Creative Intent

There's a debate going on in a corner of the "horror blogosphere" (everything has its blogosphere) as to whether it is important to consider (or, sometimes, to guess at) creative intent in discussing depictions of violence in film. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's very important. It isn't everything, it doesn't dictate all your conclusions; but it's important. I say this in part because works of art are intentional objects; they're not puddles. One participant in the debate stakes his argument on the fact that any utterance has a deeper meaning, whether or not that meaning is intended; and I'll concede the point. Almost every utterance is interpretable and discussable in both sociological and psychological terms; and I often find those discussions quite interesting. But those approaches don't differentiate with respect to value, they un-differentiate; they completely level the playing field. That is right for the purposes of the sociologist and psychologist, but it doesn't help me much as someone engaging with the arts. I want to know what objects are more worthy of my time and attention; I am not obligated to give equal time and attention to everything that's out there, nor could I. We can chemically analyze both a meal from McDonald's and a meal from a fine Thai restaurant, but I know where I'd rather eat.

To put it as a thought experiement: if I sat Francis Ford Coppola or Eric Rohmer or Edward Wood, Jr. down and had them each free-associate into a microphone for an hour, the results would no doubt be fascinating sociologically, psychologically, and even, in a nascent way, artistically; but they wouldn't be shaped works of art, and it would be unfair to those gentlemen to discuss them as such. Intentionality matters.