We consume art and stories, in part, to chase a feeling.
We consume art and stories to experience that moment where the work is done, where the story has been told and the heart-felt message of the artist has been shared, and we sit in silence for a moment, thinking thoughts that go beyond thought.
I hope you know what I am talking about, I hope you have experienced this for yourself.
I'm talking about the moment where you sit and perhaps stare out of the window with the closed book on your lap, and as everything you have experienced sinks in, you begin to feel- not just see, but feel- the interconnected nature of our human experience and your mind, senses and what the religious would call your soul all feel as if they have been both elevated and somehow soothed.
[And this is not necessarily a purely 'feel good' experience. Reading a tragic work where all goes wrong and the characters we care for all die still reminds us of this interconnectedness, of how human lives and human decisions matter, and how in so many cases the tragic character makes us think 'there but for the grace of God go I.' A tragedy well told should make us feel a sense of gratitude and to resolve to live better.]
This is a mystical experience and describing it seems to bring out the language of religion.
You see, regardless of an individuals faith and beliefs, I feel that the highest purpose of art is transcendence.
Which begs the question, how do you make your art transcendent? How do you induce these powerful feelings and this elevated state into your audience?
It's a difficult question to answer, and there is no one solution, simple or complicated.
Because to make Transcendent art is what geniuses do. It is a question not only of intention and focus but also of a finely honed, supremely talented individual marrying theme and obsession with technique and indeed experiencing a little luck along the way.
But regardless of all this, I think transcendence in art should be the ultimate aim.
Now entertainment is all well and good, it is needed even, and kudos to the competent craftsmen who create such works. The skill and effort needed to do this well is not to be discounted.
It's just that I, perhaps in hubris, have personally set my artistic aims that little bit higher.
A Task Without End
Now, before I get into the concepts of the 'Abundant Means' and the 'Sparse Means' I feel duty bound to highlight that this article, or indeed any article, that tries to uncover the methods behind making art transcendent can only be a beginning.
It can only be a quick skim along the surface, a weak light shone briefly into a vast darkness of unknowing.
Because such a question as ours is the kind that drives and baffles and frustrates and delights an artist for his entire life.
There will never be a satisfying or complete answer.
But the quest itself is what's fun.
And much like the very creation of art, it is the process that is the point, not so much the transitory, ephemeral work that comes out of this life of discovery.
So let's explore the transcendent from one angle today, just as we will surely tackle it from different ones in the future.
Ready?
Okay then.
An Enlightening Distinction
I first came across the concepts of 'Abundant Means' and 'Sparse Means' in Paul Schrader's wonderful book 'Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer' a work that I highly recommend for both searching artists and committed cinephiles alike.
It's not for everyone, but if it's for you then it's really for you.
Schrader is a screenwriter-director best known for his script for Taxi Driver as well as his writing and directorial work on cult classics like American Gigolo, Light Sleeper and the recent masterpiece First Reformed*
[Don't talk to me about it otherwise I'm liable to bore you to tears with how I feel Schrader and actor Ethan Hawke were criminally overlooked by the Academy for their work on this film]
But what is less known is that Schrader is also a very insightful critic who earned an M.A. in film studies, minored in theology and got into the movie criticism game under the tutelage of the legendary Pauline Kael.
This makes him a valuable resource for our purposes. Because as well as being an artist who creates meaningful works that aim at transcendence, Schrader also has the intellectual and academic tools to explain his process and intentions.
[I talk about the processes and intentions of creativity on this site, but I am somewhat of a rarity. Most creators, including most truly brilliant creators, operate from trial and error, from instinct and experience, largely lacking any theoretical understanding of what they create.]
And his work Transcendental Style in Film is where all of this really comes to the fore.
Now I could talk about this book all day (my commonplace notes run close to 10k words, and Schrader's book isn't even particularly long!) but for fear of wearing out your indulgence I will now actually zero in on the point of this article. To teach you what Sparse and Abundant means are and how you can use them to improve the stories that you tell.
Abundant and Sparse- Keys to Achieving the Transcendent in Art
I will quote Schrader (who is in turn quoting Jacques Maritain) at length so that we can see the difference between our two definitions:
In Religion and Culture (1930) Jacques Maritain described two types of "temporal means," and although they apply primarily to good works, he also uses them in referring to artists and theologians. By extension they can also refer to two general artistic forms, sacred and profane.
The first of these temporal means, the abundant means (moyens temporels riches), are those which "of their nature demand a certain measure of tangible success." This type of good work sustains life in a depraved world: "It would be absurd to despise or reject them, they are necessary, they are part of the natural stuff of human life."
The second means, the sparse means (moyens temprels pauvres), are "the proper means of the spirit." "The less burdened they are by matter, the more destitute, the less visible-the more efficacious they are. This is because they are pure means for the virtue of the spirit."
"It must be understood," Maritain writes, "that there is an order and hierarchy of these temporal means." And the sparse means are higher than the abundant means:
So the abundant means are 'the profane' and the sparse means are 'the sacred'
And transcendent art takes us on a journey from the profane and the everyday towards the sacred.
It's a narrowing down towards a 'sacred' set point that creates that elevated feeling when the story has finished.
This is why, as I have said before, a story must have a theme and you must begin with the end in mind as you structure your work.
You can't hit a target that you are not aiming at.
And indeed the targets/themes/endpoints of great works are such enduring 'morals' that will lead to contemplation of the wider, more holy/existential realm.
