Why do art films make people so angry?

I'd say it's mostly about insecurity. People are weirdly touchy when it comes to intelligence. They can acknowledge not having the perfect looks or talent just fine, but nobody can accept not being as smart as everybody else, somehow that's a big problem. And I think that's why they hate things that make them feel stupid.

Seeing a movie that's not immediately obvious about its meaning seems like it's trying to insult their intelligence, so they have to talk it down, discredit it, pretend it doesn't actually mean anything and that the writer/director is just an *beep* pretending to be smart and deep. To them it's either that, or that they aren't smart enough, which they can't deal with.

I'm not sure why people think that way, why everything has to make perfect and obvious sense on a rational level. Some art is meant to be understood on a subconscious or an emotional level, or simply to be experienced. Why is that a problem? Music's often pretty ambiguous about it's message too, and nobody seems to mind that. They can enjoy it just for the melody or whatever and don't throw a fit whenever the lyrics aren't perfectly clear about their meaning. I wish movies were treated like that too.

Anyway, that's my take on that. It's silly, and quite telling actually. Even if we assumed that they weren't paranoid and those films really tried to question their intelligence, people don't get angry about "insults" that just aren't true. Tell a scientist he's stupid and he'll laugh about it. Tell a hillbilly he's stupid and he'll probably kill you. They only get angry if they believe it themselves and hate themselves for it. Otherwise, why would they? So whenever you see someone blow a gasket over some supposed offense, you can be pretty sure they are EXACTLY what they were called (nevermind that in this case they're actually calling it themselves), and the bigger the rage, the more accurate the insult.

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name an art film where the actor can't act? Maybe you're too used to see overe the top reactions from actors, so that became your reality, and reality became nonsense to you. Today I was scrolling to see comments about Robert Eggers The Northman and it didn't surprise me to see people comment on the dialogue, battle scenes and acting of that film. People are more and more under the belief that a film that doesn't have cool dialogue, overly complex (Nolan), the battle scenes ridiculously fast paced and the acting in accordance to "normality", is ridiculously bad or even "one of the worst movies" they've ever seen. Like a "pretentious" classical painting, films can have hidden messages behind every shot, even if its just a still shot of a vase after a character left the room. Films also don't always need character to go through character development to be good. Characters that show certain motivations and fight for those usually don't change, yet the execution to those motivations can be crucial to the character. I see allot of people think filmmaking is that simple. Everybody is an armchair critic. "badly written", "no plot", "plot holes", yet so many don't know what they're talking about. So many think writing a film is like writing a book. A book is allowed to have exposition thrown at your face and still be good. A film on the other hand either has motivated or unmotivated exposition and good filmmakers choose the former. Filmmaking is more complex than many of you actually realise. Art films are the best of film, but sadly they seem like dying out because of the constant push of explosions, unmotivated exposition exposition, CGI and cool college dialogue.

It's just an insult to everyone putting effort and working hard to deliver a good product with proper plot and characters development when garbage frauds like this one get sold thru the show biz mafia, dirty money stealing attention and marketing resources.

To you, movies seem to = "product." That kind of sums up the philosophical differences that lead some people to look for adventurous films and others to hector them about it. I don't know which sort is worse; the "me no likey artsy-fartsy crap" type, or the "superhero movies are for adolescent idiots" type. When I'm elected God, out with both of you.

Hey, there are plenty of good "product" movies out there I've enjoyed immensely, but why does everything have to be consumer-driven? And which "pretentious snobs in Hollywood acting all commies for the poors" are you talking about? Was there some big push for "Holy Motors" to win "Best Picture" or something? Talk about "babbling" . . what the hell are you talking about?

Adding to the original poster's question, why is it that so many people sneer at the word "art" when used to describe a film? Are you saying there is no such thing? I'm assuming even the anti-hipster police would acknowledge that art exists in film. If it does, please provide a list of art films that are "clear frauds" and which ones I'm allowed to see without being labeled a pretentious hipster/snob/elitist, etc.

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I have meddled with the primal forces of nature and I will atone.