Why do art films make people so angry?

To OP: Art films make people think and most people, especially Americans, don't like to think. They want everything spelled out with blatant metaphors and nothing surreal. This really reminded me of a David Lynch film. The movie in the beginning, the situations, the idea of doppelgängers...and the Holy Motors font looks a lot like the Twin Peaks one.

I thought it was great. I am American, BTW. I just do not have much faith in other Americans. Most of them think culture is watching reality TV.

I'll tell you why. Imagine a group of people calling a piece of *beep* - special. A literal piece of *beep* Imagine a group of people saying a piece of *beep* is worth something of value. This is a literal piece of *beep* we are talking about. That is what art films are, pieces of *beep* that people hold in high regard. The people who get angry about this are people who don't like others saying that creating a piece of *beep* is masterpiece.

"Why do art films make people so angry?" - This, my friends, is a great question. And why people, who obviously should watch something else, still keep watching art films, and raging about them in the internet? Beats me. I mean, even if an "art film" is not very good, why should one completely loose one's temper over it? I don't spend my time watching some class b *beep* that I know to only make me annoyed, and then spend more of my time writing angry reviews about them.

Especially the first answer here (by skyhighvoltage-1) hits the nail on the head.

One reason might be that some people view films as a kind of amusement park ride. They want to be carried on an emotional and action-packed journey.. like on a roller coaster. An art film, to some, might feel like a roller coaster that is stuck and doesn't move.

Me, I love art films... but those are my thoughts on why so many of the films I love are despised by some.

YR

When we watch films we want to dive into a new world, we need emotions to get conneced.
Some Art Films are able to deliver this too but this Movie does not. It is not intended. This is
Art and is ment to be Art. So we have a distance to it. You cant attach emotionally but you can be
fascinated or at least interested by the visuals or by thoughts and questions the artist expresses
or provokes trough this film.
Becaus of the emotional distance and the missing Storyline you find yourself outside of your comfort zone
and you cant handle what you see because the movie does not fit into patterns you are familiar with. This movie could easily go further that way another 2 hours and that would not make any difference. It is meant as pice of art in an exhibition. Something you can think about , be interested or facinated or bored. You cant go emotionally deep into it.
You are pulled out of the story every now and then when you hardly try to follow the story or feel for the characters.
But you cant because it is not wanted here and this makes you less interested and may be angry at last.

See Pauline Kael's reply to your question, in her 1967 'Bonnie & Clyde' review:
"Though we may dismiss the attacks with “What good movie doesn’t give some offense?,” the fact that it is generally only good movies that provoke attacks by many people suggests that the innocuousness of most of our movies is accepted with such complacence that when an American movie reaches people, when it makes them react, some of them think there must be something the matter with it—perhaps a law should be passed against it."

See also Kant's reply to the same question in his 'Critique of Judgment' (1790):
"The Iroquois Sachem likes nothing better in Paris than the eating houses."

I guess Art, sometimes, is the Great Divider.

I think a lot of arthouse films are aiming high. Because they're often esoteric or hard to "get into" (as opposed to a blockbuster action picture) some people are going to miss that. They aren't "for everybody", in other words.

But that's compounded by the fact that a bunch of people will be raving about how amazing they were. If you didn't like the film, that makes you feel stupid. And, if you didn't feel stupid and just went, "Meh, wasn't for me," the worst part is that the fans of the art film will come 'round to tell you you're stupid. "Oh, you didn't like watching a movie about a man with a fish head who never says anything? I guess you should go back to watching Transformers, plebe! That's more for people of your taste and intelligence!"

Great discussion you are having here. As somebody who enjoys everything from schlock to art from all ages, I certainly can testify that some movies are annoyingly pretentious and overrated. But others are true art and art has its own language that one has to understand, and also how this language is manifested in film.

On other hand there are really people who just don't get it and think that if a movie does not go well with popcorn, then it is bad. They say "It is all about taste, there is nothing to understand in movies!".

Holy Motors is on my watchlist, but I'm hesitant to watch it, because Frenchmen love pretentious style over substance. But I will eventually watch it.