It is all a question of knowing where you are going with your story and taking the necessary steps to get there.
But we are still on quite vague terms at this point, the abundant and the sparse are both still woolly. I'll see if I can fix that.
The Abundant to Sparse Story Structure
So we begin with the abundant, which can be seen as being something like the profane or the everyday.
The story begins with an ordinary person in an ordinary environment living an ordinary life.
Now understand when I say ordinary I do not mean 'dull' or 'quotidian' per se, I mean relatable to the audience, something that the audience can understand. Worldly.
See, even in the most fantastical story of fantasy or science fiction, the beginning will show us the hero in a village or a job or a family or a situation we can relate to.
If we began with overly sparse means we would soon become bored and confused as we are not suitably oriented into the fictional world.
(An example of an overly-sparse work of art would be something like a Warhol art film where a person sleeps or a building stands still as the camera films it for 8 uninterrupted, unmoving hours. Such stillness can only be transcendent if it follows on from a more abundant beginning)
So the abundant means as well as being there to ground us are also their to maintain our interest.
They are there to entertain us. And entertainment is important- it is a lack of this care for the audience that makes so much work that would claim to aim for transcendence fail.
We can all think of dozens of lofty, pretentious works that in the end are merely dully because they seem to put the interests (and ego) of the author above the vital need to engage the audience.
So the abundant means correspond to what art historian Wilhelm Worringer, when talking of art, called 'naturalism.'
These means are sensual, emotional, humanistic, individualistic. They are characterized by soft lines, realistic portraiture, three-dimensionality, experimentation; they encourage empathy.
These are the thing that engage the audience and buy their attention and indulgence as you attempt to steer them towards your transcendent end.
And this is done, as the story progresses, by slowly removing the abundant means in place of the sparse (sacred) means.
Sparse means correspond to what Worringer calls "style." The sparse means are cold, formalistic, hieratic. They are characterized by abstraction, stylized portraiture, two-dimensionality, rigidity; they encourage respect and appreciation.
It is a move from the graphic and narrative, to things appearing in their essence. It is the striping away of all that is extraneous, all that is worldly as the work becomes every more ascetic. The end point of this then is stasis, stillness, nothingness.
That point where everyday things have been reduced and reduced through technique and formalism to a point where they stop entirely in a moment of pause.
And the idea is that though the art has stopped, the viewer, in his imagination, will keep going, the momentum of the story will carry him, and so he will move beyond this realm of art to something higher. To something that transcends a mere film, or story or image.
Until next time,
Live Well
Tom.
One of your best pieces yet. I'm very glad to be following along with your writing journey.
You've managed to put words on something I knew without being able to explain it.
Every good story must have a rhythm, and I'm convinced most of the time when the ending, the "revelation" or the climax fall flat, it's less an issue related to the ending per-se, but more about proper building up, rhythm and how much you planted the seed of the ending in the reader/viewer's mind. I may be wrong, but I feel like people empathize more with a climax when you've sowed little bread crumbs and they "feel" how it's going to end without being able to formalize it completely. Works especially with tragic endings, that are meant to be an "example" (think of the Greek mythology protagonists eventually getting punished for their Hubris by the gods.
Readers can believe the most unbelievable ending if you slowly build your world and make sure they can empathize with your characters. Someone like Stephen King is especially good at it; he uses and abuses the abundant means by describing you each square inch of a little Maine city, the history of each street, each inhabitant, how they live, how they feel toward each other; it's always super mundane stuff; why the town mill manager has marriage issues, how he unloads on his kids, how the kids bully the fat kid at school, who in turn makes friend with the nerdy guy from the divorced parents, etc. Each new chapter is a deeper drawer in the big dresser that is the story. And you may not realize at first why you get that over 200 pages, and how exactly that could benefit the story. But when stange things begin to happen, when the scarce means are progressively introduced, you are hooked and can't let the book down. If these scarce means were introduced only after a 10 pages overview of the characters and situation, you probably wouldn't feel a thing. And the closer you get to the ending, the lesser the abundant means; the crescendo is perfect.
I like the image of the building standing still that Warhol would have filmed for 8 minutes. We all agree, it doesn't bring any emotion out. It is poseur, because he's giving you a transcendance that's not been earned. It's like a priest giving you the communion wafer right from the start, it doesn't mean anything and it's useless. Now imagine a movie telling you the story of a man working extra long hours in a banking job in New York. You're meant to understand he does that for his family (maybe he comes from a poor family and is terrified by going back into poverty). But as the movie goes on and you get to know him, his job and his family better, you begin to question his motives. Does he really do it for his family ? He's never home, his health rapidly deteriorates, his wife and kids slowly become estranged to him, and all along he keeps telling you this lie; that he's doing it all just for his family. The "bank" he works at, and the entire skyscrapper slowly become meta-characters of their own; maybe the building is filmed from menacing angles, wide shots when he comes out from work at 1AM showing how insignificant he is againt this daunting Moloch made of glass and concrete; slowly, you begin to see the sparse means. Let's say at the end of the movie our working man dies at the office from a heart attack. You see the family destroyed, wife and kids crying in their little suburban home. And then, the last image is a 30 seconds/1 minute still-shot of the skycrapper, standing straight in the night, everlasting and waiting for new souls to be fed.
There, your "building shot" has tremendous meaning. Because the shot is not the point; it is just the way you create transcendance and give a superior meaning to the world you've spent 2 hours slowly building with abundant means.
Anyway, great newsletter Thomas, and happy Easter to you !