Shared affinities

Terry Teachout posts his artistic preferences and I find they gibe very closely with mine. Of course, these are not rules to live by. They're more a summing up to my general approach to the arts.

In the same post, Terry talks about the dangers of coming on a work of art with too much advance information. In his case, he found himself enjoying a production of The Tempest that the director decided was "about" colonialism. Had I heard that, I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole. But Terry took a friend's advice and didn't look at the program notes until intermission.

There's always a danger in coming to a work with too much information. Two cases in point: Citizen Kane, which I saw in college but not before I'd been hearing about what a masterwork it was. Result, as Mr. Micawber would say, misery. And don't bother to leave me a comment about how wrong I am. I will be unpersuaded. (Otherwise comments are, of course, welcome.)

The other instance is The Crying Game, which was one of the most hyped films ever. You see there was a "twist," which was never revealed in all the hype but incessantly, coyly pointed out. Then I saw it. The twist seemed obvious to me from the start. And, no one mentioned that the entire movie was a paean to those noble warriors, the IRA.

I do like to read reviews of movies I've already seen, however. It's a way to continue the conversation. Like blogging.