What Is Idealism

(Chapter 2 of the book Idealism: The Forgotten Principles of American Cinema)

Alfred Hitchcock, without knowing it, gave a great summary of what Idealism is when he said: "Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake".

As a writer, I naturally feel obliged to look for the most economical and efficient definition for a new concept - a simple phrase that has the elegance of a mathematical formula. But when we're talking about something as complex as art - and about a specific style of art that is associated with numerous philosophical premises - a little more than a sentence is needed.

First and foremost, Idealism is the type of art that recognizes that the purpose of life is the achievement of happiness and its own enjoyment. It is a category of art focused on providing the audience with a pleasurable and inspiring experience, based on the original vision of an artist who, making the best use of his virtues and talents, creates this experience according to his own values and interests (based on what he would like to experience as a spectator).

Since it is art, an artistic work must be the authentic expression of an artist's creative vision (or sometimes of a collaboration between artists), but, to be Idealist, it must be created with the intention of providing an inspiring and pleasurable experience to the audience - leading them to the highest emotions and states of consciousness possible within the context of each work of art (how it will do this is something I will discuss in future chapters, the important thing here is just to understand the artist's initial intention, how they view art and its value for man).

Idealism understands that there is much we can experience in life as conscious beings beyond what we naturally encounter in our daily lives - and the Idealist artist is the one who, through their imagination, sees these possibilities and materializes them for the audience's delight. Idealism seeks inspiration, motivation, pleasure. It shows us how extraordinary life can be.

The more a work of art is a canned, inauthentic commercial product aimed solely at making a profit and pleasing the audience, the less artistic it will be, and therefore its ability to inspire will be limited. In many cases, purely commercial films can still entertain and have some artistic qualities. But the best of them are usually results of the vision of a talented producer, someone higher up in the production hierarchy, who ends up being the main visionary behind the work - as in the case of films from the Hollywood studio system era. Yes, Casablanca (1942) is great and in line with Idealist principles, even if it wasn't made by an auteur director. My argument is that if it was the authentic expression of a particular artist, it would have an even greater power to impact the spectator, because individual achievements always inspire us more than collective achievements that don't have a specific face behind them.

THE 2 TYPES OF SPECTATORS

In the audience, there are two distinct types of spectators that need to be differentiated for the purposes of this book: those who see art as a source of inspiration (who feel stimulated by the projection of positive values; by beauty, virtue, happiness - by the vision of the ideal) and those who see art primarily as a source of comfort, a remedy against life's frustrations, and who feel demotivated by the vision of the ideal. Idealism has the first group as its target audience.

The Idealist spectator is not necessarily superior in character, nor is he necessarily happier and more virtuous in his personal life. Idealism reflects a person's ideals, their aspirations, what they believe to be the true essence of life and of man. A person can have a number of personal flaws and problems, but if they preserve this positive vision of what life could be, they will still have a taste for Idealism. So while I might imply that Idealists have a superior attitude towards life, I'm not saying they are automatically better people, or that artistic preferences are definitive proof of character.

IDEALISM REGARDING WHAT?

Note that there are two ways in which a work can be Idealist. It can be Idealist only in content (a general positivity conveyed by the story, the theme, the characters), but what's most important is not this kind of Idealism, after all, a work of art can have a positive attitude towards life, convey an optimistic message, but still be a tedious experience for the audience.

Although content is relevant, what's most important is the artist's Idealism in relation to the experience he wants to give to the audience - the level of pleasure/satisfaction/exaltation he is willing and able to stimulate with his techniques. That's why a work of art can be Idealist even if it has a pessimistic message. What matters most in the end is not so much the explicit message, but how it is presented, what states of consciousness a work of art generates in the spectator. Of course, works of art with depressing themes and decadent human beings can hardly be as inspiring as those focused on positive values, heroes and achievements - these are the most purely Idealist - but, within certain boundaries, less optimistic works of art can also be considered Idealist.

That's why I usually separate Idealists into two groups: Pure Idealists, those who focus on the positives, and Critical Idealists, those who present negative situations, corrupt characters, but in a tone of criticism and condemnation. The first type is a step above and is the most perfectly Idealist, having as one of its best representatives in cinema Steven Spielberg (especially in his first two decades of career). The second type is still Idealist, and is well represented in cinema by Stanley Kubrick. Although this type of artist shows morally decadent characters, undesirable situations, there is still a sense that their reference values are the same as those of the Pure Idealists - it is from this angle that the criticism of the characters is being made. They still convey the message that man should be virtuous, that life could be positive, but instead of showing happiness being achieved, they warn the audience showing what happens when men don't act rationally, when they aren't virtuous. The first type celebrates the positives, and the second condemns the negatives, but both can have positive results, just as in mathematics we get a positive result when we multiply two negative numbers.

