Toronto Workers' Art in Global Hollywood
2009; Issue: 76 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2562-2528
Autores Tópico(s)Cultural Industries and Urban Development
ResumoOff camera group art show at Filmport Studios, 225 Commissioners St., Toronto October 3-18 The pieces in the show are viewable at: offcameraatfilmport2008.blogspot.com Hollywood has long had an awkward relationship to art. Often considered more a communication technology than a fine art, filmmaking (and especially Hollywood filmmaking), has regularly been judged aesthetically impoverished and not really art by traditional standards that measure aesthetic achievement in direct relation to autonomy, originality, and authenticity. By contrast, Hollywood has distinguished itself by playing not to elite audiences but to mass taste with entertainment spectacles that flaunt technology and cultural commodification all the while maintaining tight control over, and often fighting with, its artisan labour. This antagonistic relationship between artists and the perceived high culture of the art world has carried over into the thematic content of many Hollywood films, especially comedies, in which art and artists are routinely lampooned and ridiculed. So much so that the gulf between the sphere of art and popular movies often seems overwhelming. At the same time, Hollywood has obviously also borrowed much from the traditions and practices of various arts and many theorists, critics and promoters of the industry have argued that movies are but a new form of art. Along with relying on all other art forms for its aesthetic styles and formal designs, there are also a variety of instances in which Hollywood uses art as an explanation for what it does and we can see that the term Hollywood studios, for instance, while referring to the tradition of artist studios which conjures visions of lone artists or small guilds of workers creating singularly beautiful works of art, is regularly used by the Big-8 as an analog for its Fordist industrial moviemaking process including its strict division of labour and corporate institutional structure. The history of Hollywood is littered with the work of countless artists who have contributed to popular movies. Most famously perhaps is Dali's dream seguence in Hitchcock's standard thriller Spellbound (1945) which, though shorter than originally planned, is extraordinary. But even this famous example is compromised by knowing that neither Dali nor Hitchcock were satisfied with the realization of the sequence and were frustrated by producer David O. Selznick's cost-conscious interference. A recent art show at Filmport is worth considering as an example of how Hollywood continues to have a vexed relationship to art and artists. (1) Moreover, that the works were made by members of guilds and labour unions in the Toronto film and television industry also introduces ideas about cultural labour, creative freedom, and the role of art in the context of capitalism. I open with a discussion of Filmport, though, because it is the site of the show and it is illustrative of the connections between local labourers and artists and Global Hollywood. Poised to become Canada's preeminent studio facility (featuring several soundstages including the world's largest) Filmport is in the process of consolidating its infrastructure and its business advantage in a competitive global media market. (2) Even in the local jurisdiction it will have competition with the proposed studio complex at Dupont Street and Ossington Avenue that is part of the Pinewood Studios brand and has the participation of Ridley and Tony Scott. Even while the stages are being built and the streets paved, the strategy of selling Filmport is fully underway. Its website is thorough and detailed and service contracts have begun to trickle in (e.g., George Romero shot his follow-up to Diary of the Dead at Filmport). (3) Because Filmport is not just a film studio, but a convergence district, its eventual goal is to develop a media sector area in Toronto that will become dominant in the municipality and significant in the global market. …
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