While doing some research on the subject of art versus entertainment, I came to this very interesting website called www.angelfire.com and read these priceless nuggets there and thought they would be fantastic to start a debate on the subject.

And I quote, “So what is this thing called art? It’s easy to define it by what it isn’t (i.e., entertainment... though art can be entertaining), but let’s try to define it by what it is. Art, to me, is a work that speaks to those who are willing to rise to it; a work that speaks to all genders, races, sexualities, religions, etc., at any time and in any place, and yet is not blandly homogenised — i.e., it isn’t that way by cowardly design, intended to reach a mass audience. It may in fact not reach an audience until decades or even centuries later.”
In another section it goes on to say, “Entertainment is terrified of losing you, and is willing to change itself to be more to your taste. Art doesn’t give a f@*# whether it loses you — if you’re lost, that’s your problem.”
All for art I should think and so would you. This brings me to the thought at hand and the film is Guzaarish. Hailed by the critics as one of the best feats of artistic cinema ever. I have not seen it but the people who have either swear by it or swear at it.
Let me digress a bit and look at the commercial aspects of the film just to give a little more meaning to the task at hand.
This is from a trade magazine called Super Cinema dated 20 November 2010. It says that the film Guzaarish would lose `35-40 crores for UTV and that the director of the film was paid a remuneration of `27 crores. Hrithik was paid 15 and Aishwarya 5 crores. The film cost them a whopping `85 crores!
I don’t care how much the director or the actors got paid and not important here to what we are discussing. The film then, if Super Cinema is right, going to lose the production/distribution house `35-40 crores. The point here then, is it good business or any other sense to make a film like this?
I would think that even a fifth grade student would tell you that it does not make great business sense but then was it a business decision to make a film like this? I don’t think it could have been. Why did kings and emperors through generations support great artists, painters and composers? Because they realised that art is for very few and art is expensive, but the only way it can survive is if you want nothing out of art but the titillation of the artistic senses.
Cinema perhaps is the only mainstream entertainment source that is also a source of art. So while there will be entertainment, there will also be artists painting their stories in heavenly hues. The point then?
We would be wrong to judge the work of art on the basis of its commercial success. That would be like judging love with the amount of gifts you receive from your loved one. We don’t question the price of a painting if it appeases our senses, then why question the price of a moving picture if it does the same thing?
Guzaarish has to be acclaimed for what it is and for the fact that if a production house decides to lose money to buy a work of art, then they are free to do so. Movies are not anyone’s domain. Entertainment is not the only one to have a right over movies, art does as well.