“Once you get over the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films” Bong Jong Ho said this year at the Golden Globes. (Long, 2020).
The Oscar winner was referring to the “Hollywood Myopia” towards Foreign Language films, which despite growing critical praise and acclaim, do not benefit from the same distribution and box office returns of Hollywood genre cinema.

Many acclaimed art films, such as those of Bergman, Cuaran and Amirpour are not English. But it is unlikely their work would have been accepted anymore among the mainstream in a new language. While audiences have demonstrated an apathy towards subtitles. (Davies, 2019). Art films have frequently been met with outright animosity; criticised for perceived pretentiousness and lack of relatability to a mainstream audience. (Billson, 2013).

An example of this was the release of David Lowery’s Art Film “A Ghost Story”. An unsettling tale that utilizes the horror genre to explore themes of loss, grief, existentialism and finding purpose with our limited time among the living. (Ehrlich, 2017).
Lowery garnered an insignificant $2,769,782 in domestic and international box offices. Which seems like no small achievement until compared to the towering success of franchise film Annabel: Creation, released that same year to negative reviews but a return box office of over $306,000,000. (Box Office Mojo, 2017)

There is no denying which films are achieving box office results. Hollywood genre films have dominated the worldwide markets since the successful creation of a Ford inspired filmmaking factory (Grieveson L, 2003). Mass marketed comedies, romances and action films inspire high turnouts at the cinema, which has ensured their continual survival for over a century.

It is understandable that audiences have a desire to lose themselves in the world of Hollywood; where action heroes overcome immeasurable odds, men win over the woman of their dreams and seemingly every sentence spoken is either of great significance or great comedic value. Life is unpleasant and most people don’t want to be reminded of it.

However this is detrimental as Art Cinema has always been preoccupied with the human condition. Man’s search for meaning has been the leading cause of his own internalised anxieties and existential nightmares. We as a species have become deeply neurotic as we’ve tried to navigate our own battle with mortality and our desire to find purpose and meaning in our lives. All too often however have we opted to explore art and entertainment that will distract us from such matters and neglected the cinema that seeks to explore with us the battles with ourselves and the universe.

In this essay I will discuss how Art films are a distinctly different practice of filmmaking to Hollywood Genre and how our own search for meaning is reflected within them. (Vincendeau).

“The Art Cinema motivates its narratives by two principles: realism and authorial expressivity….realistic cinema with real locations and real problems” (Bordwell, 2002).
Wild Strawberries (1957) by Ingmar Bergman rejects several unrealistic Hollywood tropes. The unrealistic handsome and likeable hero is replaced with the realistic old and unlikeable Isaak Borg. Meanwhile the unrealistic worldwide adventure is replaced with the realistic semi-leisurely drive to an old university. The most notable realism that Bergman tackles however, is Isaak’s own search for meaning.

Having dedicated his life to his work; forsaking meaningful human connection in the pursuit thereof. The journey to accept what should be the crowning achievement of his life is marred by his fears of having spent his life poorly having alienated his loved ones and achieving nothing of value despite his career successful life. (Cohen-Shalev, 1922).

Hollywood might tell the story of a younger man suffering a midlife crisis, enraged over greying hair and behaving in a ridiculous but entertaining manner to compensate. Bergman however tells the much more sinister story of a man who has no time left to correct the mistakes of his past. He is haunted by nightmares that highlight his lack of time and tortures himself with memories of what might have been. The loving wife trope has been replaced with only a memory of a bitter and unhappy marriage. The happy, mischievous children are replaced with an embittered son, indifferent to his father but following in his ruinous footsteps.

The methods of story telling play a significant part in the differing cinematic practices. Hollywood being an advocate of Traditional Narrative Structures. Traditionally Narrative Time and Space are constructed to represent the Cause-Effect chain. (Bordwell, 2002). Such films are driven usually by plot, however, the mundane plot of Wild Strawberries has very little to offer any audience. In lieu of a traditional plot, the audience is given a deep, psychological look at Isaak’s personality. (Arlow, 1997).

Bergman achieves this with many surreal sequences. Starting with a nightmare sequence that highlights his fear of time running out; an existential terror that concludes with his being forced to watch his own corpse fall from a coffin. Such sights would be impossible in the real world and by recreating such scenes Bergman successfully makes the audience a viewer in the sub-conscious mind of Isaak.

Likewise we are subjected to an extra marital affair to which Isaak was aware but not present and as a result we view an imagined version of the scenario. We are disturbed by the warped and sadistic nature of the scene and more so by the indifferent reaction his wife knows he will have.

Flashbacks have been utilised as a storytelling device as far back as the 1901 French Film Histoire d’un crime (Austin, 1996). While Hollywood has frequently used flashbacks to explain character histories and fill in plot holes, they have rarely been utilised in the way that Bergman utilizes them. Flashbacks in Wild Strawberries are often interactive, he relives decade old memories in the form of a pensioner, the form with which he is most familiar now. This further in grains in us that Wild Strawberries is not just a film to be entertained by, but an interactive psychological experience.

Happy endings have long since been the mark of a Hollywood film. Most audiences are deeply disappointed by an unresolved plot or an unhappy ending. We didn’t sit through two hours of plot point for the two main characters not to fall in love! However Art Films, like their Noir counterparts have rarely shown interest in the traditional fairy-tale resolution of Golden Age Cinema. (MacDowell, 2014).

