Art Discussion: Super Mario Movie by Paper Rad and Corey Arcangel

[treismac]

http://www.coryarcangel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/arcangel_mario_movie.gif
(http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/supermariomovie/)

Click the gif above to watch the video and then read the prompts below afterwards.

:oops: Watch the movie before reading further :oops:


Consider (or disregard) the following questions:

* What were your first impressions and how did they compare with your final thoughts?

* Does this video evoke any emotions from you? How much, if any, did your feelings for Mario affect your viewing of this video?

* Did any concern over this piece's relationship to "art" pop into your mind? Did this enhance or detract from your experience of the movie? Would it matter to you if the artist didn't take himself seriously or if he was the worst kind of pretentious artist stereotype?

* How much do you think the music and sounds affected your viewing of this movie?

* How did you feel about the length of the movie?

* Did you enjoy it? Why or why not?

[Kiddo]

I'll just ignore the school-assignment-esque questions and just say that I was kinda hoping something called "Super Mario Brothers Movie" and made on the NES would be more like Ninja Gaiden following a Mario-esque plotline.

I couldn't really make any sense of this acid-trippy sequence.

[exit]

All I know is that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back, think I'll spend the 5 I saved on something worth while.

[rbudrick]

I really didn't get it. Just seemed like half my NES games glitching out cuz I haven't used them in a while mixed with Engrish. The plot was not eej 330 jjhdhi84 98888jdnkaen j

Oh yeah, and 0000000000000000jwefknkjal;kh9749274
08235890789024
uiohs99479572

That's about sums it up.

-Rob

[Jorpho]

I found it pretentious and dull and would have watched it on fast-forward if I had a convenient option for doing so. There is a sense of underlying purpose and structure to it, which saves it from being the Youtube equivalent of someone mucking about with sprite sheets in MS Paint, but does not make it entertaining or particularly evocative. I won't deny there might be an ounce of potential, though.

[XYXZYZ]

Abstract nonsense is hit or miss with me, and this didn't really do it. The music was kind of neat though.

[treismac]

I found it pretentious ...

Would you care to explain why? The factors that I think contribute to this video being perceived as pretentious are its length and the extended "dead space" (i.e. Mario just staring off in the beginning as nothing happens). I think if this video was shaved down a bit and there were some other cool scenes added, it would be a stronger piece. With this said, I enjoyed it.

Thanks for your thoughts, J'orfeaux!

[Jorpho]

Would you care to explain why? The factors that I think contribute to this video being perceived as pretentious are its length and the extended "dead space" (i.e. Mario just staring off in the beginning as nothing happens).There's that, and there's also the obscured text messages that pop up on occasion. I can imagine the artist chuckling to himself as he devises a clever corruption algorithm centered around numbers of profound significance in nature that will imbue the illegible masses of characters with profound significance – but to me, they just look like illegible masses of characters.

(The references to "poetry" are particularly damning. Again, I can imagine in some contexts the idea of Mario composing poetry to himself as he stands for eternity on an isolated question block to have potential, but not like this.)

As I said, there's a sense of underlying purpose and structure, as if every bit of nonsense was somehow deliberately and carefully chosen and that the artist is so much cleverer than everyone else who has no idea what is going on.

[Gameguy]

http://www.coryarcangel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/arcangel_mario_movie.gif
That's clearly Luigi.

Basically the movie reminded me of this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7m-4Vc3MU

[treismac]

The references to "poetry" are particularly damning.

Yeah. That. Initially, I was intrigued by the mention of poetry, but it didn't contribute much to the narrative. Mentioning poetry puts the text under even further scrutiny, which was already receiving a good bit of attention due to its sparse scattering amongst the digital parade of images.

Concerning the obscured text, apart from this movie, the idea of language as an unreliable symbolic means of communicating ideas appeals to me. While this was not the main reason behind the obscuring of the words, I dug it regardless of the artist's intentions. The text in the movie was secondary to the overall narrative anyway. Once the premise of the decaying digital world of the 20 year old cart was established, the words were just a bit of tinsel of the Christmas tree as far as I was concerned- kinda like the lyrics in the verse of a hardcore punk song.

The idea of sense and structure in the movie, to me, was simply the disintegration of order in the world of the video game. This was the motif. All the imagery was a result of the world of Super Mario falling apart. What each scene "meant" is not so crucial, although I have theories. There was a "spiritual" side of the video with the "spirit rave," the goomba as a (presumably spirit) guide, the sphinx, and if you wanted to continue building a weak case on a retro video game forum, you would probably mention the pong reference as a primordial video game archetype. By combining these two elements, I inferred that the life of a video game transcends the life of the actual hardware that it "exists" on. This might well be miles away from what the artist meant, if he meant anything at all. While I am interested in what Cory Arcangel "meant" by this movie beyond the text, I like the idea of the "artist is dead" leaving the viewer to find whatever meaning he finds in the art.

Speaking of the artist, Arcangel strikes me as very unassuming in the interviews I've read with him. Pretentious artists irk the hell out of me, since they usually spout a bunch of shite when they go on about their work. Ol' So-Crates had some wise words for that phenomenon.

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.”

[treismac]

That's clearly Luigi.

Mario never does his own stunts anymore- everyone knows that. Nintendo can't risk hurting their star with a falling stunt like that. With the sales of Luigi's Mansion, it's the wise business move to make, Gameguy.



Basically the movie reminded me of this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7m-4Vc3MU

Ha!!! Awesome Simpsons' reference!!! Speaking of what once used to be the GREATEST show on TV, I think the Mario/Luigi, good/evil dichotomy can be best understood in the light of this Homer clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ABEQ4vfNGs&feature=related

[buzz_n64]

I suppose someone could possibly view this as art, but I personally don't like it. It is dull, gives the sense that the game is glitching out. I could see some artsy video game cultured person breaking it down and analyzing it and possibly appreciating it, but even the average retro gamer won't like this.