> While I don't have an Ivy League PhD nor a Rolls Royce and while I don't
> know if I am just a "regular" person, what I can say is that I am not able
> to think at advertising as a form of art, and although studying box office
> winners may be of great interest from the cultural or historical point of
> view, this falls in an entirely different field from the study of film
> aestthetics.
 
Well, advertising _can_ be a form of art or twisted into art.  Look
at the classic agit-prop posters from WWII or the Vietnam War or the
work of Andy Warhol.
 
Popular film in and of itself is not "advertising" -- it's simply
entertainment for consumption and, on occaision, does approach the
level of art.  Does the fact that Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti Westerns"
or the "Godfather" series were extremely popular in their day make
them any less a work of film art?  Or does the fact that a
significant director like Martin Scorsese directing a Michael Jackson
music video exclude that particular work from being simply worthy of
study because of it's origin as advertising?
 
RAND
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Randy A. Riddle, Winston-Salem, NC
[log in to unmask] -- http://www.infi.net/~rriddle
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