No, but I think Snyder might think so, or that he was trying for as close to that as possible given the genre/etc.
On a side note... when I first saw "art-house" in the title, it reminded me of that one slasher movie that was called 'something'-house and I think it was named after a genre too - and that's the first place my brain went.. lol Now I can't think of the full name, it's bugging me. Kind of a b-movie slasher vibe thing. Anybody know what the name of that was? (sorry for the off-topic)
So, being lazy about this, let's go over to wikipedia and see what a general description of an "art film" is:
[I]An art film is typically a serious, independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal",[2] "made primarily for aesthetic reasons rather than commercial profit", and contains "unconventional or highly symbolic content".
Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an art film as possessing "formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films". These qualities can include (among other elements): a sense of social realism; an emphasis on the authorial expressiveness of the director; and a focus on the thoughts, dreams, or motivations of characters, as opposed to the unfolding of a clear, goal-driven story. Film scholar David Bordwell describes art cinema as "a film genre, with its own distinct conventions".
Art film producers usually present their films at special theaters (repertory cinemas or, in the U.S., art-house cinemas) and at film festivals. The term art film is much more widely used in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia, compared to the rest of Europe, where the term is associated more with auteur films and national cinema (e.g. German national cinema). Since they are aimed at small, niche-market audiences, art films rarely acquire the financial backing that would permit large production budgets associated with widely released blockbuster films. Art film directors make up for these constraints by creating a different type of film, one that typically uses lesser-known film actors (or even amateur actors), and modest sets to make films that focus much more on developing ideas, exploring new narrative techniques, and attempting new film-making conventions.
A certain degree of experience and knowledge is generally required to fully understand or appreciate such films. Film critic Roger Ebert called Chungking Express, a critically acclaimed 1994 art film, "largely a cerebral experience" that one enjoys "because of what you know about film".[7] This contrasts sharply with mainstream blockbuster films, which are geared more towards escapism and pure entertainment. For promotion, art films rely on the publicity generated from film critics' reviews; discussion of the film by arts columnists, commentators, and bloggers; and word-of-mouth promotion by audience members. Since art films have small initial investment costs, they only need to appeal to a small portion of mainstream audiences to become financially viable.[/i]
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Ok, so based on that interpretation, my reasoning would be
Absolutely not.
Every single DC movie from 1978's SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE to 2018's AQUAMAN, whether DCEU or not, has been explicitly aimed at the mass market with the goal of maximum profit.
I will allow that MOS and BVS seemed to want to be more like art films (tho not necessarily succeeding) while still very clearly being blockbusters, but then we're talking wolves in sheep's clothing.
This does partially explain both films' disconnect with the audience, who came for escape and not pontification.
[QUOTE=daBronzeBomma;4231183]
....
Ok, so based on that interpretation, my reasoning would be
Absolutely not.
Every single DC movie from 1978's SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE to 2018's AQUAMAN, whether DCEU or not, has been explicitly aimed at the mass market with the goal of maximum profit.
I will allow that MOS and BVS seemed to want to be more like art films (tho not necessarily succeeding) while still very clearly being blockbusters, but then we're talking wolves in sheep's clothing.
[B]This does partially explain both films' disconnect with the audience, who came for escape and not pontification[/B].[/QUOTE]
Yup. Same thing with Superman Returns. IMO, these 3 films really felt like the Church of Superman. He feels like a distant god a lot of the time, especially Snyder's Superman. He feels quite disconnected from the regular people. Compared that to Superman's portrayal in "Death of Superman" animated movie and I can see why many didn't connect with Cavill's Superman. He's so melancholy and many didn't like it. It didn't feel like their Superman. The tone of these movies alienated those coming for a popcorn movie. It's why Aquaman was such a hit, because James Wan made a movie for audiences not for himself and some hardcore fans.
I think they want to be. There's a lot of pretense, but it's relatively shallow. Snyder explains all his intents with his movies on that one social media platform he uses, but frankly none of it is all that deep.
These are blockbusters with some imagery, and frankly not very good ones.