This in my opinion is largely because Art Films are not as concerned with plots to be resolved, but more so with their search for human meaning in a realistic setting.
Wild Flowers successfully flips the audience expectation of a happy ending.
Whereas a Hollywood film might end as Isaak successfully reaches his old university on time and receives his reward; celebrating a life well spent, Bergman utilizes the harsh realities of life. The ceremony is an entirely hollow affair, Isaak daydreams his way through it and it does nothing to quell is anxieties about life. If anything the ceremony serves as the crowning achievement of his wasted life. (Greenberg, 1970)

Instead the film finds resolution with Isaak’s own inner peace. In the friendship of the youths who journeyed with them and in the possible reconciliation of his son and daughter in law. Nothing is certain and nothing is spelled out for the audience, like life it is uncertain and the end of his journey is not by a change in life but a change in perspective and the ability to find peace in his own memories.

The apathy Bong Jong Ho describes towards foreign films has never been more prevalent than in the 1953 Japanese art house film Tokyo Story. Yasujiro Ozu’s Arthouse Drama is one of the most celebrated films ever made, topping the Director’s Top 100 Films list in 2012. (Institute, 2012). Despite its universal acclaim it failed to secure a US release for many years as the work was considered “Too Japanese”. (Bordwell, Tokyo Story: Compassionate Detachment, 2013).

Any viewer would consider this verdict to be completely laughable! The actors speak Japanese, the houses are Oriental and the religion is Eastern, however, the themes of the film are completely universal. The film is not so much Japanese as it is human and the search for meaning is as meaningful to the American viewer as it is to the Japanese one.

That’s not to say that Ozu did not break the traditional rules of established cinema. Most notably was his refusal to use master shots an frequent breaking of the 180 degree rule.  (Desser, 1997).

The cinematography of The Tokyo Story is all geared towards its telling of a quiet and nuanced story. The camera is stationary in nearly every scene, moving only on two occasions. Most notably there is very little use of close up shots, the camera opting instead to watch the entire family and analyse their interactions with each other. (Desser, 1997). Each scene is personal; while the film is named Tokyo Story, the audience does not see anything specific to Tokyo. Even the scene of the Tokyo tour is told through a crowded bus as opposed to what might be considered a more cinematic option of wide angle shots of Tokyo landmarks.

Hollywood cinematography is designed to be entertaining. Camera angles move almost constantly and ensure that the audience is kept occupied. Backgrounds are interesting, camera movements are constant and pacing plays a big role. The use of cinematography is just a small example of the differences in art and Hollywood films. (Cormack, 1994)
Tokyo Drift and Tokyo Story are two film that take place in the same city but are both visually very different pieces, mostly because the purpose of each film is completely at odds with the other.

Tokyo Story avoids many of the Hollywood tropes of family life. While a Hollywood film tackling the issues relating to family might include dramatic dinner table arguments and tearful reconciliations. (Harwood, 1997) Tokyo story offers a much more realistic and subdued performance from its cast. Dinner scenes are civil and pleasant and the audience is left to figure out the undertones of benign conversation.

Family interactions are undramatic and realistic, the children are shy around grandparents they barely know, despite the grandparents unconditional approval of them. The adult children love their parents but feel burdened by them to such an extent that they cannot commit to staying much longer past their mother’s funeral and there are still fragments of hurt for past transgressions in Shige’s anger at her father’s drinking. Notably we are given a brief insight through their relationships with their own children that this is a history that will repeat itself in the future.

Like Wild Strawberries, nothing is really resolved in Tokyo Story. The closest we get to the happy family reconciliation, is a deathbed reunion for which one son is too late. Despite the hard hitting reality they have all been faced with, most of the family refuse to learn a lesson, returning to their own lives and leaving their father a lonely widower, only Kyoko able to recognise their selfish behaviour.

Her on the nose words “Isn’t Life Disappointing” while aimed at her own disappointment with the family are actually incredibly resonant of the human condition; life is disappointing, however, like Wild Strawberries, Tokyo Story finds something resembling a happy ending.
 “…the neighbor jovially warns Shukichi that now he’ll be lonely. Yet the momentous revelations are tempered by the poetic resonance of everyday acts and objects…” (Bordwell, Tokyo Story: Compassionate Detachment, 2013).

Wild Flowers and Tokyo Story both come to a similar conclusion in their search for meaning and happiness, that it is a near impossible achievement but that life can still be enjoyable when your perspective is in the right place and you choose to focus on the happy aspects of life.

This is at odds with the Hollywood modus operandi that often aims to teach happiness as an achievable goal, usually via the resolution of a daring mission or in the love of a beautiful starlet, often with a promise that future problems are a distant fantasy; or in other words “Happily Ever After”. (MacDowell J. , 2013)

In Conclusion; Art Cinema is far removed from its Hollywood counterpart! Its complete absence of most Hollywood tropes stems to its occupation with the Human Search for Meaning as opposed to Hollywood’s occupation with entertainment.
Wild Strawberries and Tokyo are two excellent Art Films that seek to explore the human condition at the expense of its value to the mainstream audience. The willingness of art films to explore deeper concepts and to trailblaze in cinematic practices has not only inspired huge leap forwards in filmmaking and entertainment but plays a significant role in helping men and women grapple with the constant existential battle that is being alive.

Bibliography

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(2017). Box Office Mojo. IMDB.

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MacDowell, J. (2013). Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema: Cliche, Convention and the final couple. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

MacDowell, J. (2014). Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema: Cliche, Convention and the Final Couple. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.