.

I'm sorry for my ignorance in the process of how sound in film works, I know that there's more to it than just a technical process but I wouldn't be able to appreciate or recognize it as much as you or Alcove.

While they usually are not be able to recognise sound design, the general public certainly does appreciate it!! It's as CPF says though, much of sound design is specifically designed so that the general public are not consciously aware of it. That's no excuse for the critics though, it's their job to have a reasonable understanding of how and why film works and thereby inform their readers why a film in their opinion is good or bad.

I never intended my contribution to this thread to end up on the merits of sound design, just away from solely cinematography and production and balance it with post-production. But as this thread has veered towards sound design you might find this thread enlightening as to what sound design actually is and how it contributes to the overall experience: The principles of Sound Design

My point was that if you turn off the sound you still have a movie but if you eliminate the moving image then there is no movie.

Mmm I don't think that if you switch the sound off you still have a movie. All you have is a sequence of moving images rather than a movie. Unless of course you are talking about switching the sound off of a silent movie! I can't remember who said it, but there was a good line I heard a few years ago which went something like: If you turn a movie's sound off, what you're left with is CCTV but if you switch the picture off what you're left with is a radio drama!

G

 

[MiniJamesW]

Thanks for the link APE! I'll make sure to check it out

That's true, there is a lot to be learned from commercially successful filmmakers who make meaningless films.

Yeah, unfortunately that's why sound goes unrecognized because its usually done so well that we don't notice it! I agree that critics should evaluate, analyze, and appreciate every aspect of film production, its very lazy of them to give all of the credit (and blame) to the director.

Haha maybe if we turn off the sound on a movie it isn't really a movie. I sure wouldn't watch a sound film that way lol so you do have a point!

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

Yeah, it's a problem I have been dealing with for a while now. A balance can be found but it is rarely ever achieved. Although, the original auteurs such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and the other great Hollywood directors show that films could be at once great entertainment for current viewers and great art for film enthusiasts. Its ironic that the French New Wave critics/filmmakers who sought to champion the commercial Hollywood film instead pushed film enthusiasts away from them with their innovative experimental techniques and use of film as a purely personal and political medium.

When I think of finding a balance between commercial and artistic cinema though I think of the New Hollywood of the 70's with directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Cimino, and many others. I suppose, however, that we won't find the audiences today that seeked to be challenged as those of the 70's.

Also my favorite films tend to be ones that were popular in their day. Postwar Japanese filmmakers like Ozu and Naruse made films for the average Japanese woman not for the film buff or the film critic.

I agree, although I think there is still great films that challenge audiences today. Paul Thomas Anderson and Alfonso Cuarón are both great examples of directors who have gained most of their recognition in the last ten or so years and have crafted some great films that have both challenged and entertained audiences of today.

 

[MiniJamesW]

I agree, although I think there is still great films that challenge audiences today. Paul Thomas Anderson and Alfonso Cuarón are both great examples of directors who have gained most of their recognition in the last ten or so years and have crafted some great films that have both challenged and entertained audiences of today.

That's true, I've heard a lot of great things about them. Unfortunately, here in the Dominican Republic their films are not shown in theaters (except Gravity, which I just checked is playing at a theater in the city).

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

That's true, I've heard a lot of great things about them. Unfortunately, here in the Dominican Republic their films are not shown in theaters (except Gravity, which I just checked is playing at a theater in the city).

Sorry dude

In some ways it is a disadvantage, in other ways it is an advantage. You're discovering and watching unknown and unappreciated films. That's something good