Looking at Art

& Reviewing Art

BTW

If you’ve done this kind of paper in English 110 or elsewhere, keep in mind that our assignment is a bit different and will be more challenging.

Listen to the Following Pieces

Hank Williams, “Your Cheating Heart” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4LCoh0VGQ

Dead Kennedys, “Kinky Sex Makes the World Go ‘Round”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVGg_5grOTg

Suzanne Vega, “Undertow”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VdptStNu-k

Rainstorm Relaxing Rainstorm With Thunder - Mix # 2 - Sleep Sounds / Ambient / Meditation / Lluvia austinstrunk .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pGEHLbzWdg

Now...

1. Rank the songs, with 1 being best and 4 being worst. Briefly explain your ranking.

2. Now explain your ranking again, but go deeper. What criteria were you applying? What do you base your own judgments on? What, for you, is good music? What is good art?

3.

“For me, a good piece of music is one that ________________”

Look at extracts from student responses.

An escape from reality; a sedative or distraction

Form

alis

t

Form

alis

t

FormalistArt

An af

firm

atio

n

of re

ality

as

it is

; a m

irror

The improvementof reality (art as a hammer

The invention

of reality

Confronta

tion

with re

ality

;

faci

ng real

ity

Defiance of

reality; reality

as it ought to be

(possibly interrogating

or mocking?)

The honoring of traditionFo

rmal

ist

Form

alis

t

FormalistArt

A mod

e of

perc

eptio

n; a

proc

ess

of s

eein

gBS; a hoax; excuse for

not having a REAL job

A com

modity;

something for

sale; a product

The subversion of tradition

Self-expression;

solely for self ;

exploration of one’s

unique vision

Somet

hing

pro

duce

d

sole

ly fo

r oth

ers;

a

mea

ns o

f ple

asin

g an

audi

ence

Emotional or

psychological

therapy

A CRAFT; display of

learned skillsA mysterious, inborn

talent

Again,

clarify, explain, and possibly modify your personal criteria, drawing on our discussion.

What do you want from any kind of art? What, for you, constitutes good music, a good movie, etc.?

Most of us are continually

applying some personal

set of criteria whether

we’re conscious of it or

not! This exercise helps

you to actually become

aware of your own

judgments and tastes; i.e.,

you learn a little about

yourself!

Is emotionally moving. Blows my hair back! Has duende! Mojo! Is thought-provoking. Reveals a new way of looking at the world or reality. Or, even better,

challenges my view of reality; unsettles me; takes me out of comfort zone. Is surprising, unpredictable.

Is multi-layered; we can’t quite exhaust all of its meanings; want to see or hear it over and over.

Is formally innovative; direction, production, set, script, acting—some or all have something NEW going on.

Shows attention to craft, in most cases. Heightens and magnifies reality—is not an escape from it. Is not

mind candy or a sedative. Makes me feel more alive, even if that mean experiencing pain alongside beauty.

Challenges me; asks me to be something more than a passive blob. Prompts me to broaden what I think of as “attention” or “awareness.” I actually begin to perceive things in a new way.

For me, a good work of art, whether it’s film, music, visual art, or literature, has these qualities:

Remember Horton Hears a Who?

There’s something in the world, way down in, yelling, “We’re here! We’re here! We’re here! I like art that calls out to me that way—exposes

me to a way of seeing/hearing I didn’t even know existed before.

http://smile.amazon.com/Horton-Hears-Who-Dr-Seuss/dp/0394800788/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424775084&sr=8-1&keywords=Horton+hears+a+who#reader_0394800788

Now that you’ve gained a little insight into your own tastes and preferences in art...

What is the purpose of an ART REVIEW? What is this genre of writing for?

To evaluate! I.e., to judge favorably or unfavorably or something in between. A review is an argument about value.

Secondarily: reviews often introduce, summarize, and advertise. They may also develop insight into or provide an interpretation of the art work in question.

Why do you read art reviews?To decide whether or not to buy an item, and/or to decide what you yourself think about the item, and/or to gain more insight into the item.

Real-World Art Reviews

Where do you find them?

EVERYWHERE!

What are they about?

ALL kinds of art!

