Are The Little Pieces Really That Important?

I wrote a paper last semester accommodating a theory developed by a professor of mine to an older idea of aesthetic properties. Since it's good reception by him, it has also been submitted to a conference in which it was promptly accepted. And now I'm reworking it.

The crux of the idea is that in a whole piece of art, we find properties within it that we justify by pointing to smaller pieces. "This is a really balanced work," we say, pointing out the way the figures are placed along the canvas, so as not to feel out of balance. But the figures are not a sufficient account of why the painting is balanced. They must be where they are, but also in particular relation to the whole painting. This relationship between the whole and the parts is not particularly novel, but where it leads may get to some new ground.

So there is a balancing figure somewhere in the piece. But the figure itself is just what it is, in or out of the painting. It creates a sense of balance by relating to the other parts. But does the figures own powers actually change, given the entire structure. It's hard to determine if this is the case as concerns 'balance', so let's look at a different, potentially more illuminating case.

The idea I've borrowed is a scientific concept in which the actual powers of lower level entities actually change because of the determining powers of the higher level organization. This is a bolder claim than I am making, because I am not dealing with properties and powers of the same kind when I consider aesthetic properties. But the part-whole relationship remains similar. And a better example to consider is shock.

I doubt I'll be spoiling anything for anyone (and if I am, you shouldn't be reading this, because I can't believe you haven't seen this movie yet), but the example to use is The Usual Suspects. Fast forward to the very last scene of the movie and play it in your mind, all by itself. A man (Kevin Spacey) concludes a conversation meekly and is allowed to leave what turns out to be a police station. He then walks down the street with an increasingly steadier stride and gets into a vehicle. And then it's over. Nothing is shocking. Nothing is shocking. The power of this smaller element of the whole movie is very low in the shock department. But, we see very easily, that a part of the whole movie, this becomes the most powerful piece, and incredible shocking, despite the dull particulars of the segment.

It is within this idea that the whole changes powers of the parts. That same exact scene could be injected into another plot and not have the same power to shock. Only within The Usual Suspects do we find it so. Furthermore, it is to this place in the movie that we point when we attempt to justify the shocking nature of the film. "Why was it so shocking?" "Well, have you seen the ending? Holy cow!"



Context.