In the first class of a film elective I took in college, the professor read a list of movies and their directors we would be watching. When he got to Roman Polanski, he paused and glared around the room, as though daring anybody to voice an objection.
The problem I have is the gushing praise for the director's technical or artistic skill, without any mention of anything else. The movie industry has protected and defended this guy for decades. Film professors who only want to talk about art, not the artists, play a role in perpetuating this ongoing injustice.
>Film professors who only want to talk about art, not the artists, play a role in perpetuating this ongoing injustice.
I agree that there is an injustice in the willful ignorance one must have to abstract the art from the artist during discussion -- but frankly if we were to focus more heavily on the damaged artist during the discussion of art :
A) the topic drifts from aesthetic appreciation to a mix of criminology/sociology/psychology/hearsay/pop-culture trivia information
B) it's an on-going philosophical/ontological debate as to whether or not the actions of the artist should be considered within the scope of the discussion of the art.
To expound on B : It's fairly well understood that if I showed a painting of nearly any skill level to 3 groups of people, and I differ the backstory between the three of them, I can easily manipulate the surveyed aesthetic appreciation from each of the test groups.
If that effect is well demonstrated, and the topic of study and discussion is 'Art', and i'm asked to create an analysis of the aesthetic of a specific piece .. should I consider the artist backstory as a confounding factor with regards to any analysis I might do on the art piece?
Some people consider those confounding factors to be within the scope of artistic discussion -- some people don't.
Personally I find that only classical depictions of artists get a lot of heat about their personal lives : painters, directors, photographers, writers.
Meanwhile certain industrial designers and architects are on record as being wildly racist or misogynist, and no one mentions it or bats an eye... but then again industrial design and architecture are on the fringes of art where many seem not to realize the artistry element exists at all.
