# LLM Summary of [[Medium Specificity]] ## Introduction - The notion of [[medium specificity]] has a long history in [[the philosophy]] of art, with its most classic statement found in Lessing's treatise Laocoon. - Traditionally, the doctrine of [[medium specificity]] holds that art forms are individuated by their physical media, which also provide norms of excellence determined by the possibilities and/or limitations of their material constitution. - [[Medium specificity]] has been especially influential in the history and philosophy of film. - Many theorists of silent film (e.g., Béla Balázs, Rudolf Arnheim, V.I. Pudovkin) relied on [[medium specificity]] to establish cinema's artistic credentials. - Later, sound film theorists like André Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer used [[medium specificity]] to defend realism as the essence of cinema. - Critics have used [[medium specificity]], or the notion of the "cinematic," as a measure of filmic achievement. - "A film was good if it exploited the unique properties of the medium; a film was defective to the extent that it was uncinematic—that it failed to take advantage of the potentials of film as film." - [[The concept]] of [[medium specificity]] was also used to argue for the development of academic film departments, as film art was seen as grounded in unique features requiring its own discipline distinct from other fields. - In the last quarter of the 20th century, [[medium specificity]] fell out of favor due to various philosophical problems. - Recently, modified versions of [[medium specificity]] have been proposed by philosophers like Berys Gaut, Dominic Lopes, and Ted Nannicelli, who expand the conception of the medium to include film practices (a praxeological concept) rather than just material aspects. ## What Was [[Medium Specificity]]? - Early film theorists faced two challenges: 1. Showing that film could be an art despite arguments that it was merely a mechanical recording of reality without room for creativity or expression. - "Film theorists, like the philosopher Hugo Münsterberg, countered these arguments by maintaining, for example, that cinema, through its physical structuring devices—like the close-up and parallel editing—was mind-like and, therefore, capable of expressive effects and imaginative manipulation." 2. Demonstrating that film was an art form in its own right, [[not just]] "theater in a can." - "To suppose that there was an autonomous art of film separate and apart from the artistic plays they contained would be like mistaking the potato chip package for the potato chips." - [[Medium specificity]] theories argued that film's unique features differentiated it from other art forms, especially theater, and that these features provided a range of effects film could achieve better than any other medium. - "The pertinent effects here—such as the representations of fast-moving action over great distances—moreover, were not only putative effects that no other artistic medium could deliver as expeditiously, they were also the best effects available by means of cinema as well." - These effects were seen as what cinema artists should aspire to, as they represented the best cinematic effects achievable. - Cinematic effects were regarded as positive achievements, while uncinematic effects (e.g., theatrical ones) were disapproved of. - "On this view, the theatrical set design and acting of Lars von Trier's Dogville comes off badly even though these choices were perfectly suited to realizing his purpose: to portray American society as governed by implacably oppressive roles for which theater functioned as a symbol." - Medium specificity criticism imposed standards dictating what artists should do. - The underlying intuition was that one should use the right tool for the job, with each art form having its own domain based on its unique capabilities. - However, local assessments of the effectiveness or defectiveness of medium use relative to a filmmaker's specific aims are not examples of medium specificity thinking. - "For, although the preceding two assessments make reference to the material medium, they are not examples of medium specificity thinking, properly so-called, as it has been handed down in the tradition of film theory because these appraisals are local, applying to the effectiveness or defectiveness of the use of the medium relative to the specific filmmakers' aims." - Traditional medium specificity theories made general claims, plotting systematic regularities between medium use and artistic achievement or defectiveness. ### Problems with Medium Specificity Theories - Medium specificity theories often fail to align with actual assessments of achievement in motion picture history. - The "Oceana Roll" sequence in Chaplin's The Gold Rush, despite being essentially a recorded stage performance without distinctive cinematic features, is widely regarded as a masterful work of film art. - In contrast, the Keystone Kops comedy Lizzies of the