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Monday, November 05, 2012

Storyteller's Rulebook #161: Genius Doesn’t Innovate, It Cultivates

When we look back at an artwork that has become known as a work of genius, it often seems as if this work innovated a bunch of new concepts, and that’s why it’s great.  In fact, this is almost never true.

We don’t know how to talk about genius because we’re reluctant to talk qualitatively and prefer to talk quantitatively: this thing didn’t exist, and then it did.  We’re ashamed to use our subjective judgment and say “best”, so we attempt to make an objective statement and say “first.”

Film histories will often claim that Citizen Kane is great because it was the first movie to use that type of non-linear structure, or the first to use deep-focus photography.  In fact, neither of these is true: Kane’s structure and subject matter are very indebted to The Power and the Glory, written by none other than Preston Sturges, which told the story of the rise and fall of a railroad magnate though non-linear flashbacks. Likewise, Welles admired cinematographer Gregg Toland’s deep focus work on The Long Journey Home  and hired him to bring that look to Kane.  
Finding these works doesn’t detract from the genius of Welles, but rather magnifies it.  It shows that the supposed innovations he’s credited with are not enough to explain his success, since The Power and the Glory and The Long Journey Home are both good-but-not-great movies.

Welles’s genius was to spot the value of these innovations and bring them together, along with an underutilized screenwriter, a hand-picked acting troupe, and lots of other elements to make something that was greater than anyone thought possible.  He didn’t innovate, he cultivated. 
    
The myth of Citizen Kane as a movie of firsts arose because the earlier films weren’t great enough to be remembered decades later.  Once they had fallen out of the collective memory, Kane seemed to be the first to do these things, while in fact, it was merely the first to do them in a way that could not be forgotten. 

One of my favorite finds of recent years was Bob Dylan’s XM Satellite Radio show. Surprisingly, Dylan was a relaxed, humble and funny D.J.  Less surprising was his great and eclectic taste in music.  He rarely played music from his own genres, folk and rock, roaming instead across dozens of forgotten musical trends of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, playing obscure tracks that he deeply revered. 
But a funny thing happened over the course of the show: Dylan was quietly destroying the myth of Bob Dylan.  By the time his listeners had immersed themselves in hundreds of his favorite forgotten songs, Dylan’s own musical achievements didn’t seem so shocking anymore.  All he did was take the best parts of these obscure genres and put them together.  And now, like a magician on a valedictory tour, he was opening the curtain to show us how he pulled it off.
 
The myth of the innovative genius is one that can paralyze writers.  It can discourage us from drawing on the past, or from learning traditional structures, because we feel that we should be making stuff up from scratch.  It can cause us to dismiss great artists who aren’t iconoclasts, or overvalue ones that are.  But it’s good to keep in mind that true genius has more to do with cultivating pre-existing innovations, combining them in artistically brilliant ways. 

2 comments:

j.s. said...

These are my three favorite points:

"Kane seemed to be the first to do these things, while in fact, it was merely the first to do them in a way that could not be forgotten."

"All he did was take the best parts of these obscure genres and put them together."

"True genius has more to do with cultivating pre-existing innovations, combining them in artistically brilliant ways."

Once again I'm going to recommend that everyone read THE ECSTASY OF INFLUENCE by Johnathan Lethem and then have a look at Kirby Ferguson's EVERYTHING IS A REMIX.

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/

http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

Steve Bird said...

This reminds me of one of my favorite open ended questions "Who is the greater artist: Shakespeare or Picasso?" Picasso was a great innovator in his field, while Shakespeare worked in two of the most restrictive, formalized literary formats in the English tradition. I lean towards Shakespeare, because doing something extraordinarily well is more impressive to me than doing something that no one has done before.