How the Left uses art and cinema to topple governments

In 1974, Tom Wolfe was rudely jolted awake in his bathtub when he read the following words in The New York Times, written by Hilton Kramer, dean of the arts at Yale University: “Realism does not lack its partisans, but it does rather conspicuously lack a persuasive theory… to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial.”

Recall what I had mentioned about The Theory, The Theory, The Theory! in the previous episode of this series?

Tom Wolfe’s awakening culminated in his devastating evisceration of not just Hilton Kramer but the phenomenon that the likes of Kramer represented. Titled The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe delivered a masterclass and a magnificent critique of the art scene in the Elite and Posh America of the era, something he contemptuously called “Cultureburg.” Here is a sample from that essay: “Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text…Art made its final flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until… it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture… and came out the other side as Art Theory!… Art Theory pure and simple, words on a page, literature undefiled by vision.”

What Wolfe lamented and outraged about was the disappearance of the most fundamental element of all art: beauty. And here is the legendary DV Gundappa, writing about the same thing in 1969. It was his anguish and anxiety about the loss of beauty in literature that he wrote in beautiful prose.

“Art is the experience of beauty, grandeur and exaltation. But today, the new kinds of artworks flooding into India from Europe and America, do they give us this experience? In my case, the answer is no. Perhaps my view might be partially blind owing to my attachment to our artistic tradition. But a person who regards Jakkanachari, Tyagaraja, and Valmiki as Gurus does not get the aforementioned experience in these new works of art. But others who don’t have this attachment might experience beauty in them.  

In which case, what is beauty?  

In today’s world, there is no standard to measure it.

For us, dignity in dressing is beauty; for others nudity is. For us, subtle movement of the human body is beauty; titillation is vulgarity… new cults in art like the hippies and the Beatles have become popular even in India…to my eyes, their dressing and behaviour appear grotesque in the extreme. Even their painters have followed the same path… 

The fate of modern poetry is also similar…the simile is derived from some place and its object of comparison is unclear…it is impossible to understand the feeling or emotion attempted to be conveyed.

OVERALL, IT APPEARS AS THOUGH A SENSE OF ANARCHY AND FRENZY IS BEING DELIBERATELY SPREAD…

In my limited knowledge, a true conception of beauty and exaltation is characterised by selection and proportion. Not all things in this world are endowed with beauty, and not all parts of a thing are equally beautiful… But there is a fundamental philosophy underscoring selection and proportion. THE VISION OF BEAUTY AND GRANDEUR SHOULD NOT PERVERT THE CONNOISSEUR’S MIND. THE PAINTING OR PLAY OR SCENE MUST IMBUE JOY AND NOT INFLAME CRUDE PASSIONS. The enabler of beauty and profound values is a cultivated inward attitude of bashfulness… BASHFULNESS IS THE PROTECTIVE ARMOUR OF ALL ART. SANS THIS, THE WORK OF ART BECOMES AN EXHIBITION OF DEPRAVITY. Thus, the work of an artist is one that carries immense responsibility. Just as how the artist needs freedom, he must also erect restraints upon himself_._” (Capitalisation added)

Clearly, filmmakers of our own time continue to flagrantly violate every single warning that Gundappa has sounded here.

But to state it in polite language, today’s movies make us leave the theatre after having merely witnessed them, not experienced them. We have facts, not characters. Expertise in technique and craft have become convenient bypasses for circumventing art. In fact, at some point in this sojourn towards the bottom, acting or performance has been slowly murdered. We now have stock expressions for emoting which last for fleeting seconds instead of the time-honoured art of sustaining an emotion at length. The fine art of the monologue has mostly gone extinct, and both monologues and dialogues have become one-liners. Instead of allowing the actor to use his or her innate or honed creativity and wide reading to interpret the character, ready-made factory products are being handed down. As far as Indian cinema is concerned, we have bodybuilders and gymnasts and athletes as onscreen “heroes”. The acclaim received by “character actors” is precisely because the main leads are not actors. Female leads exist to perform one or both of these two functions: (1) to sexually arouse the audience (2) to spew the woke ideology.

In the final reckoning, this lethal handiwork of the Left, which has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams, serves another defining purpose of its ideology. The historical truth of Lenin’s hounding of intellectuals and artists is illustrative of this phenomenon. The moment he captured power, he decreed that all art was meant only to propagandise Communism. In other words, the Left uses art, literature, drama and cinema not merely to make an ideological statement but ultimately to topple governments. No section of society is immune from it.

And the first step towards this ultimate goal of government-toppling is to kill the very foundations and aim of all art — beauty and joy — and to replace it with fury, pessimism and agitation.

The downfall of Indian cinema has occurred exactly on these planes.

Series concluded

The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal.

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