• Newspapers

• Websites such as Amazon.com or

Rotten Tomatoes

• Blogs, YouTube

• TV talk shows

• Magazines

• Conversations! in real-time or on

Facebook, Twitter...

• The Spectrum• The Fargo Forum• High Plains Reader

For Project #2:For Project #2:

Read about the review genre: In Writing Today, read: Chap. 6, pp. 84-90 and "Quick Start Guide," p. 99.

Read a bunch of additional reviews to get a feel for this genre. Go here for full instructions:

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Reviews to Read for English 120 Sp 2015docx

Begin thinking about a work of art to review: A play at a local theater or perhaps down in the Cities; a new film; a new CD; a

new novel; a gallery exhibit; etc. (For concerts, try Eventful, Jade Presents, or the Fargo Theater website. For films, check the Marcus Theaters website. And so on.)

Be thinking about where to publish your review: The Spectrum, The High Plains Reader, Slate, The Atlantic, The New York Times, or The Fargo Forum. Begin reading reviews in that periodical to get a feel for the audience. (If you prefer a different periodical, discuss with me.)

Weekly Work Assignment

Carefully read the reviews assigned on our schedule: “Reviews to Read and Watch for English 120, Project #2”

Complete the Weekly Work assignment titled, “Reading Art Reviews.” Go into Bb “Weekly Work” and you’ll see it. This is due by class time on Tues. the 3rd.

Project #2For full project instructions, go to:For full project instructions, go to:

http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Project2ArtReviewSp2015.htmhttp://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Project2ArtReviewSp2015.htm

(If that link doesn’t work when you click on it, just copy-paste it into your browser.)(If that link doesn’t work when you click on it, just copy-paste it into your browser.)

Research for Your ReviewResearch for Your ReviewThis isn’t an all-out research paper proper, but there is a research component. It will prepare you to approach and then write about the subject of your review knowledgeably.

You will inform yourself about the kind of art you are reviewing, and about the specific work in question. You will also look up reviews already written about your topic.

Selecting an Art Form and Specific Work to Review

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Project2ArtReviewSelectingArtForm.docx

Research Strategy

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Project2ArtReviewResearchStrategy.docx

Research Questions for Various Art Forms

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Project2ArtReviewResearchQuestionsforArtForms.docx

Some Types of Art to ReviewSome Types of Art to Review

Films: direction, production, script, set, acting, plot, point of view, genre, theme, intended audience.

Concerts: artists, stage managers, stage design, audio quality, sequence of songs, theme, mood, execution, intended audience.

Albums: artists, instruments, production, sequence of songs, theme, mood, execution, genre, intended audience.

Novel: author, characters and character development, setting, point of view, motifs, scenes and scene development, plot (sequence of events, pacing, devices, turning points, crisis), intended audience.

As you search for information, keep in mind that you need to keep track of source information. You’ll use that info for in-text citations and a Work Cited page in your review.

When you find a source that you want to read and may possibly use in your review, you need to copy-paste or write down pertinent info. about that source.

So don’t forget to take a look at "Using MLA Style," Chap. 27 in Writing Today: read and skim this whole chapter.

KEEP TRACK OF SOURCE INFO!KEEP TRACK OF SOURCE INFO!

In-Text Citation [sample]In-Text Citation [sample]

It is clear that Taxi Driver is Scorsese’s best film, as Lou Noodlebrain asserts in a review of a recent digital re-mastering (15-20).

Works Cited [sample]

Nucklehead, Chuck. Exploring the Films of Martin Scorsese. New

Haven, NJ: Yale UP, 1989. Print.

Noodlebrain, Lou. “Is Martin Scorsese the Best Film Director in the

World?” Film Studies, 27 Jan. 2009. Web. 8 Sept. 2014.

Taxi. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Prod. Norman Jewison. Stingray Production

Co, 1979. Film.

Book source

Web source (online journal)

Film source

Again, What Makes a Review Helpful and Interesting—or Not?

Watch segment from Hollywood Shuffle.

According to what criteria do the two men evaluate movies? What are their judgments and what principles are those judgments based on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfWc47SEPA0

For the two guys in Hollywood Shuffle segment:

A good movie is realistic. A good movie reminds a viewer of

his/her own life. A good movie provokes a strong sensory

response such as fear or suspense. A good movie doesn’t make the viewer

feel dumb. Doesn’t challenge the viewer intellectually. Has an easy-to-pronounce title!

