Pretentious or sublime? - musings
- Mar 29
- 8 min read
“I'm tired of 'pretentious' just being used as an excuse to dismiss anything that fucking expects you to have a brain.” T.J. Kirk
Please excuse the language in the above quote, but it was the one quote that I found that kind of expressed the same feeling I get occasionally - most recently and most specifically after seeing Paolo Sorrentino's latest film, La Grazia. last Thursday. I saw the film with my friend Clare in the city. There were a mere half dozen people in one of the Kino's smallest cinemas. I thought it stunning.
Every shot in that film was arresting, perfectly framed, perfectly shot, and full of emotion in many numbers of ways. The story too was full of questions, thought provoking and mysterious. However, we both confessed afterwards as we discussed it over coffee and cake, that we worried that it might be pretentious? To which I shall return.
First - so that I maybe understand what pretentiousness is - a definition and etymology:
Definition from Oxford Languages:
"attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed."
Etymology from Etymonline:
"characterized by or full of claims to greater excellence or importance than the truth merits," 1836, from French prétentieux (17c.), from prétention "pretension," from Medieval Latin pretentionem (nominative pretentio) "pretension," noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin praetendere" - prae - before, tendere - to stretch - which gets to 'to put forward' in the sense of laying a claim. Which later moves to 'pretend' in the sense of pretending something is not what it actually is.
Enough of playing with words, which leads me to one of the things I was going to say about pretension. In my head - and for all I know in everybody's head, I sometimes have what I think are 'great thoughts' - well at least thoughts worth exploring either in my head or in this blog. However, in the process of getting them out of my head and into the written word, I discover that they really aren't great thoughts at all, and that I cannot express them as I would like. As now.
So let me return to my film, as an example of pretentiousness - well why we thought - and we were right - some will say it was pretentious - both in the subject matter and in the visualisation of that. Every shot was obviously carefully staged, and beautifully shot.
This one is an example - a scene in which our central character - the retiring President of Italy - has to greet the President of Portugal on an official visit. The Portuguese President is an old and frail man. He is confronted with a ridiculously long red carpet, laid out in the courtyard of the Presidential palace lined by a guard of honour. The scene is played in slow motion. A few steps along the carpet there is a sudden downpour, accompanied by a high wind. Nobody springs forward with an umbrella - except for one lone soldier, near the end of the carpet. The carpet is increasingly whipped up out of place, so that eventually it knocks the President over and he falls to the ground. Everyone is impassive. One watches with increasing, somewhat amused, horror and bemusement at why no-one is offering help. Which is never explained. We are left to ponder on this. There is no follow-up to the scene. The title of the film is La Grazia - Grace. There is no Grace here in a moral sense, but a huge amount of grace in a visual sense, albeit simultaneously amusing, humiliating and worrying. One critic suggested:
"Even scenes set in an Italian prison have real visual flair. This implies that the grace the Prime Minister seeks is, in fact, all around him if he can only let go of the past and embrace it." Glenn Kenny/Roger Ebert
Is this what it was all about perhaps? I am still thinking about it, wondering why this scene was included. And many others besides. Some of them stunningly beautiful, strangely moving, annoying, mysterious. It made an impression. So surely not pretentious. To me it was sublime, magical at times, and it certainly made me think. And as another film-maker - Francis Ford Coppola said:
"If you're not allowed to experiment anymore for fear of being considered self-indulgent or pretentious or what have you, then everyone's going to just stick to the rules - there's not going to be any additional ideas." Francis Ford Coppola
Pretentious doesn't just apply to film however. It extends to the whole world of creativity. And for every creator there are consumers of their creations, and as we know everyone according to their intelligence, their interests, their personality and their social status in the broadest possible sense, is going to have a different opinion of the creation. Are any of those opinions wrong? Here is another example from my recent life. Two books.
And I just noticed that the two authors are versions of Madeleine - one of life's little coincidences. The book on the left was one that I purchased, thinking it looked interesting - a Booker Prize short-listed book. It's got to be good doesn't it? And I sort of see why people might think so, but for me I really just did not understand it - and it was too disjointed, leaping from descriptive, separate but connected stories, to metaphysical, even mathematical, scientific discussions of time. But yes, I guess it was well-written. But - truly pretentious to my mind, and the fact that I did not understand mattered this time. Which is curious, because it did not matter to me that I did not fully understand La Grazia. Perhaps I almost did. I think the meaning of the film probably all came down to empathy and trust and a willingness to question one's motives. I have no idea what the book was all about. I was so far away from understanding that I did not want to think further on it - it's now in the street library.
The other is a book society choice, and to be fair to it I have only read a few pages. This is a New York Times bestseller whatever that means, but I'm guessing it has sold more copies than the other. My few pages of reading tell me that it might be an enjoyable read, but not terribly well written and with no big message to convey. A bit pedestrian. And yet, more succesful in a commercial sense. As blockbusters are more successful than art-house films. I will not ponder on what that means in societal terms, other than that it had a more general appeal.
