There's a conversation I frequently fall into with musicians I know; one that assumes there is a clear polarity between art and commerce. On the one side is "selling out," making art that is closer to product, often with corporate backing, and designed to meet a given market's needs. (Think Ayumi Hamasaki). On the other hand is independent or "pure" art, driven entirely by the artist's concerns and imaginings, and totally divorced from any potential audience or conventions.

Despite always being one to respect individuality and imagination over predictable product, I often find myself arguing over the role of pure art with friends. Often I'll suggest that, at some point, a real artist must consider a way to do what he wants and communicate this successfully to his desired audience. The comeback to this is always, "Well, that's a compromise of one's personal vision." Well, if you don't want to take the audience into consideration, if you do what you do solely for yourself, then fine, feel free. But don't then get up on a stage and charge money for your performance and expect people to listen. (And then whine about what philistines they are for not getting it.)

One filmmaker I'd love to have this conversation with is Philippe Garrel. His cinematic style, developed over four decades on the fringe, is resolutely personal and idiosyncratic, so much so that it often leaves the viewer wondering if maybe he isn't superfluous to the process. Take "Les Hautes Solitudes" from 1974, a silent, black-and-white film that features 80 minutes of nothing but intense closeups on the faces of four women, some of them Garrel's lovers.