Personal Crimes, Sins, Peccadilloes of Artists and Their Works

Cafe Society
1

“Inspired” by Twickster’s modding in the thread on Roman Polanski’s European Film Award wins for Ghost Writer (he said the thread was no place to discuss Polanski’s child-rape) I am starting this thread, on the extent to which an artists personal sins, crimes and peccadilloes can or should be part of the evaluation of their worth as an artist.

Clearly, I think it’s reasonable to assess Polanski’s criminal history when thinking of his works, in fact, given that the law has been unable to wrap its hands around Polanski and haul him off to the jail cell he belongs in, I feel that I have a sort of civic duty to rain on his parade at every opportunity, to remind people just what a scumbag he is whenever his works are mentioned, to make clear that everything he has done as an artist has been soiled and devalued by his personal life.

Clearly other people disagree, as several stated explicitly that they did not consider Polanski’s personal crime to have any bearing on his work. To me this is just sorta saying, "Hey, it was a good movie, I’m not about to let moral considerations get in the way of being entertained. If Arthur Clarke had been a pederast, that would have in no way have lessened my enjoyment of "Childhood’s End! just as if Jeffrey Dahmer had been a great artist, I still would have enjoyed his paintings.

Now I have to admit there may be a kind of sliding scale here, a slippery slope if you will, which is why I added “Sins” and Peccadilloes" to the title. Just what outrages you and the extent to which you can reasonably expect others to share in your outrage gets more dubious as you head down the slope of lesser crimes. Frex, I hate Joan Crawford because she was a child abuser … her adopted daughter wrote a tell-all book in which she said that Crawford would fly into rages periodically and beat her with coat hangars. Never have been able to like her or any of her movies since I found that out. But I don’t know that I expect everyone else to feel the same way.

Farther down the scale we have H.P. Lovecraft, a favorite horror writer of mine, who was an anti-Semite and bigot (he bought into the Yellow Peril brand of bigotry). I guess I am not so offended by Lovecraft because I never really considered the guy sane, and his bigotry seems kind of part and parcel with his general looniness. In the same vein, Pablo Picasso was reputedly a complete bastard when it came to his treatment of the women in his life, but since I never really liked his work, I don’t feel any inclination to excuse his rottenness on behalf of any of his paintings.

So, it’s a gray area, seems worthy of discussion, so have at, if you are so inclined. Does great art give the artist a pass with regard to moral failings, even very serious ones that rise to the level of heinous crimes? Or should we take the artist into consideration when evaluating our opinion of their work? The floor is open!

2

I thought that most people who would know, people like ex-maids, various friends of the family, and most importantly the other Crawford children, have come forward to claim that while Joan Crawford was indeed a strict mother, she was nothing like the vile, abusive monster that Christina Crawford made her out to be.

3

Do you think she lied about being beaten with coat hangers?

4

Her brother and sister seem to think so…

5

Well it is hard to know who to believe in these cases but I will take Joan off the “evil” list til I have had the chance to look further into it. Does not negate my main point, though.

6

I don’t think art gives the artist a pass, but the art can be evaluated without reference to the artist’s personal life.

It’s also very complex. Lovecraft’s attitudes were not out of the mainstream for people of his time. You can’t really blame the man if he grew up in a time where racism was commonplace and he took some of it up. Putting 21st century attitudes in your analysis of him is a common critical blunder.

Polanski made some very great films. He also was charged with statutory rape and ran from the law. From what I’ve heard about the incident, there was plenty of ambiguity as to how it fit and what sort of crime it was at the time, and that Polanski ran because he felt he was being singled out for unfair treatment – and under the standards of the time, he was.

But however you look at it, you can’t deny that he made some great films. If you wish to boycott them, go right ahead.

7

To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t name 95% of Roman Polanski’s movies on a dare … I tend to pretty much ignore non-acting staff of movies other than I recognize most of Hitchcocks movies [he tends to wander through them at least once]

I will admit that other than de Sade, which I avoid because I am really not into descriptions of depraved sex, and I actually don’t even read romance novels - I would rather have sex than watch or read about it. I don’t tend to care what the artists/authors espouse as long as it isn’t actually in the artwork and being shoved down my throat. If a work is from a different century, I can even ignore blatant antisemitism because it was simply accepted as the norm at the time, same with nigger this and nigger that in the stuff from the 1800s and early 1900s.

8

You don’t say…:smiley:

9

My father was like that, becoming violently angry at the least provocation. When I was a kid, it was like living with a monster. It wasn’t until I had reached adulthood that I began to appreciate the many wonderful things about him . . . things that had nothing to do with child rearing.

And he was an artist. I have lots and lots of his work, and none of it takes me back to the hell that he made my childhood. There is no monster in his artwork, nor in my appreciation of it.

But you’re right that we need to decide where to draw the line. I have seen some of Hitler’s art, and if I had any of it hanging on a wall, its effect on me would be chilling.

10

It’s my understanding it’s not uncommon for parents to be more abusive or focus all their abuse on one child.

11

I have a hard time watching Bing Crosby, who was apparently pretty abusive towards his sons (merely cold towards his daughter). Luckily I didn’t like him much to begin with – smarmy bastard.

12

While we’re on the subject of Swing Era crooners, what’s your opinion on Frank Sinatra and his hair-trigger temper, long history of boorish behavior, and chumminess with members of La Famiglia?

13

Doesn’t really effect my view of their works. Artists seem to have a higher then average chance of having weird personal problems (or maybe the normal chance, but public interest makes their problems more well known). If I viewed every time I watched a movie or read a book as some sort of tact endorsement of the personal lives of all the artists involved, it would add a whole complicated layer of judgement calls to what I usually do for recreation.

I guess if Hitler had released an awesome blues album prior to his political career I might have to reassess, but for the normal range of human sins, the artists moral background doesn’t really factor into my enjoyment.

14

He also seems like an asshole.

Neither of these are men whose music I listen to (not my taste); I will watch movies that have one or the other in them. I guess this puts me in the camp of “I don’t feel obligated to boycott artistic works based on my opinion about the artist’s personal life.”

twicks, who’s extremely fond of the paintings of Paul Gauguin, not exactly a model of rectitude

15

I don’t really give a shit about Sinatra’s mafia connections. However, the sheer level of reverence some people have for him makes me dislike him all by itself.

16

I’d say that it’s also important that he’s dead. If I buy a collection of Lovecraft stories none of that money is going to enrich someone that I know to be racist, which removes a major moral consideration.

17

Good point. It’ll be a while before I get to read Ender’s Game.

18

Well there’s always the library.

19

If someone is an idiot, I will not hold that against their works. If they are evil, I will never support them or their work.

Polanski did something unforgivably evil. Anything less than a swift death is too good for him.

From what I’ve read, I’d avoid reading Ender’s Game for its own sake. There are too many “coincidences” to avoid the conclusion that he’s a deliberate Hitler expy, which makes the attempts to portray Ender as a sympathetic character rather repugnant.

20

I don’t generally hold it against an artist or writer, or even know their evil secrets. (And I don’t think most of their audience is getting the whole story in any case.) But I’ve made a couple of exceptions. The former Cat Stevens is one, because of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. He didn’t call for the fatwa but he said it was okay, how things were done in Islam. Then, of course, he denied he’d said it, and later he said he was misquoted. The other thing that pissed me off was, he said he had earned enough money to live the way he wanted for the rest of his life and that was why he gave up godless rock and roll. Apparently, the money ran out, so back to music. The hell with him.

One of the worst things I heard about Joan Crawford was that she found out that a plumber who had just installed a new toilet in her house had actually (gasp!) used it. She fired him, and had the offending toilet torn out and a new one installed. (Come to think of it, I believe she used to post here.) Granted that artists have things driving them that ordinary mortals don’t understand, this is beyond the pale. However, the chance for me to turn down seeing a Joan Crawford movie is quite rare. Because of that, she’s not one of the exceptions. Also she’s dead.

Sylvester Stallone may be a great person. But he once behaved quite badly to a friend of mine, who happened to be a news photographer. And he happened to be promoting a movie. I sure hope he wasn’t getting paid to promote it, because he behaved like a real little shit, including damaging my friend’s camera. She wasn’t even trying to get a shot when it happened, although, given that it was a press thing, she could have been. This wasn’t a paparazzi thing, it was a group interview where he could expect to be photographed. He seemed to think the news media hadn’t sent a high enough caliber of writers and photographers so he didn’t need to bother. So the hell with him, too.