On the Separation of Art and Artist

You may know what you like—of course you do—but do you know why? Do you like what you like because of who you are? Or is it the sum of your likes and dislikes that makes you who you are? These are the questions that New York Times chief film critic A.O. Scott contends with in his book Better Living Through Criticism. Personally, I don’t know the answer to these questions. Sometimes I can’t explain why I like what I like; and unfortunately for me, sometimes I like films made by problematic people. Does this make me a bad person? Maybe. Is it possible to separate art and artist? Maybe. But in my opinion, maybe not.

One of my favorite films is American Beauty (1999). I feel guilty to admit this, especially since I watched it for the first time after learning about the sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey, and still found myself enjoying it. Obviously, the film did not age well for Spacey. But it’s hard to dismiss the ingenuity of this film and his critically acclaimed performance as Lester Burnham, for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2000. Was it creepy that Lester was lusting after his daughter’s best friend? Absolutely. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t help but feel there’s something poetically beautiful about it, about her smooth skin against a bed of red rose petals, about what these roses symbolize: lust, passion, freedom.

The resemblance between Lester and Spacey is uncanny. In 2017, actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Spacey made sexual advances toward him in 1984—before the film was even made. Rapp was 14 years old at the time. I can’t not imagine that Spacey was drawing from his real life experiences for his portrayal of Lester… talk about method acting. I can’t justify my love for American Beauty, but there’s one thing I know for sure: you simply cannot separate the actor from his performance. In the case of Kevin Spacey, it is impossible to separate art from artist, considering he viscerally embodied the character. But in many cases, when the artist doesn’t directly put themselves in their art, the lines become blurred.

I never understood the hype surrounding Annie Hall (1977)—it was unsettling to watch Woody Allen in front of the camera and not behind it. Manhattan (1979) was even more troubling to watch considering the parallels between his character, Isaac Davis, and the details of his personal life that we are now aware of, though Manhattan was harder to hate because I have a soft spot for films about New York City. Midnight in Paris (2011), though, was one that I genuinely enjoyed and didn’t feel too guilty about. Since Allen did not play a role in this film, it was easier to divorce him from the story, but after all, he’s still the mastermind behind it. The same goes for Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein—the men behind the camera. It’s less complicated to justify our pleasure when the culprit is not visually present.

The case of Woody Allen is perhaps the most perplexing in trying to answer the question of whether it is possible to separate art from artist. Because it’s mere allegations. It’s much more complex than Weinstein, who doesn’t actually create art, and Polanski, who, unlike Allen, pleaded guilty. In exposing years of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, we are forced to face a troubling ethical dilemma. Allen deserves all the criticism and condemnation he receives for allegedly molesting his own daughter, which he fervently denies, and then marrying his girlfriend’s adopted daughter, but it’s hard to deny his creative genius.

In January 2018, amidst the #MeToo controversy, Scott published a piece titled “My Woody Allen Problem” in the New York Times, in which he asserts:

The separation of art and artist is proclaimed, desperately, as if it were a philosophical principle, rather than a cultural habit buttressed by shopworn academic dogma. But the notion that art belongs to a zone of human experience somehow distinct from other human experiences is both conceptually incoherent and intellectually crippling. 

Using films as an escape from reality, we tend to think of them as something of a higher power, something that transcends the realm of reality. But in believing that they possess some sense of holiness, are we giving them too much power to dictate how we should treat their creator? As much as we want to think of art as transcending the human condition, every work of art is inherently the product of its creator. The greatness of the art does not change the fact that ingrained in it are the personal details of the artist’s life. The artist’s identity is so deeply intermingled with it that they themselves cannot fully disentangle from it. Even if, as Scott puts it, by some feat of cinephilic sophistry, we could separate the films from the director himself, we cannot separate them from ourselves. Allen’s works have such profound impact on our culture that, regardless of what we now think of him as a person, he has already left his mark. This makes the separation of art and artist all the more impossible.

In Midnight in Paris, Allen capitalizes on our collective nostalgia to romanticize Pablo Picasso. As Picasso the man gets lost in history, Picasso the artist gets praised by society as one of the greatest of all time. We wouldn’t look at a Picasso painting and think about the fact that he was a staunch misogynist and exploited women in the name of art. Perhaps, it is easier to forget and forgive Picasso because we make exceptions for the supposed great ones, the time-tested artists. But perhaps, in doing so, we fail as a society because misogyny and toxic masculinity are still very much alive, normalized, and perpetuated by our culture. This makes me wonder if years from now, Allen will be absolved of his sins and once again reclaim his title as one of the greatest writer-directors in Hollywood. It makes me feel better, though, that we collectively chose to boycott his most recent, star-studded film, A Rainy Day in New York (2019), resulting in Amazon Studios cancelling its release and distribution.

Still, I’m not completely satisfied. In punishing Woody Allen, we inadvertently punish the cast and crew who put their heart and soul into the film; and I’m not quite sure they deserve the same punishment. In response to the backlash, Timothee Chalamet, the film’s romantic lead, distanced himself from the director and donated his salary to the Time’s Up movement. Does that rid him of guilt, or should he have known better considering these accusations have been circulating since 1992? What about those who defend Allen? Most recently, Jeff Goldblum made headlines with his controversial stance on the allegations—there is presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In a court of law, one is, indeed, innocent until proven guilty. But in a court of political correctness, especially when it comes to sexual misconduct, it’s not so black and white. Then, what about those who don’t speak out at all? Are they complicit in their silence? There is so much moral grayness and the line separating good and evil is so blurred that, at the end of the day, it’s entirely left to our own flawed judgement.

In his book, Scott mentions German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s contribution to ethics, namely The Critique of Judgement; and according to Kant: 

The judgement of taste is not an intellectual judgement and so not logical, but is aesthetic—which means that it is one whose determining ground cannot be other than subjective.

The decision to separate art from artist is a personal one. Good people can make bad art and bad people can make good art. Art has power, not the power to dictate how its creator should be treated, but the power to reflect the morality of its creator. Good art must reflect the moral goodness of the artist. As an artist makes their contribution to culture, it becomes difficult to erase their mark and discredit their brilliance even when their indiscretions are uncovered. The question, then, is no longer simply can we separate art and artist, but what do we do with the marks that bad people who make art have left on our culture? How can we accept, let alone appreciate, someone whose values are so far from aligned with our own?

I don’t know the answer to Scott’s questions. I don’t know the answer to my own questions, either. I know what I like, but I don’t know why. Do I like these films because of who I am? Or am I who I am because I like these films, or despite of this fact? In trying to find the answer, I find myself being left with even more unanswered questions.