How does their review fall short?

They don’t seem to have reflected much on their own criteria. The principles they base their judgments on could use a little thought and discussion. They aren’t warranted.

Their judgments are extremely hasty as well as absolutist, based on only seeing a fraction of a movie.

They don’t do a lot to acknowledge alternative points of view.

They don’t offer any real insights into the movies they review.

Obviously, the scene is meant to be funny. but let’s look at it as though it were serious.

To know what makes a review really great, we could just invert each of these items!

and now...

Go experience your subject!Go experience your subject!Take notes, if possible, drawing on info from Writing Today, p. 90, where Johnson-Sheehan and Paine encourage you to reflect on the responses you are having throughout the experience.

Keep in mind what you’ve been learning about mindfulness.

If you haven’t already, take a look at the sample student journal entries I sent out recently:

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/Contemplative Journal Student Samples.docx

Introduction What does the intro do?

•Helps orient reader; prepares them for what is to follow.– Road-map style overview?

– Background info: dates, places, history, definition of key terms?

•Catches reader’s interest; engaging.– Pose a question?

– Sneak-peak at interesting details to come?

– Snazzy quotations?– First excellent example of something?

•Makes clear the work’s central idea or THESIS?– Some strategies call for main point later.

Body What does the intro do?

Conclusion What does the intro do?

Looking at Your Drafts

You will almost certainly need to include a comprehensive yet concise and consistent statement of criteria. Common probs:

Stating one or two criteria early on, then introducing a bunch more in the body...

Making some nice comprehensive statement early on, but then, late in the paper and out of nowhere, start talking about some new criterion.

Making a good statement of one criterion early on, but never applying it or never applying it with any detail or examples.

Be aware...that you may need to “warrant” your criteria.

That is, you need to anticipate possible reader questions about your choice of criteria. You don’t want them to come off as arbitrary, thoughtless, uninformed, or narrow-minded.

.

Here’s a sample excerpt from a review of the newer War of the Worlds. Notice that I

discuss and clarify my criteria, then apply it to specific scenes with details.

This is an excerpt from half-way through....

Another important requirement for a good movie is well-developed characters. That is, the main character especially has to change as a person in some interesting way in the course of the story. Static characters are maybe ok for movies that are 100% plot-driven, but most of us want interesting people involved in that plot action!

In War of the Worlds, we do indeed get some character development. If this movie were absolutely nothing but gigantic monster machines spewing blood and guts everywhere, we’d likely loose interest after a short while, or just expect ever bigger explosions and ever more disgusting gore. But the film develops a sub-plot involving Cruz’s relationships with his children—he actively learns to be a real father in the course of the story.

For instance, early on we see his son showing him disdain when they are playing catch in the backyard. The Cruz character says blah blah blah, and then the son says yadda yadda yadda; the Cruz character then furiously throws the ball through a window. They clearly do not share a very good father-son relationship; not only is there continual miscommunication in language between the two, but they can’t even toss a ball back and forth!

About mid-way through, however, in the scene where the boy is about to run off to join the military battle, we see the father pleading with him to remain. They even have an intense eye-to-eye moment of silence as Cruz grabs his son’s arm. We realize that this father is learning, however gradually, to actively show his love, and that, likewise, his son is beginning to believe in that love. This is the kind of character development which makes us want to see a film not just once for its flashy computer effects, but for the real-life people in the story. And it’s another one of the reasons why you will love this movie.

And look out for...awkward, wordy sentence

constructions!

You want graceful, powerful, concise sentences that have an impact and communicate their meaning easily and fluently.

We’ll do more work with sentence style in our final project, but you should pay a decent amount of attention to it NOW.

Documenting Sources

for Project #1

• Use MLA-style in-text citations and/or integrate brief source info smoothly into your text. You don’t need lengthy URLS—those can optionally be found on the Work Cited page. (Short web page info is fine, such as “Paramount.com.”)

• The trick is to provide just enough detail in-text that your reader can easily look up additional info on the Work Cited page.

• Provide a Work Cited page.