By valuing both individual expression, talent, authenticity, and the audience's experience and pleasure, Idealism represents the ideal union between art and entertainment, and is the natural path both for artists with a more authorial inclination but who also value the audience's experience, and for artists more inclined towards entertainment, but who also wish to bring authenticity and artistic quality to their creations (when the two intentions are not naturally balanced).

Idealism is based on broad principles that can be applied to all forms of art. Some arts, however, are more expressive and more powerful than others when it comes to Idealism. Sculpture, for example, although it can demand great skills from the artist and can project positive values, does not have as much capacity to provide an "ideal experience" to the viewer as cinema does. In this sense, the arts that involve a controled temporal experience (music, theater, cinema, etc.) have a great advantage over static forms of art, as they allow for much greater control by the artist over the audience's experience. Furthermore, arts that combine narrative elements (which communicate verbal, explicit content, and stimulate the intellect) with sensory elements (which stimulate our senses, especially sight and hearing) present more possibilities and can create more intense experiences than arts that are only verbal/intellectual (such as literature) or only sensory (such as instrumental music), because they recreate reality in a more complete way and make a fuller and more integrated use of our mental capacities (which is why film is the most expressive and equipped art for the purposes of Idealism, especially when visual storytelling is allied with the power of music).

Idealism can be seen first and foremost as an attitude, a basic desire to inspire, give pleasure and delight that guides an artist's decisions, and which can be observed not only in art but also in other creations that include artistic elements. Someone like Walt Disney, for example, building his theme park attractions, was representing Idealism much better (and in my opinion creating highly sophisticated form of art) than a filmmaker or writer committed to Naturalism.

OBJECTIONS

One of the most common objections to Idealism is that this style of art can create high expectations of life, and thus cause frustrations and psychological damage to the audience. This type of criticism often comes from people who have a mistaken view of the function of art in our lives. Art's function is not primarily to teach us how to live our daily lives. It's not a practical guide. Our minds have the potential to reach incredibly high levels of pleasure and inspiration, and one of the great values of art is its ability to take us to these states, which are rarely possible without its aid. Drawing a parallel - sex can provide physical pleasures that are unattainable in the rest of our routines, and yet it is something seen as important and healthy by most people. Nobody has sex (I hope) limiting their possibilities of pleasure, thinking that an excessively pleasant experience would harm the rest of their life, would make the rest of the days frustrating and unsatisfactory. Art is the sex of the mind, a moment of celebration, an experience that has an end in itself (the meeting of the artist's pleasure of expressing himself and creating a certain experience to the audience, with the pleasure of the spectator of contemplating his achievement and living through that experience). Art shouldn't be a balanced simulation of the states of consciousness that are appropriate to everyday life, in the same way that Hitchcock wouldn't say that you should eat cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Even though art can serve as a reference and can create certain expectations regarding real life, the audience doesn't need it to be realistic and didactic in order to feel inspired and extract some useful message from it. With the exception perhaps of very young children, everyone knows that art is not real life and should not be interpreted in that way; that in art things are shown in an exaggerated, stylized way, and that what we take from it is only an abstract message - we shouldn't take it literally. If you feel inspired by seeing Superman at the movies, what you should take away from the story is at most an example of strength, confidence, charm, integrity, which may inspire you to improve your character in your personal life. But if someone whines about not being able to grab a red cape and jump out of the window, that's much more the person's problem than art's. Art is not like religion, which claims that the supernatural is real and possible. Art is admittedly "make-believe", an activity whose purpose even a four-year-old child can understand without needing further explanation. People who have unreasonable expectations of life and of themselves will have psychological problems even without the "help" of Idealist art. A person who doesn't deal well with their limitations will suffer even from the existence of people who are more virtuous than them in their group of friends, at work and on the internet. They will feel miserable even without the reference of Superman. A pychologically healthy person, on the other hand, even if they don't have great virtues, will be able to enjoy heroes and feel inspired by them without the experience causing them any harm. It's not Idealism that makes some people insecure and frustrated, but emotional problems that they already carry within themselves.

That's just the beginning of a definition of what Idealism is. But being an artistic work focused on inspiring and giving pleasure to the audience is still something vague, which can be interpreted in wrong ways. To understand what the essential elements of Idealism are, and in what specific ways it will provide this experience, we'll have to go into more detail.