Aesthetic Biases & Preferences!

Yes. No doubt I have my aesthetic biases & preferences; what's beautiful, what's ugly, what's good, what's bad?  Sure, yes, I do, don't you?

So, for instance, if a new film (see previous 3 posts), is shot in vivid black & white, and it's from another time and place, dialogue in another language, with sub-titles, I am not turned off at all, I am probably pre-disposed to think it's going to be good, probably another "art film." That just reflects my long experience over the years, delving deep into films by Robert Bresson, Francois Truffaut,  Jean Luc Godard, Loius Malle, Jean Renoir, Bernardo Bertolucci, Agnes Varda, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky.

Maybe reading sub-titles actually concentrates my attention? Just a thought. I also love films that are shot on film, with 35mm, 70mm film. No CGI. Again, it's just a preference, a bias, based on my own experience. I also love films shot on location. You can usually tell. There is something about reality, a camera panning down a street that captures something that can't be fully recreated on a soundstage.

Of course, you can make a good film on a soundstage ("Singing in the Rain"), loaded up with CGI, ("The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" Or maybe something like "La La Land") but often when I see a film like that, I am thinking to myself, "Oh, look at that great CGI!"

I have some retro biases in music too. I love records made the "old way," back to basics, you know, musicians, in a room together, playing live. I think the Band's "Music from Big Pink,"  or the Rolling Stones recording with their mobile unit in a basement in the south of France ("Exile on Main Street") are the ideals. A house, wired for sound with recording equipment, microphones, amps, an assortment of instruments. A motley group of musicians huddled around microphones, laying down their sounds in an intimate, funky place. A basement, living room, hallway. This time. This place. These particular musicians actually playing their own real instruments.

Of course, you can make a great record with pre-recorded beats, with synthesizers emulating all kinds of exotic sounds and instruments, you can conjure a cool track from a laptop, with samples, with no musicians, no cool room, no real instruments. I own and enjoy plenty of records like that. I think of Thom Yorke's side band Atoms for Peace, or the soundtrack of "Ghost Dog" (Wu Tang Clan! RZA, GZA), or "Do the Right Thing" or "He Got Game" soundtracks, (Public Enemy) and Trent Reznor's soundscapes in Nine Inch Nails. I think also of Radiohead, Thom Yorke's other band, a great, great band that combines both old and new world strategies (real instruments combined with keyboard-based, computer-emulated, synthesized, extraneous sounds) to maximum effect.

So yes, even with my biases, I realize there are no rules. Does a film or an album work? Does it speak to me? Does it touch me? Does it open me? Do I fall in love? Am I challenged? What are they saying?  What's going on? What just happened?!