For excellent, easy-to-use documentation info, see OWL PURDUE (or our textbook!):

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/

Passage from a sample student film review with a PRINT source:

Surprisingly, most recent reviews of August, Osage County are completely opposite of mine. In the January issue of The New Yorker magazine, Fred Fuzzywuzzle actually says that “[T]he movie blows most family dramas out of the water and opens up a whole realm of possibilities for the creation of realistic, family-based stories in popular film” (26). Sure, it’s possible that the movie suggests some new ways to represent the American family, but “realistic” is hardly a word I’d choose to describe the characters in this film.

Alternative way to cite source on previous slide:Surprisingly, most recent reviews of August, Osage County are completely opposite of mine. Fred Fuzzywuzzle of The New Yorker actually says that “T]he movie blows most family dramas out of the water and opens up a whole realm of possibilities for the creation of realistic, family-based stories in popular film” (26). Sure, it’s possible that the movie suggests some new ways to represent the American family, but “realistic” is hardly a word I’d choose to describe the characters in this film.

And another:

Surprisingly, most recent reviews of August, Osage County are completely opposite of mine. One film critic actually says that “[T]he movie blows most family dramas out of the water and opens up a whole realm of possibilities for the creation of realistic, family-based stories in popular film” (Fuzzywuzzle 26). Sure, it’s possible that the movie suggests some new ways to represent the American family, but “realistic” is hardly a word I’d choose to describe the characters in this film.

And another!:

Surprisingly, most recent reviews of August, Osage County are completely opposite of mine. One review claims that “[T]he movie blows most family dramas out of the water and opens up a whole realm of possibilities for the creation of realistic, family-based stories in popular film” (New Yorker 26). Sure, it’s possible that the movie suggests some new ways to represent the American family, but “realistic” is hardly a word I’d choose to describe the characters in this film.

Work Cited

Fuzzywuzzle, Fred. “August, Osage County

Rocks." The New Yorker Mar. 2014:

143-48. Print.

[entry for the previous slides’ in-text citation of a PRINT source]

Citing electronic sources:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/08/

This page tells you everything you need to know about using WEB sources in your art review.

Sample passage from a student film review with an ONLINE source:

Surprisingly, most recent reviews of August, Osage County are completely opposite of mine. One online review claims that “[T]he movie blows most family dramas out of the water and opens up a whole realm of possibilities for the creation of realistic, family-based stories in popular film” (“Osage County Rocks”). Sure, it’s possible that the movie suggests some new ways to represent the American family, but “realistic” is hardly a word I’d choose to describe the characters in this film.

Work Cited

Fuzzywuzzle, Fred. “August, Osage Country

Rocks.” The New Yorker Online. Condé

Nast, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 4 May 2009.

[entry for the previous slides’ in-text citation of an ELECTRONIC SOURCE]

Films or Movies

List films (in theaters) by their title. Include the name of the director, the film studio or distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director’s name. Use the abbreviation perf. to head the list. List film as the medium of publication.

The Usual Suspects. Dir. Bryan Singer. Perf. Kevin Spacey,

Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, and

Benecio delToro. Polygram, 1995. Film.

To emphasize specific performers (perf.) or directors (dir.), begin the citation with the name of the desired performer or director, followed by the appropriate abbreviation.

Lucas, George, dir. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Twentieth Century Fox, 1977. Film.

from

Ow

l Pur

due

Recorded Films or Movies

List films by their title. Include the name of the director, the distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director’s name. Use the abbreviation perf. to head the list. End the entry with the appropriate medium of publication (e.g. DVD, VHS, Laser disc).

Ed Wood. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Johnny Depp,

Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker,

Patricia Arquette. Touchstone, 1994. DVD.

Sample passage with film source:

In this age of high-quality, creative, dazzling special effects, there is no excuse for awful scenes full of what are obviously cheap vector graphics. And yet “cheap” and “awful” are words that come to mind with director Ross Collins’ newest effort, Zombies of the Upper Plains, just out on DVD through Touchstone.

Zombies of the Upper Plains. Dir. Ross Collins.Perf. Leonardo Decapitated and KristinStewpot. Touchstone, 2014. DVD.

Sample Work Cited entry:

With all sources, and all citations:

make the source info meaningful but unobtrusive.

Got it?