I am not sure if I'm required to write 500 words for a film that runs only nine minutes. A two hour film gets about 600 words, which averages out to about five words per minute or 45 words for The Key to Reserva.
It seems that this short was an advertisement for Freixenet Wines, and it may be the only film I review that you can watch in its entirety online. Before going any further, you should consider watching the film as it will prevent the disappointment of spoilers.
I'm not quite sure if I should feel upset or amazed by this film. It's not uncommon for big name directors to do commercial work, and prove that they are able to create amazing pieces of art (Terrry Gilliam has a brilliant Nike soccer commercial).
Let me explain why I'm amazed. The film brilliantly captures the aesthetic style of a number of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest films. Though I watched the film only once before writing this post, I'm certain I saw refernces to Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds, and Notorious.
But it's not just the references that makes this so enjoyable. Scorsese is extremely funny, and funny in a way that I don't think would be accessable to the general viewing public. But perhaps Freixenet only wants to cultivate the most intellectual of wine drinkers.
However, I feel an overwhelming sense of disappointment because I realize the film is just a commercial for Spanish sparkling wine, and perhaps this means art can be just a byproduct of a commercial investment. I have no idea why this depresses me so much.
Of course, I might not find this practice so depressing if commercials were only directed by talented people who wanted to make an interesting short film instead of try and push product based on what market research tells them will compel people to buy it.
I haven't mentioned that this film features Simon Baker and Michael Stuhlbarg, and only Simon Baker is listed on the commercial's web page. The only reason I bring this up, is that Stuhlbarg goes on to work with Scorsese on both Boardwalk Empire and Hugo.
On a side note, I tried to keep every paragraph to 45 words as a challenge for this short film. Though I'm well under 600 words, I do believe I've worked nine times harder than I have for any blog post I've written to date.
5 comments:
I haven't watched The Key to Reserva yet, but here are a bunch of more-or-less random thoughts about art and commercialism:
I am very skeptical about claims that art should not be commercial. I suppose commercial influences can be bad for art, but I think the relationship has ALWAYS been there.
I think it was in an interview on The Sound of Young America that I heard Errol Morris talk about how some of his greatest work is the series of weird ads he did for Miller High Life.
http://errolmorris.com/commercials/miller.html
I remember noticing and liking his "stay curious" ads for PBS before I knew they were directed by him (or by anyone famous).
I think rigid constraints are often very good for art--e.g. sonnets or other very structured forms of poetry. And in a way an advertisement presents a set of rigid constraints.
I saw some great art done for a strip mall parking lot once and that pretty much killed my belief that art and commercialism should be separate.
The Key to Reserva is great! I loved it. Thanks for pointing it out! So many exclamation points!
I said the thing about operating within constraints before I saw the movie, and it turns out to be both less constrained (nearly ten minutes long) and more constrained (looks like Hitchcock, never not referring to Hitchcock) than most advertisements.
I don't know if art and commercialism have always been linked. I think commercialism and art have always been linked. Allow me to explain.
My first thought was all, "The patronage system is commercialization of art," but then I was corrected into thinking that the money was for the art. Today, it seems to be the other way around.
I think patronage counts. At least, I can't currently think of a convincing way that it's different to pay an artist to praise coke than to pay an artist to praise an emperor. Lots of great art is written in praise of a a subject of the patron's choosing.
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