Good art

Earlier this year, a friend came to visit New York, someone whom I particularly appreciate due to our shared interest in armchair philosophy. Over coffee on a covered patio during a downpour, our conversation meandered onto the subject of art, and what the purpose of art was. 

It depends, my friend mused, as the rain fell heavily around us. Social commentary, he noted, is the intent of a lot of art. The expression of truths that otherwise couldn’t otherwise be expressed, I offered. We threw out some other ideas: the ability to recreate emotion in its viewers, happiness and sadness and everything in between; it depends the intent of the artist, but once also on the viewer.

It was a good conversation, but it left me feeling like something was missing in our analysis—something that art has brought to my life. 

When I discover a piece of art that I love, it usually brings me to tears. Sometimes, I can’t stop crying. It’s not out of sadness, but something closer to emotional resonance. This has happened over segments of films, passages in books, and pieces of music.

Then I get into a bit of a mental wormhole. I can’t stop fixating on the piece. If it’s music, it stays on loop until I get sick of it. If it’s a plot-driven book or movie, I revisit segments of it, reread plots and fan theories. If it’s a passage of writing, I reread it until I’ve internalized its rhythms and contours. If it’s a movie segment, I’ll rewind and rewatch. 

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A few weeks ago, I saw Waking Life, an intensely cerebral movie by one of my favourite directors, Richard Linklater. Like many of Linklater’s movies, there’s no real plot. Waking Life meanders through a series of conversations between a protagonist and several strangers as he navigates through a dream, set to hauntingly dissonant violin music and depicted in dizzying animations. There is no consistent theme to the conversations, other than visiting different takes on classic philosophical questions. Some examples:  “Does free will exist?” and “Does meaning exist to human life?”

There’s one segment of the film that indirectly addresses Linklater’s views on filmmaking. It’s called The Holy Moment, which refers to how the art of cinema is a reproduction of the waking reality we live in. Unlike other mediums, filmmaking requires the artist to capture a moment that is actually unfolding before them. A quote from this scene:

Obviously, there's narrativity to cinema 'cause it's in time, just the way there's narrativity to music. But, you know, you don't first think of the story of the song, and then make the song. It has to come out of that moment. And that's what film has. It's just that moment, which is holy. You know, like this moment, it's holy. But we walk around like it's not holy. We walk around like there's some holy moments and there are all the other moments that are not holy, right, but this moment is holy, right? And if film can let us see that, like frame it so that we see, like, "Ah, this moment. Holy." And it's like "Holy, holy, holy" moment by moment.

The narrator pauses at this point. Then he starts to cry, because he’s realizing that the moment he’s inhabiting is holy.

When reflecting on this quote, I realized why I love cinematic movies that depict snapshots-of-life. Examples that come to mind are Nomadland, Lady Bird, and Boyhood. It’s because these works both reflect and elevate my life.

They reflect my life in that I see my experiences recognized through the lives of the characters. This is precious. It’s similar to a friend saying to me, “I hear you. I see you. Your experience is valid.” 

But just as importantly, these works elevate my life by showing me glimpses of beauty in my lived experiences that I’ve neglected. 

Take this scene from Soul: after achieving a lifelong goal, the protagonist revisits his memories from his childhood and realizes that his life is made richer by the small, everyday moments that give him joy, rather than the large, monumental ones that we tend to fixate on. As I watched this scene, I realized that there have been countless moments in my life that mirror the ones he’s revisiting. Tiny, meaningful moments, like watching the sun slip below the horizon from the westward edge of San Francisco, or the smile on my mom’s face when she’s bringing a particularly delicious dish to the dinner table, or the feeling of being sandwiched in a hug between my boyfriend and our puppy on our couch. 

To me, this is what Linklater is referring to when he says that ‘film can let us see [the profundity of our lives], like frame it so that we see, like, "Ah, this moment. Holy.”’ 

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So, why does listening to Porter Robinson’s new album, or watching a stirring reading of Sonnet 18, or reading Kazuo Ishiguro, bring me to tears? I believe that it’s not sadness, nor happiness, but rather a sudden reminder of how much richness and beauty there is in this life. 

Films, books, and songs have stayed with me through the years. The right works have this uncanny ability to find me at the right times in my life, like friends whom I draw close to through seasons of life: Rachmaninoff and Camus as an early adult, contemplating the role of friendship; Steinbeck in college as I was questioning my own morality; Ayn Rand as a young teenager, realizing that I could establish my autonomy through a belief system of my own. They’re a constant reminder that human life—my life—is profoundly rich and endlessly full, made more so because of the corpus of art that has been created and culled by people in the past. And beyond that, they remind me of how fulfilling and inspiring it is to partake in artistic creation.

When I’m in the depths of a depressive episode, when I find myself questioning the purpose of existence in a world that feels so cold and dark, the presence of art that I love and the promise that there are works I will come to discover and love makes me feel just a little more hopeful, and a little less alone. 

Good art helps me realize the depth and profundity of being human.