Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker

Barker: “I think that Roger Ebert’s problem is that he thinks you can’t have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn’t taken the damn poison. If only he’d have gotten there quicker.”

Ebert: He is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would “Romeo and Juliet” have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. “King Lear” was also subjected to rewrites; it’s such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of “Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare’s or Barker’s, is superior, deeper, more moving, more “artistic”? —Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker (Roger Ebert | Sun Times)

Film reviewer Roger Ebert fisks novelist and gamer Clive Barker. Filing this for a rainy day.

3 thoughts on “Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker

  1. Ebert on games is Holmes outside of London; still sharp, still thoughtful, but completely out of his element. I get the impression that there is no room left in his brain-attic for games. Thus we get this inane defensive stubbornness.

  2. Yes, well said, Mike.

    The kids are in bed and I have a bit more time to think about this.

    I remember watching Siskel & Ebert when they did their show on PBS. It is a real shame that Ebert isn’t using his talent for communication and his gift of insight to help us understand the video game medium. No, I take that back. During Ebert’s professional career, the movies have become a serious subject for intellectual and academic inquiry. I’m a little uncomfortable with the binary model of reviewing — thumb up or thumb down — because students who see that imagine that their intellectual challenge in a literature class is to vote for whether they do or don’t approve of their assigned literary work. (I tell them that zoologists don’t get to work with only the cute, fun animals.)

    I guess I feel disappointed that Ebert needs to attack video games in order to defend his stake in advancing the understanding of cinema studies. He’s like the blind man who grasps the tail of an elephant and says “An elephant is like a rope that is too short to be useful.”

    I suppose I’m also a little irked that he keeps referring to his own illness in order to add moral weight to his argument. I don’t object to the personal details per se, but when he uses them instead of making an argument, well… they make me feel bad for him, but they don’t convince me that his point is valid.

  3. Barker: “We can debate what art is, we can debate it forever. If the experience moves you in some way or another … even if it moves your bowels … I think it is worthy of some serious study.”

    Ebert: Perhaps if the experience moves your bowels, it is worthy of some serious medical study.

    Ba-dump-tish. I see Ebert’s points (about the importance of the ‘creator’ in high art, especially), but I’m pretty much with Clive Barker here. In my broad opinion, ART MAKES US LOOK AT SOMETHING AND PAY ATTENTION TO IT. That simply. Here Barker sees the artist opening a window that invites the audience to dive in; Ebert sees it as an opaque screen. Both are still art — they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

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