skyjedi2005 said:"For example, literature, which by far is my favorite form of art, invariably always has some kind of message behind it whether intentionally or unintentionally placed there by the author."
When an author does intentionally place a message in their work it becomes an allegory, and and usually there is only one correct way to solve this allegory and the author offers the solution.
The other way the way i prefer and i think is less harmful to a story is applicability, an unintentional metaphor or reading pulled out by the reader.
There is pure allegory like Dante's Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost.
Middle of the road allegory still heavy of an allegorical influence like chronciles of narnia,
Or books that have no topical allegory whatsoever and its left up to the reader like Tolkien's lord of the rings.
Subtext in films is not an abuse of art, it is an abuse of art for films to be a puff of air representing nothing other than noise, special effects and ticket sales. The idea of film is that it is supposed to provoke a response in the viewer, whether of joy, sadness, fear, absolute terror, horror, being uplifted, or being shown the destitute and evil character of man.
Even bad and poorly made films provoke a response.
I think it was Lucas himself who said film as art was a lot of pretentious bullshit, and that he preferred to think himself as a toymaker.
I don't have the direct quote, but i remember that from an article on the making of thx or graffiti. Though it very well could have been during star wars.
I wasn't talking about mere subtext. I was talking about a whole work of "art" being made for the sole purpose of beating a particular message into the audience's head. You can have plenty subtext without doing that.
Nor was I talking about messages being put into things unintentionally.
Not all works with an intentional message are allegories. As for allegories, that's where it gets more dangerous. Sometimes an allegory can be done so it doesn't feel like the art is being abused, but allegories are often a pain, because they're just using their fiction to sell a message rather than respecting their fiction more than that and being thoroughly into it. I've always had mixed feelings about CS Lewis's Narnia books. There are works that go way farther than that. Like Zardoz, which has absolutely no depth of feeling because it's all about the message and the allegory and doesn't believe in its imaginary world and just uses it to say something.
As for films provoking a response, that is nothing to do with messages. Films don't have to be made for the sake of a message to have the ability to provoke a response.
And it is a mistake to think that a film that doesn't flog a message is nothing but "a puff of air representing nothing other than noise, special effects and ticket sales". There is so much more of substance you can put into a work of art than messages. Human nature, human feeling, imagination, letting the deeper recesses of the mind express themselves. That stuff goes a lot deeper, comes from a deeper place than flogging messages. That stuff is what art is about. Flogging messages is shallower and more cynical.