Film Criticism

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Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
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Re: Film Criticism

#1151 Post by Black Hat » Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:07 pm

I've heard critics who were both fans of his and friends speak of how films weren't his real passion, art was. Don't quote me on this but I think Rosenbaum did a series on his blog a few years ago about Farber's life where this was discussed and, at least to me, the lack of passion for cinema comes through in his writing. I'm also pretty sure this was mentioned in the introduction to the Library of America collection of his work. To reiterate I'm not dismissing Farber's contributions by any means, but I do think a group of today's critics, who happen to be very influential, have for whatever reason taken it upon themselves to rewrite history in his favor at the expense of Kael.

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Maltic
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2020 1:36 am

Re: Film Criticism

#1152 Post by Maltic » Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:41 pm

Meanwhile, here's Dave Kehr's take on the two of them, back in 2001 :)

S: Was Manny Farber an influence at all?
D: No, he was an interesting writer and a great phrasemaker, but I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time. I came to him pretty late, when my sensibility was already formed. Farber was out of print for a long time, as dog-eared copies of Negative Space were passed around. Jonathan and Jim both love him, but he’s never had that much to say to me.
S: It’s difficult to be influenced by him, because when I’ve read people try to imitate him, it usually comes off terribly.
D: I know a few people who have tried to do it, and it’s pretty embarrassing. It’s such a distinctive voice, and it’s also a ’50s voice. Coming out of a 35-year-old guy in the 21st century, it’s silly.

S: Do you have as much “love” for Pauline Kael as most of the Sarris camp?
D: I used to see her once in a while. She was very entertaining and charismatic, with an amazing sense of humor. You could certainly see her charm. As a critic, I’ve rarely agreed with her judgment or her approach. In some ways, she did a lot of harm. Oddly, her influence has become all the more present after she retired, as her acolytes have spread all over. It’s the same voice: mildly amused, a little condescending, seeing “trashy” and “sexy” as the highest praise you can give. That’s the tone editors want. There’s nothing too intimidating about it. It’s kind of sarcastic, hip and glib.
S: She’s better as a prose stylist than a thinker.
D: She’s a damn good writer. Is she a thinker? I don’t know. She described acting styles better than anyone I’ve ever read. But I’ve never seen her dig any ideas out of a movie or dig into its structure beyond “I like this guy and I don’t like this guy.”

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Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
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Re: Film Criticism

#1153 Post by Black Hat » Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:00 am

ha, no lies told. The point he makes about how she would write about acting is an excellent one. Acting is the one thing above everything else critics are pretty terrible at describing and besides her talents as a stylist is the one thing that places Kael over everyone else.

Who is S and Jim?

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Maltic
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2020 1:36 am

Re: Film Criticism

#1154 Post by Maltic » Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:16 am

In fairness, I'm not sure she could've described acting styles "better than anyone" without having at least a few "ideas" about cinema. So, Kehr is being a little glib, himself.

S is Steve Erickson

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/fea ... cles/kehr/

Jim is probably Hoberman

Revelator
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Film Criticism

#1155 Post by Revelator » Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:46 am

Black Hat wrote:
Sun Jan 17, 2021 4:00 am
Kael being polarizing undoubtedly made her a phenomenon of her time, but it's the same thing that's cost her a bit of her legacy. I mean she's not around anymore to respond right? While I'm admittedly a Kael fan, big surprise there, the Kael shade especially with the post Paulette generation has really lost the plot. I'm not sure if it's out of bitterness, jealousy or what
The release of Mank occasioned a fresh round of this, with Raising Kane continually referred to by critics and journalists as as debunked, plagiaristic crap. To a considerable extent Kael brought this latest round of posthumous obloquy on herself fair and square, because she was completely wrong about Welles not being involved with the script, didn't credit Howard Suber for his research, and her own research was sloppy and one-sided.

On the other hand, there are still great observations in that essay (as in everything she wrote), on Mankiewicz, Toland, 30s comedies, Broadway, Hearst's empire, Kane's theatricality, etc. And perhaps I'm alone in thinking so, but her tone toward Welles, while obviously disapproving in regard to credit, isn't vituperative--she viewed Welles as someone who could have revolutionized Hollywood the way she thought Griffith revolutionized early film, but who was derailed early on by the industry. And I don't think anyone would argue with assertions such as "[Citizen Kane’s] “bravura is, I think, the picture’s only true originality, and it wasn’t an intentional challenge to the concept of unobtrusive technique but was (mainly) the result of Welles’s discovery of—and his delight in—the fun of making movies.” Or “Though Mankiewicz provided the basic apparatus for it, that magical exuberance which fused the whole scandalous enterprise was Welles’s.”

Or “Citizen Kane is a film made by a very young man of enormous spirit; he took the Mankiewicz material and he played with it, he turned it into a magic show. It is Welles’s distinctive quality as a movie director—I think it is his genius—that he never hides his cleverness, that he makes it possible for us not only to enjoy what he does but to share his enjoyment in doing it…No other director in the history of movies has been so open in his delight, so eager to share with us the game of pretending.”

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Black Hat
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Re: Film Criticism

#1156 Post by Black Hat » Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:09 am

Ah! That's such a great point thank you. I've never read the Citizen Kane book so it might as well not exist in my world, but you're write up here has me inspired to change that.


Constable
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Re: Film Criticism

#1158 Post by Constable » Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:13 am

Are there any film critics, past or present, who've had a notably unorthodox view on films in the sense of which films they rate highly and which they don't. Specifically, I'd be most interested in ones that would take a negative view of art film or generally films typically held in high regard, but I'd be interested in any kind of divergence from the orthodox view (of course, not on the topic of an individual film, but someone whose general sensibility diverges from the norm).

I know Armond White is one such example. Are there any other?

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knives
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Re: Film Criticism

#1159 Post by knives » Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:26 am

Bosley Crowthers.

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bottlesofsmoke
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Re: Film Criticism

#1160 Post by bottlesofsmoke » Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:44 am

Maybe not what you’re looking for, but David Thomson hates almost all of Chaplin, Capra, Ford, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, and Fellini, and to a lesser extent Hitchcock, Lean, Wilder, Pasolini, post-Kane Welles, Wyler, Stevens, Scorsese, and Gilliam. And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, it’s been a long time since I’ve read any of his stuff.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Film Criticism

#1161 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:50 am

Ray Carney is, er, what’s a polite term for it? Eclectic? Idiosyncratic? