The last 150 years of our history have grown increasingly thick with radical, deeply complex cultural developments. Very few of these developments seem to be viewed unanimously as progress. Perhaps even fewer can be said to be viewed unanimously as decline. The vast majority fall somewhere in the middle, for each thoughtful individual to examine and place on their own unique spectrum. Nowhere in the realm of thought is this more evident than in the Arts. Nowhere in the Arts is this more evident than in Music. One man's Wagner is another man's Debussy. One man's Sex Pistols is another man's Sex Pistols, and is simultaneously a third man's Sex Pistols (and each interpretation remains totally unique). Perhaps it is a particular challenge of our time to figure out how to break away from this one-dimentional narrative of progress vs decline.
The pace at which new information and ways of interpreting the information are racing through our culture is simply staggering. It is impossible to hold a frame of reference long enough, in that torrent of mind-shattering concepts, to pass any normative judgements. The mistake many brilliant people make is learning just enough to set themselves at odds with the rest of this great human experiment only to step out of the stream once they believe they know enough. In doing this they not only freeze their perspective (severely limiting their potential for future growth) but they then define their perspective as the ultimate norm, even though it is at odds with so much that is going on all around them. I don't mean to sound condescending but I know because I've totally been "that guy".
This thread is an example that illustrates what I'm talking about. Why make the presumption that the art of motion pictures is in decline? I don't even know how to begin approaching that question. First of all, what, in 2012, is a MOTION PICTURE? Certainly film has expanded beyond Hollywood. The rise of digital photography is allowing all sorts of self-designated "independent filmmakers" to participate in the art form (many with no commercial motives whatsoever). The internet has then also given these independent artists unrestricted access to a distribution platform that Hollywood could not have imagined even as little as 10 years ago. Does cinematic television count? Many shows in the new TV Renaissance (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Deadwood...) make the 2 hour movie masterpiece seem like a short story. And what about those increasingly cinematic video games or other totally new forms of dramatic (or perhaps "experiential") art? Are these not all similar forms of art where the visual, the dramatic, the aural and other temporal forms of art sync up and contribute to create astonishing aesthetic experiences?
How can you... or perhaps why would anyone ignore all these interesting, as yet unexplored developments and insist that we've lost something? Call it a radical transformation, a mutation even, but decline? Isn't it at the very least too soon to call it that? Don't you want to see how all this radical change plays out? One could argue that in our culture literally everything is happening all the time: the old, the new, the good, the bad, progress as well as decline. In this great pool people will see whatever they want based on whomever they are. Optimists can see 1000 things to be optimistic about, and pessimists likewise. In this way, thought we try hard, we can not see our culture. We only see ourselves reflected back in one form or another.
To give one final example I'll suggest something squarely in the realm of music. I see a lot of derision directed at film score composers of the last few decades. To avoid using anyones' normative framework, we can say that they are perhaps NOT using the orchestra in a way that is consistent with some of their predecessors. That alone is not grounds for derision in my book. I'll go one big step further by saying that many of todays most successful hollywood film composers are doing very interesting and very creative work. They are just not concentrating on the fraction of sonic creativity which classically-minded musicians call 'composition'. There is after all, so much more to today's music (a digitally sculpted performance) than what our antiquated notation systems may or may not capture in a transcription.
You all recall the crisis over tonality which played out over the course of the 20th century. Some composers set out to explore atonality. But remember that other composers like Debussy (later Cage, Reich, Pendereki, Eno and many more) seemed to escape compositional redundancy by going after Timbre more and more directly. Many of today's composers are making music that may not seem as interesting on on the page as say, Wagner or even Bach. But no music (particularly today's music) was ever meant to exist on the page. Composers today are equipped to control and are in search of illusive TIMBRES. Electronic (now digital) audio has been helping composers create and refine all sorts of sounds that have simply never been heard before. This is a sonic development of monolithic proportions that will take a long time to play out. Musicians and the public have increasingly embraced what has become, over the past 50 years or so, an AGE OF TIMBRE. Composers from Hann Zimmer to Skrillex currently hold the rapt attention of an engaged public who are simply dazzled by the visceral power of a good bass-drop (as am I). The only ones not having fun are those who are condemning certain aspects of these new musical developments while perhaps not letting themselves hear what is historically and musically unique about what is currently happening. To those people, I'd urge you to always try to listen for what is THERE. It is certainly more fun than listening for what is NOT THERE.