WP2: A Professor on Separating the Art from the Artist
One reason that I feel impelled to consider the “can you separate the art from the artist” question is because it is a concept often discussed in my life. I mostly see it in the education sector of my life, the discussion of it amongst professors and students often presents very oppositional opinions and heated class conversations. My current major is film production, and it’s no secret that the film industry in particular grapples with the question of separating the art from the artist, more so than many other industries. There has always been abuse of power in the background of movie making, the rewards of being successful in the industry; the glamor, the riches, the fame, often result in a lack of humanity in the leading players of media entertainment. It seems to me that the cut-throat environment of the industry has created an excuse for the bad behavior seen within the community, a notion that I typically have heard from the older generations who work in film. Being someone who has very hard intolerance for abuse of power, it can be difficult to have the people leading my education not look at my perspective on the matter, nor the perspective of their students in general. In my years in college, I have seen my film teachers put art on a very high pedestal, as do I, but in their case the pedestal is so high that it completely ignores any troubling context around that art.
This matter is something I take very personally and thus my response to it is emotional and defensive, which often makes conversations about it hard to have. I find that a lot of my peers feel the same intolerance that I do, and it’s easy to talk with them about the subject, but the same can’t be said for my professors. Hearing my teachers, these people I am supposed to respect and learn from, tell me that such dire context like rape or racism shouldn’t be taken into account when viewing a film, makes me feel nervous for the future of the film industry. How can we protect victims when we don’t even consider them?
So in an attempt to discover more about the dealings of separating the art from the artist in film education, I decided to interview a film educator on the subject of separation and the conversation of it in film school, to understand where their opinions may differ from mine. More than that, I wanted to look at this topic in a new way, and maybe lift some of the fear I have surrounding it.
As I have mentioned, I often find it hard to discuss this topic with my teachers. This may be because based on past experience I assume that they won’t listen to the opposing side or simply because of the unequal power dynamic between student and teacher. So when pushing myself to have conversations about separating the art from the artist, it was important to me that I talked with a film educator who I felt would respect my opinion while still giving their personal input, no matter if it differed from mine. There was only one person I could think of who checked that box.
Professor Nick Tanis has worked at New York University as a film educator for nearly 50 years, as well as being a creator in the industry itself. I had the pleasure of taking a class taught by him in my sophomore year of college and felt truly touched by his efforts to not only impart wisdom on us but to equally learn from his students as well. So when he agreed to speak with me on this topic, I not only felt very lucky, but also very comfortable.
We began our conversation talking about some of the complex contexts involved in a few of the cases seen when talking about separating the art from the artist. Professor Tanis brought up the work of director D.W. Griffith, most specifically his film Birth of a Nation, a work often cited as one of the foundational films of the movie industry. I have personally seen many film professors refuse to talk about the blatant racism depicted in the movie, and I’ve never understood why film schools feel the need to include something so hateful in our lessons, no matter how foundational it was. In our conversation, Professor Tanis informed me that while Birth of a Nation is a racist film that contributed to the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, it also led to the formation of the NAACP. What I also did not know was that Griffith followed Birth of a Nation with a film called Broken Blossoms, which depicted an interracial relationship between a white woman and a Chinese man. When the film was released in 1919, Chinese people were still being actively excluded from entering the United States and Griffith’s work was able to teach audiences a sense of compassion for the couple amidst a time of hatred . In the way that so many of my teachers had refused to address the negative context of D.W. Griffith, I had refused to look at the positive context.
While this point about Griffith certainly gave me pause to consider the context of troubling art, I found it hard to apply that same mindset to work made by sexual abusers. This is something that I brought up with Professor Tanis, and I shared with him that a lot of my resentment towards professors’ dealings with this subject is due to the fact that one of his colleagues had publicly criticized me for getting emotional during a screening of Last Tango in Paris, a film that features a scene in which an actress was genuinely sexually assaulted. While Professor Tanis agreed with me that anyone who takes advantage of another person should experience consequences, and that his colleague’s dealing with the situation was incorrect, he suggested that there are still lessons to be found in work made in this context. Unlike myself, Professor Tanis can still find beauty in Last Tango in Paris, despite the abuse involved, and he proposed that there is a way for future artists to look at the effect created in the movie and decipher how to achieve the same thing through honest and moral means. I agree with him in the sense that the film has artistic value, all of the films at the center of this debate must have value because there would be no reason to talk about them if they didn’t.
This is where I see the biggest difference in Professor Tanis’ and my views. Tanis sees this conversation as a way to shape the future, while I think the conversation should shape both the past and the future. This may be why I struggle to discuss separating the art from the artist, because it’s a lot harder to change the past than it is to change the future. I still don’t think history excuses abuse but if I were to prioritize the two, I can agree that it’s far more important to work at changing the future of this conversation than arguing about the past.
But I said to Professor Tanis that I don’t think the current discussion of separating the art from the artist in film school is making a better future for the future industry. How can things change when we don’t discuss them? Professor Tanis agreed, he said that he has seen many of his colleagues inadequately address these subjects, due to what he finds as a superiority context. Professors don’t feel the need to cater to their students feelings on a subject because they don’t value their student’s experience as much as their own, they are the ones who have years of experience and knowledge behind them so how could a 20 year old’s opinion be of any importance? Professor Tanis cited one of his own mentors from his college years, a teacher who had greatly impacted Tanis’ life, who was a misogynist that refused to consider progress in the film industry. But just like everything else we discussed, there was a lesson in it. In following in his mentor’s footsteps at New York University, Professor Tanis was able to apply the good things he had seen in his teacher, and throw away the bad.
I asked Professor Tanis how he personally deals with the subject in the teaching of his courses, he said that he is always open to the acknowledgement and discussion of any industry abuse or hatred, and that he gives students a chance to inform him of any work, artists, or themes that they will not feel comfortable artistically analyzing, prior to class. I find this to be a very helpful policy, yet it has been rare for me to see any of my film professors, other than Professor Tanis, apply it.
We ended our discussion in agreement that this topic takes work. It’s going to take a lot more discussions within the industry to see actual progress, and film educators are not exempt from that, in fact they have a responsibility to be leading that work and making sure that their students are equipped to deal with it in the future.
In looking at my opinion on separating the art from the artist, at least before I had this conversation with Professor Tanis, I think a lot of my fear came from the pressure I put on myself to have a very strong stance, to not give any tolerance to the films or filmmakers involved because to me that meant disrespect to the victims. The stakes of this conversation aren’t light and I still don’t think abuse and hatred should be accepted in any sense but how am I supposed to contribute to change coming from a tense and hateful viewpoint myself?
What I was most worried about going into this conversation with Professor Tanis, was not that I wouldn’t agree with him, but that I would become resentful to any opinion he had that did not follow my very high expectancy for discussions like this. There have been so many times that I have felt disappointed in my educators because they could not handle the task of discussing separating the art from the artist, and I was scared I might feel the same after this conversation. Luckily that didn’t happen, as Professor Tanis was skilled with the sympathy and self awareness that I have found lacking in my other educators, and was able to present me with opinions that weren’t identical to my own but that I could still see understanding and humanity in. I now see that there are ways to consider these filmmakers that will bring about lessons in negative consequences and positive consequences.
Going forward in this subject, I want to take the energy I had coming in, but get rid of the pressure I felt. Professor Tanis made me realize that it’s not my opinion that will help in changing the environment of the industry, it’s the conversation I have that will. Each conversation that is had makes it easier for things to be addressed and slowly changed as we move forward, and that conversation shouldn’t start late in the industry. The current change we need to work on is learning how to have this discussion not only with our peers but with our elders, and that begins with film educators.
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