Flower Duet

You’ve never heard of it, but you’ve heard it…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf42IP__ipw

This duet is featured in Piranha 3D, Meet the Parents, Superman Returns (Kevin Spacey’s scene), Bronson (with Tom Hardy), Carlito’s Way, True Romance,  and The Hunger.  Hmmm, only seen Meet the Parents and Superman returns.  Then there’s the Trout Quintet.  That was in Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows.  The villain, Moriarity uses that song to torture Holmes.  Over and Over and Over we see Classical music being the music of choice for the villains.  Why is that?

It is the music of the elite.  Rap, Punk, Metal… yes those bands are expensive, but there are only a few members of each band.  An orchestra though, that’s some heavy stage production!  What if you wanted to cut it down to one or two people…Bach Cello Prelude comes to mind, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgG-0lOJjk.  Look at the look on his face!  He’s transported!       

Fur Elise  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1iZXyWLnXg is another solo you might request.  But when it comes to performing these songs, it takes years of practice and study to play them as they were meant to be played.  It’s not something you can just play.  So the music is not music of the common person.  It is relegated to those who have the time to listen, truly listen and appreciate this type of music.

Fine art is the same way…Modern, Renaissance, Impressionistic art, is appreciated with time and study.

  Is this sculpture modern or ancient?  Is it a work in progress or finished?  What does it mean?  How was it conceived?  Who was the artist?  Fine art, whether it is Modern, Renaissance, Impressionistic art, is appreciated with time and study.

Classical Dance, same story:  you can go to the ballet, but unless you understand what you’re seeing, there is no appreciation.  All the finest art is for those few with the inclination to study and become familiar with the forms, and the time to expend on the appreciation.

If you look at the portraits in the Louvre, those are not primitive photos.  Most think of the Mona Lisa as a rather large painting.  It’s not.  It’s only 20″ X 30″

Each painting reveals the subject’s place in time, their character, the character of the artist, and the perspective unique to the piece.  The photographic portraits reveal the skill of the photographer to get the subject to sit still for 20 seconds.  In fact those really aren’t portraits; they’re just pictures.  A modern artist in photographic portraits spends a lot of time placing, posing and dressing the subject and the background to achieve art.

Do you understand why the best actors prefer the live stage to the movie or t.v. set?  It’s continuous acting!  Engaging oneself for the duration of the play and intense interaction with the other players and the audience as well.  In those plays that have long runs, the dynamic on the stage and with the audience changes each time it is performed and makes it critical to fully engage in every performance as if it was Opening Night.  The appreciation of this interaction by members of the audience takes an understanding of the play, the players, the direction and the venue.

This appreciation takes education in areas not normally associated with the common man.  “Common men” have no interest in art for art’s sake, no curiosity in the finer things in life.  They don’t need a higher level of education, and I’m not talking about degrees and certifications.  You will find “common men” with PhD’s.  They thirst for knowledge, but not knowing.  They focus on intellect not understanding.  “Common men” do not ponder.  Highly intelligent people think differently than Smart people.  Smart people can regurgitate facts and statistics and fascinating trivia, but they cannot interpret this information in a way that opens new insights into how the universe works.  Highly intelligent people, on the other hand, see connections that link seemingly unconnected things.

Most have heard the butterfly effect.  Tiny, almost inconsequential differences in initial conditions can result in vastly different ending conditions.  The ripples of change brought about by nearly unnoticeable actions of so many different sources makes things that would seem random to actually be traced, action for action, second for second back to a set of initial conditions that due to the “randomness that is our existence” cannot be duplicated.

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

― Benjamin Franklin

tags: butterfly-effect, poor-richard-s-almanac

All the Cumulative stories like that one and “The House that Jack Built” told to children are impressing on children that some things that happen without apparent reason can actually be traced back to the actions of one person or event.  What the “common man” sees appears random, and what the “Smart man” sees is interesting, but what the “Highly Intelligent man” sees is turns of events.

So the “Highly Intelligent man” craves the understanding of the arts, not because it is elite but because he thinks beyond the ordinary.  Classical music, visual arts and performance arts take mundane subjects and changes them into metaphysical expressions, and takes the metaphysical and translates it into a language that can be understood by few.

To further our understanding, let us define villain then.  Not all criminals are villains.  A villain is a criminal that is so self serving and so psychopathic that he’s more interested in the reaction to his crime than the actual monetary or emotional gain derived from his illegal acts.  He seeks the elite.  He looks at the victims of his crimes as a scientist would look at his experimental rats.  He doesn’t derive emotional satisfaction from his crimes.  His emotional, spiritual, and physical fulfillment is found in outside sources such as the fine arts…experiences that are usually restricted to an elite group of people.  They find beauty in the architecture of Rome, the music of Bach and Mozart, the ballet of Diaghilev,  the art of Raphael and Salvador Dali, the poems of Robert Frost, the cuisine of Le Gabriel restaurant in Paris.  They seek out new cultural experiences, read prolifically, and listen to music in all types of venues.  They study color and composition to appreciate art.  So this highly intelligent man will seek the same appreciation as the members of this elite group.

I’m not saying that these pursuits are restricted to the elite; they are most certainly not.  Anyone can turn on a classical station or go to a concert or a ballet or an opera.  It is the cost of a ticket to see great art in a museum.  It is a library card away from books about art and music and any other cultural medium.  It is just a click away on the internet to access some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.  What I am saying is that most people do not want to make the effort.  The villains do because the only beauty they will find in life is outside of themselves.  They crave what they cannot find in themselves.  They look for evidence of Heaven on earth because they know they will never experience the real thing.

Except…

This may be an artifice that Hollywood has come up with.  Is there any research that proves that the music of choice in villains is classical, or proves that they have a higher appreciation for beauty and art than heroes?  Yes, Hitler loved Wagner, but that’s because Wagner wrote about Teutonic gods and heroes.  I find it difficult to believe that evil people can love beautiful music or art.  You cannot love something you cannot relate to, can you?

We, who have an abundance of beauty within us and surrounding us, do not make the effort to cultivate these longings for the extraordinary beauty that is available because good is good enough.  We let “good” eclipse “extraordinary” much to our loss.