Thus, the art in Nocturnal Animals becomes entirely a representation of Susan’s inner self. Susan’s only perception of West Texas is that of the high society’s understanding that plays into the stereotype of a wild, dark and dangerous west, and this is how – in essence – the setting of the novel is presented in her mind. As the entirety of Edward’s novel takes place, ostensibly, in Susan’s head, it is undoubtedly not coincidental that “the house Tony walks up to from the highway after his family was taken from him looks like a John Divola photo, or the standoff between Ray and Tony at the end looks like a Richard Misrach photo” (qtd in Prudowska) – these very pieces are found throughout Susan and Hutton’s household, underlining the differences and similarities between reality and fiction. Thus, for the purposes of the essay, the definition of art used is simply that of all aspects of creativity expressed through Nocturnal Animals: from novels, to paintings and installations, to the audio-visual medium through which the film is expressed.įord introduces the idea of Susan’s constricted inner self and promotes the lack of enthusiasm she portrays in the ‘reality’ half of his film through the intelligent placement of art throughout Nocturnal Animals. In order to fully acknowledge and assess the effective use of art within Nocturnal Animals, it is necessary to look at all potential forms of art – after all, “if we exclude from the domain of art all that to which the critics of various schools themselves deny the title, there is scarcely any art left” ( What Is Art?).
Art, then, becomes that of enjoyment for a piece claiming beauty and elegance in its form – but the question remains for the constitution of art itself. However, the traditional understanding for art stems from an experience of pleasure in the visual form – in sculpture or painting, or more broadly: the fine arts. To this day, different schools of thought boast distinct understandings of the same term with little chance of total agreement. Some even see art as an existential medium: “Art is less involved in making sense of the world and more involved in exploring the possibilities of being, of becoming, in the world” (O’Sullivan) – that is to say, art in itself becomes a creature made at the hands of humanity to both portray and evoke thoughts behind its surface, allowing its audience to become absorbed in a created world. Others, like Leo Tolstoy, understood it as a contradiction even within “its own devotees” to the point where “it is difficult to say what is meant by art” ( What Is Art?). Plato once defined art as imitation, and sought to remove art from his ideal society “on the grounds that art was of minimal practical use” (Danto ix). As such, this essay looks at how art is presented in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, and further argues that each work places an emphasis upon the affective effect for both Ford’s audience and protagonist.
The works of art accentuate the suppressed underlying mental space in which Susan gradually regains over the course of the film, and further allow the audience to perceive how she is affected by the beauty in art around her.
However, art itself can become a secondary or even tertiary layer beneath which another artist might conceal yet another meaning – and this is what Tom Ford does with his use of art in Nocturnal Animals. Beneath a veneer of paint lies a truth fully believed and conveyed by the artist that is impossible to receive and reproduce, as no philosophical truth can ever be entirely duplicated. Certainly, each brushstroke can imitate the original, and every shade can be the same, but at its very core, the difference between original and counterfeit is significant in its meaning. Art itself cannot be reproduced completely.
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