Just been watching Newsnight Review again and I found myself asking the same questions I do each time I watch. Here we have the great(ish) and the good(ish) discussing a film/play/book in, what seems to be, absolute terms.
From whence does the criteria for excellence arise?
Well, of course, as a Christian I believe that all creativity comes from God and hence (as all of us are created in His image) we have an innate recognition of this creativity as an expression of God the Creator.
What makes me wonder is this: what makes one thing "good" and another "rubbish"? Take films, for example, and I love watching films - big screen, surround sound, full immersion experience. But films are easy, aren't they? That film was "good" or that film was "rubbish". Theatre, it seems to me, is another ball game as are books . Listening to Newsnight Review I'm left thinking that these people claim a grasp of something that slips through my fingers - the way they talk so earnestly about, in this case, a play and seem to know whether the production was right or wrong, good or bad, absolutely.
Take Jackson Pollock. I look at his paint dribbles and think, hmmm, not so tricky? But if I tried it would look like a preschool accident (you may think JP's work does indeed look like this!), and yet there really is something there.
In my case, take the song writing process: what makes a melody line or harmony or lyric right or wrong? Opinion? Something much deeper, I think.
A reflection of God as Creator placing a part of creation in each of us - when we hear it or see it we just know.
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