"Sometimes, a cigar, is just a cigar."

Edit: Also, thank you for reminding me of Margaret Atwood and Timothy Findley.
*twitch* Yay for illegal coerced abortion, and army rape. Yay.

I think Kyle brings up a good point; complexity and depth are two very different things. It's like they say, any idiot can make something sound complicated, but it takes a truly thoughtful person to make something complicated seem straight forward.

But going back to the original topic, I also find myself really frustrated with cryptic story telling. However, I've been lucky enough to work on a comic this year that has allowed me to wear the artist/writer cap, and here's what I've discovered; sometimes there really IS only one way to tell a story, cryptic or otherwise.

I mean, let's take the English Patient for example; sure, it could have been told in a straight, linear fashion; that may have made it a bit more user friendly too... but would it really have been the same story? More to the point, would the writer have felt the same way about it? If the author had made it a to-the-point historical piece, would he himself have taken the same pride in it? If it were me, I would feel like a sell out, writing something differently because I knew it wouldn't be received well the way I wanted to write it.

Anyway, I don't deny that there is a lot of poor, pseudo-deep story telling going on out there, but I think there's also a lot of work that is that much more poignant for not being so clear in its narrative.

There is a fundamental division between cryptic and impenetrable.  Take as an example Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons creating Watchmen, or Frank Miller's Sin City.  Both are quite convoluted, and the multiple flashbacks in the former tend to be rather disconcerting.    The manner in which the multiple narratives in the film of the latter cross over is similarly demanding.  However, the stories come together and the complexities lead somewhere.
Sometimes it takes a patient reader to follow a cryptic narrative to its payoff.  I am a big fan of the Coen Brothers, because their narratives tend toward multiple twists.  However, once it is all together, things make sense and repeated viewing is a pleasure because we understand where a particular element is leading.
There is no such payoff in an impenetrable piece of drivel.  It is a big tease that doesn't deliver.  There is a relevant quote from Shakespeare's Scottish play, which I place in a spoiler for the theatrically superstitious: 

Total Emperor's New Clothes situation.  If it takes the artist to tell you how deep and meaningful their art is then they're just selling snake oil.  It take a truly unbiased outside observer (not a fanboy/girl) to determine the worth of art.

I have a feeling a lot of modern art and "cutting edge" stuff in general is just people circle-jerking about how awesome they all are.  Amusingly I just caught the end of a South Park episode over the weekend which focused on Smug clouds forming over areas due to people buying hybrid cars.  A primary trait of all the smug people was them farting and then inhaling deeply of their own vapors (alluding to the possibility of it smelling like roses or at least not stinking).

No one's as clever as they think they are and everyone is going to get looked down upon by someone else.  The kool-aid drinkers will look down at the people who can't appreciate the splendor of the Emperor's garments and the cynics will look down their noses at those who stare so adoringly at the hairy, naked old dude.

Take a guess which side of the line I'm going to be on.

A lot of people have already said pretty much everything I would want to, but to summarize: being confusing is great so long as its possible to figure out pretty much whats happening by the end.  If its really confusing and I'm barely able to guess what's going on before the author reveals the big surprise like in Last Exile or in Unicorn Jelly then I pretty much want to have the book or movie's babies.

The meaning that the viewer or participant in a work of art can derive comes not just from the viewer but from the artist as well.

To wit, its not just what the viewer of a piece of art gets from a piece, but also what the artist was trying to say with the piece.

It tends to be easier in time-based work like film or animation or in time-reliant work like writing or comics for an artist to get their exact intended meaning across without further explanation.
In other non-time related mediums, such as paint, sculpture, etching, abstract or installation art, the intended meaning gets condensed, and in order to get the artist's full intention an explanation or a statement is sometimes in order.
Sometimes just the title is enough.  Sometimes its not.

To wit (again) the meaning isn't there just because you don't see it at first glance or even after a few glances.

If there isn't any sort of explanation forthcoming, at least in the form of a plaque or something though, then hell, at that point its all on the viewer.


Art is a form of communication, though, and as such it always has...or -ought- have some sort of meaning.  Communication without meaning is exactly nothing, and there's really no such thing as something that is "meaningful" without being specific on what its being meaningful about.

So Black Lace, chances are if your friend is saying something is brilliant without being able to comprehend it enough to take time to perhaps explain to some shallow artless neanderthal like yourself, she's just full of it.  Or she just doesn't know what she's talking about.

I've watched shows and stories that are complex and confusing before, and I've enjoyed them.  Mostly I've enjoyed them not because I understand and appreciate them in all their "deepness" and "complexity" but more because sometimes they're kind enough to leave interpretation up to the audience.  At that point, like a painting on a wall without a plaque, what you get out of it is up to you, which is a refreshing change from most things in movies and tv where the meaning behind the story more often than not comes in "bat to the face" format and leaves little room for reflection.

Whatever it is though, you can think of it like this:

Everything can be meaningful if you turn it the right way.  Even when its not.

The author of Eva said himself in an interview that he was dealing with some pretty serious psychosis at the time, and his choices were prison, intense therapy in a padded cell, or write Manga. Which would you choose?  Each of the chosen children represents a single issue he worked out in his own life by projecting it into another and helping them to overcome it.  Instrumentality was his own healing.  He later went on to write and direct the end of Eva movie because his fans said the ending made no sense to them.  It was a great big "Fuck You" to all those people who fawned over and identified with his pain but not with him.

When the Creator admits that his own work is drivel, then any depth you find on your own is hidden within his/your very soul.  That is the meaning of good art.

This brings to mind something that my dad taught me all when I was growing up. It helped me. I learned from it. And more importantly, it amused me. Because it had a swear and I was a kid.

"If you can't dazzle them with Brilliance, Baffle them with Bullshit."

The smartest people I ever knew spoke simple with the public and spoke 'advanced' as we liked to call it with each other. Because they knew that even the most brilliant ideas in the world were useless if that person who created it was the only one who could understand it.


... Confused. Isn't that normally what people do? You don't write hip-hop for the classical music lovers in the world, right?