Field, which exploits editing to represent fast-paced action impossible to portray on stage, would be ranked higher by medium specificity standards, but is considered inferior to the "Oceana Roll" by most critics. - Defenders of medium specificity might argue that purity to the medium is intrinsically good, but this contradicts the very idea of a medium as a means to an end. - "One problem with this proposal is it makes it sound as though being true to the medium or being pure is good for its own sake or intrinsically good. But that would appear to contradict or, at least, misconstrue the very idea of what it is to be a medium—that is, a means. A medium, in other words, is instrumentally valuable, if it is valuable at all." - Empirical evidence does not support the claim that impure cinema is always defective and pure cinema always superior. - "Moreover, there are many more examples than merely this one from Chaplin. For instance, myriad hack TV directors have produced work that is thought to conform more strictly to the alleged dictates of the medium than did Marcel Pagnol, but few, if any, have produced a masterpiece as moving as his film Césare." - Things that a medium does better than other media are not necessarily excellent. - "Furthermore, it should be obvious that things a medium does better than other media are not destined to be excellent. Computer-generated imaging (CGI), considered as a material medium, stages battles between superheroes and behemoths bent on conquering Earth better than other media, notably theater and maybe even photographically based cinema. But the effect is uniformly tiresome rather than excellent as proven by the last 20 minutes of most Marvel blockbusters when our heroes hurl large objects, like trucks, trains, and buildings at the monsters, and the monsters return gargantuan fire with monotonous regularity and ineffectuality." - Medium specificity theorists often disagree about which features of the medium are pertinent, lining up in opposing camps (e.g., realists vs. formalists). - Artistic excellence should be the primary concern in critical evaluation, regardless of whether it results from distinctive medium use. ## The Return to Medium Specificity - Recently, philosophers Berys Gaut, Dominic McIver Lopes, and Ted Nannicelli have defended modified versions of medium specificity. - They share an expanded notion of the medium that includes practices alongside material elements (a praxeological concept rather than a strictly material one). - "This raises the question, as we will see, of whether these contemporary philosophers are really defending anything worth really calling a medium specificity theory or whether they have changed the subject in a way that is ultimately uninteresting." ### Berys Gaut's Approach - Gaut defends three theses as constituting allegiance to a medium specificity doctrine: 1. "Some correct artistic evaluations of artworks refer to distinctive properties of the medium in which these artworks occur." 2. "Correct explanations of some of the artistic properties of artworks refer to distinctive properties of the medium in which these artworks occur." 3. "For a medium to constitute an art form, it must instantiate artistic properties that are distinct from those that are instantiated by other media." - Gaut's theses restrict the scope of medium specificity claims, making them less ambitious than traditional theories. - He suggests that only some evaluations and explanations rely on distinctive medium features, discovered a posteriori, whereas traditional theorists made a priori, systematic generalizations. - Gaut's version of medium specificity is far less powerful than traditional accounts like Arnheim's. - "Consequently, inasmuch as Arnheim is probably the most articulate proponent of medium specificity, I think we may fairly charge Gaut with changing the topic rather than offering a defensible version of something authentically considered a medium specificity thesis, especially if that view is a theory in the sense of plotting systematic regularities." - Gaut expands the notion of medium to include practices, following Richard Wollheim, to distinguish art forms from non-art activities that employ the same technical resources. - However, adding practices to the account of medium makes it difficult to be a robust medium specificity proponent, as discrete art forms often share practices despite deploying different materials. - Gaut's attempts to individuate cinema seem to fail. - His claim that the moving image is unique to cinema is false, as moving images are found in various other media and realizable by different means of implementation. - "Gaut's various concrete attempts to individuate cinema seem to me to fail. At one point, he claims that the moving image is unique to cinema. But if 'cinema' is being used here in its conventional sense, this sounds false, since shadow puppetry, video games, flip books, various optical toys like the zoetrope not to mention broadcast