Past Masterpieces

Even though the film buffs taking part in the discussion in the comments thread of this post are, perhaps too defensively, calling their argument "retarded", I think there are quite a few interesting points being made. The question under debate is: "Is Dogville a revolutionary masterpiece, along the lines of Last Year at Marienbad or Breathless?" What no one has brought up yet, though, is question lurking in the back of my mind, which is whether or not that kind of "masterpiece event" is possible today, considering all the changes in (i.e. fragmentation of) the world's film culture. I suspect not: we seem to have left behind the era of individual, world historical, revolutionary works of art and are now in one where the revolution is dispersed, contingent, and local.