Les Brodeuses (Sequins) part 2

But people who do not appreciate textiles, objected Wudekind, could still appreciate the scene: it shows the heroine’s true pleasure at her work (she is an embroiderer); and that her work has become a kind of refuge for her. She quits her day job, sends her boyfriend packing, refuses to attend her mother’s wedding – all because she wishes to be left alone; to be left alone with her work. It is her reclusion; her haven. By showing her pleasure with her work, the scene works within the story and can be appreciated on other, non-aesthetic levels as well.

Agreed, I replied.

And, besides, a good aesthetic element, like good soundtrack (or salt or wine in food), heightens the pleasure of the story told. It transmutes the ordinary into the extra-ordinary: as a result of its presence, the ordinary story suddenly seems worth telling. And I did not wish to suggest that the film’s story was stupid or the rest of it aesthetically dull. Rather, I wanted to say something else: that, viewed from purely aesthetic perspective, the film has a core, or a crescendo; and that the surrounding matter is duller, a kind of setting for it.

Look at me follows the same formula. There the concert – its aesthetic core – is actually emphasized in several ways: first, throughout much of the film one is preparing for it; second, an important dramatic development takes place during the concert.

The two films are a kind of genre, then: psychological drama told beautifully and organized around a core aesthetic event.