Last Friday night, about 10 art students gathered for the Student Painting and Drawing Association’s first ever “Art House Film Night.” The event is being planned monthly with the intention of showing films that emphasize cinematography, the relationship between art and film, and other little subjective, gray areas that could be considered artistic.
All films are recommended by students, though Mira Gerard, the SPDA advisor, supervises the event as technical support. For that particular night, “Down By Law,” a 1986 film by Jim Jarmusch featuring Tom Waits, was viewed.
The large, dark painting studio became an intimate setting with students gathered around the projector screen munching on homemade cookies and French fries.
When asked about film recommendations, some students seemed confused about what films would be applicable, seemingly on account of varying perspectives regarding what classifies as “art” or “artistic.”
With the exception of films placed in a category specified in Blockbuster or on the Netflix Web site, often our encounters with contemporary film do not link art and film together. It then becomes part of a larger question of whether or not a film can be art, and under what considerations.
If a person were to look at a list of the films I have rented in the past year, they would probably think that I was an “art fag” with a 6-year-old child, which must account for all of the Disney animated films.
So if I were put on the spot about the definition of what films apply as art or art-related, I’m not sure I could answer either.
Other students were not quite so self-conscious or annoyingly philosophical.
Kyle Blauw, an art student who attended the event, summed it up quite simply, though pointedly. “The SPDA films are chosen for, at least to some degree, their formalistic qualities,” he said. “These are examples of what the students feel are well-made films.”
It’s an entirely subjective response, then, to every film that is shown, yet that may be the only acceptable answer at this time.
The SPDA is hoping to attract other non-art students eventually and evolve the event into a better version of itself, which meaning that there is going to be a lot of trial and error.
Sometimes the students will be disappointed, bored or left with an echoing wtf?
Sometimes they will see a film that leaves them speechless, or fat full of words that push out heatedly between gulps of air.
Brian Godwin, the SPDA’s treasurer and graphic design guru that attended the event, optimistically and enthusiastically said, “This is such a great idea and I hope it grows and we continue to do it and reach out to more people . communication is the means in which we know each other and everything we know about the world.”
Another art student, Liz Layton, who recommended this first film, thinks that there is room for growth because “students of all kinds could obviously find enjoyment from this event” and the more diverse the backgrounds of attending students becomes, the more likely students will be exposed to a film or a director they did not know of previously.
Even if the attending group remains fairly small, it will encourage a sense of community within the art students themselves, which is a small community, though nonetheless active and emphatic in their pursuits.

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