MOWE, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) — The least we expect is that we will not get bored from start to finish. I mean, when I go to the movies, I watch scandalously boring screeners.
I’m seeing more screeners but visiting cinemas less frequently. I used to feel bad about not going to the movies until now. I feel bad because I generally get bored and don’t check out the screeners.
I believe that music, literature, and the majority of the visual arts (painting, photography, and sculpture) are also quite lousy. That can sound cynical and be a terrible thing to say, but the opposite is true. Most contemporary materials will be mediocre, but some of it will be outstanding. The undesirable elements disappear as you move on.
Not too long ago, I visited the “Rele” and “Art Twenty One” art galleries, and I didn’t find a single piece of visual art—paintings or photographs—there that wasn’t timeless, eternal, and deserving of being there.
And from that, you can conclude that the works of visual art are consistently deserving in some way. You see, you don’t realize—and a lot of people don’t realize—that there are now 10,000 dreadful, useless, amateurish works of art for every one that hangs in the art galleries.
There is nothing wrong with it; I think someone was just trying to paint and be creative and take a shot at it, but it’s unusual enough that it’s worth bothering someone else about, which is to say that there is some in the work that merits the attention and the consideration of an audience or an observer in film because it is current and even more so in television because it is in our faces right now and there hasn’t been time for the bad stuff to drop away.
Many often ask, “Why don’t they make decent movies now like they used to in the 70s and 80s?” so that you can see the good stuff. Did they produce good movies back then? There were a lot of really excellent ones produced this way, but there were also a lot of awful ones. Simply put, we don’t recall them.
I believe that after fifty years, the question “Why don’t they make good movies like they did back in the early days, you know, the new millennium?” will still be relevant since the public will have moved on. But children today will recall the imitation game they engaged in throughout today’s world.
So when I say, “Don’t be boring,” I mean that at the very least I want a work of art to be interesting. We’re talking about dramatic stories here. How much time did I spend contemplating an artwork, whether a painting or a photograph, whenever I was in an art gallery? A moment. Even three minutes with it would have been a significant amount of time. Yet, what we really desire from creativity is for it to inspire us and make us alive.
If I start to drift off while watching a movie, I immediately fall asleep because it is the movie’s responsibility to keep me awake; normally I would fight it, like you know, but this day, that’s it. I have come to the conclusion that it simply isn’t worth watching. Yet, there have been times when I entered a movie when I was quite exhausted and hadn’t slept well, but it was a terrific movie, and it woke me up.
Therefore, the least we ask is that you avoid becoming boring. If you succeed in doing so, it will be a remarkable accomplishment. I want my life to be transformed and transported in the same way that great art does, just like the movie “Hacksaw Ridge” did for me.
The “Miqedem album” influenced me in that way, as well as Picasso’s art. I just want my life to be different and to change constantly as a result of being exposed to such a wonderful work of creativity.
The best art forms—music, film, and the like—should achieve that. Simply put, it ought to impact your life permanently.
Thanks for reading.