TV, and video all involve moving images." - Gaut's suggestions about what differentiates cinema from theater are often off the mark. - "In a number of cases, Gaut's suggestions about what differentiates cinema from theater are off the mark. Considerations of space do not allow a review of all of them. But here is a sample of unsuccessful contrasts. He cites editing as unique to cinema, but if the editing in question involves the juxtaposition of scenes and/or images, theater can do it by means of lighting. Gaut cites rack focus as another contrast, yet the effect can be secured via scrims and lighting." ### Ted Nannicelli's Approach - Nannicelli endorses a praxeological conception of the medium, especially as advanced by Gaut. - He defines a medium as "something like a cluster of relatively, stable coherent practices of making something in a particular vehicular medium [where a 'vehicular medium' is a set of particular materials – a.k.a. a traditional medium]." - Nannicelli attempts to individuate movies from television based on divergent temporality practices, but this distinction is problematic. - Both film and television have employed serial and episodic formats throughout their histories, as well as stand-alone, "one-off" temporal forms. - "What Nannicelli seems to have done in setting up his distinction between film and television has been to contrast certain typical kinds of contemporary movies with the kind of television series, like Better Call Saul, that exemplify the so-called present Golden Age of television. At best, this would be to mistake certain selected period-specific trends for an ontological distinction." - Nannicelli's praxeological approach risks having too few media, as it may lead to considering avant-garde film and video or mainstream commercial cinema and television as the same media if they share all the same practices. ### Dominic Lopes's Approach - Lopes shares similarities with Gaut and Nannicelli in not regarding media as necessarily just material, but also constituted by practices. - He aims to address the question of defining art by maintaining that something is an artwork if it is a member of an art kind. - Being an art kind requires having a distinctive medium profile, which includes practices (especially appreciative practices) appropriate to understanding work in that art kind. - Lopes's view implies that every artwork belongs to at least one art kind and that there are no artworks without media, which seems false given examples like ready-mades, conceptual art, and performance art. - His attempts to deal with apparent counterexamples (e.g., by classifying them as early progenitors of future art kinds or as all belonging to the broad category of conceptual art) are problematic. - Lopes's framework for investigating art kinds has not been fully fleshed out for any individual case, so its viability remains uncertain. - In discussing evaluation, Lopes tends to emphasize the value that individual arts have qua their specific art kinds, which risks fetishizing purity over excellence. ## The Issue of Evaluation - Today, the notion of medium specificity primarily functions in terms of evaluation, if it has any role at all with respect to film and video. - For Gaut, medium specificity in evaluation means that some cases of filmic evaluation refer to features of the cinematic medium. - E.g., Jean Renoir's irregular panning in 1930s films contributes to a sense of spontaneity and realism. - The crucial question is whether it is the medium-specific feature itself that is commendable or its use in serving the filmmaker's purposes. - "Surely, this use of the medium is commendable because it serves Renoir's purposes so neatly. Indeed, it embodies or articulates his purposes." - When evaluating an artistic choice in film, what matters most is whether the artist's purpose is being served, not whether the device is medium-specific. - Endorsing the latter view fetishizes the medium as valuable for its own sake. - The same point applies to negative evaluations. - E.g., the accidental inclusion of anachronistic elements like wristwatches in period films is an artistic defect not because it enlists an essential feature of the medium, but because it conflicts with the film's purposes. - Artistic choices not unique to the film medium can warrant positive evaluations when they serve the filmmaker's aims. - The predominance of purpose in evaluation explains why Gaut must limit his claims about medium specificity to only some instances. - An alternative, purpose-driven approach to evaluation is at least as general as the medium specificity view. - Every film has a purpose (or set of purposes), so assessing how well it achieves those purposes is always part of the evaluative process. - This alternative approach avoids the untenable evaluations that medium specificity theories sometimes produce (e.g., ranking Lizzies of the Field over the "Oceana Roll" sequence). - "My slogan might be summarized as 'Excellence above purity.'"