My other examples, at last perhaps, come from the world of food. First a comparison between my two current gurus - I suppose. Nigel and Ottolenghi - why Nigel and why not Yotam? Anyway following on from yesterday's post on mustard - yesterday we had the Creamy chicken with mustard and gherkins from Ottolenghi - which was pretty delicious but in a way not very Ottolenghi like because it was basically the classic French Poulet Dijonnais. Tonight we are having Nigel's Mustard and lemon sausages with carrot mash.
The Ottolenghi dish, delicious though it is is not a good example of what I want to say about pretentiousness here. Generally speaking, Ottolenghi's food is sort of experimental, there is generally a very distinctive twist - it's creative in a particular way that has come to be associated with that style of food and his name. Does this make it pretentious and only able to be enjoyed by the 'cultured' few? Well no - I suspect not as his books sell millions. He does write about his food, and there is real thought in his writing, and a lot of the, perhaps usual, stuff about comfort, family, community ... but it is pretty straightforward - if quotable - in presentation. He does have a degree in philosophy and maybe that is shown in his approach to food creation, and to a lesser extent in his writings, which are always very readable, personal even, but not consciously literal.
Nigel on the other hand is all about the writing. Indeed he describes himself as a 'writer who cooks' and his food more closely resembles what any good home cook can throw together from the contents of their fridge. Which is not to decry it at all, although it sometimes is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes superb sometimes not.
The writing however, is obviously worked at. Even the handwriting is worked at. Apparently he is interested in calligraphy, and seems to only do handwriting, not word processing. The words themselves in his essays, long and short can be immensely lyrical, moving, whimsical perhaps, but satisfying, although always with that sneaking suspicion, on my part, as for that film, that it is pretentious.
Which may come from my childhood years of attempting not to be shown as clever. Clever, not brilliant, I hasten to add. Being clever in certain places, made you pretentious and a show-off. And nobody wants to be thought a show-off?
But is that right? In every field of creation there are people who want to show themselves off - increasingly so in a world that is overwhelmingly visual. Just think about the Kardashians. Are they pretentious - or just themselves?
Which brings me to haute cuisine. In yesterday's AFR over the top Life and Leisure Magazine there was an article written by Jill Dupleix about a chef in Athens called Petros Dimas, who used to be chef de cuisine in Gordon Ramsay's three Michelin star Chelsea restaurant, and who has already gleaned one star in Athens. This is one of his dishes - based on red mullet. This is food as art. Does that make it pretentious? If the taste is divine - I shall never know - is it pretentious? A lot of thought, hard work and artistic skill has gone into it. Like haute couture and the very best wines of the world, it is a consumable for the rich alone.
Good food, delicious food, however, is available to everyone:
"Do not be afraid of simplicity. If you have a cold chicken for supper, why cover it with a tasteless white sauce which makes it look like a pretentious dish on the buffet table at some fancy dress ball? Marcel Boulestin
And to demonstrate this - in Thursday's Age Nick Sweet did a blind tasting of basic salted crisps available on supermarket shelves - which included gourmet supermarkets, and the winner was from Aldi - Gourmet Blackstone Gourmet Snack Co. Sea Salt ($2.99 per 100g) and his worst - which got a minus 20 out of 10 mark was Amica chips Sapore sale gigliata at $6.50 per 100g. But we knew that about supermarket food didn't we? We also know that this is just one guy's opinion.
Art - in the sense of painting and sculpture is more democratic. Well partially at least. The world's greatest art hangs on a gallery wall somewhere for anyone who can afford the admission fee - and there is not always a fee - and the fare to get there - to see. Not quite true I guess as some of it hangs on the walls of the homes of the very rich. But virtually all of those that we know are accessible to all.
Going back to my opening quote I think that great art of any kind is defined by whether it moves you in some way - good or bad - and makes you think, reaches your soul - is it pretentious to mention the soul? The part of you that seeks for some kind of meaning to life. Pretentious implies an attempt to deceive. Were those first artists, drawing their world on the walls of caves trying to impress? to deceive? Why have we always wanted to make our surroundings, and yes, ourselves, beautiful? Is it pretentious to strive to create something that achieves all those nebulous things?
"Yes, of course we were pretentious - what else is youth for? Julian Barnes
Some of us still are pretentious. Including Julian Barnes - in the sense that he strives to say meaningful things with meaningful words. He doesn't fail however.
YEARS GONE BY
March 29
2024 - Is this a listicle?
2023 - Nothing
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Nothing
2018 - Cheese on a stick
Pretentious or Pedestrian. Pretending or flat footed. Fake or Fiction.. Take your pick! 😘