Essence of the Ideal

I guess what makes art Art is that it is a level above or below reality. It either enhances the image of the object to give more essence to its existence or the artist strips down ordinary things to make them look more ordinary. I think this what Aristotle meant by the "essence of the ideal". Whatever that ideal image is, it can only be seen or felt by looking at how and why the object was made. And by that he pertains only to the physical appearance of the object because the the truth itself can only be seen through its physical manifestation. He was trying to say that although we only imitate the ideal, the essence, even it is much farther removed from the truth as Plato claimed, is still within that object.

If that is the case then we should look at art as to how it is imitated. There must be something in a piece of work that we do not like that we must have overlooked. Just like what the director did to the story in the movie "Tuhog". To him the story is more appealing to the audience if he adds a little touch of "drama and excitement". The idea is to exaggerate. Real life can be so boring and full of routine and we don't want to see that do we? That is why we watch movies or read books because we want to get away from ordinary life. Art is our passport to that realm. I guess we just differ in tastes. For the director, sexy movies are more profitable than heavy drama - if he considered creating a movie out of the real facts of the story that is. Most artists too have to consider the income they will get from their work. Perhaps he made the right choice, why consider creating a sad story when there are a lot of people who would prefer those kinds of movies.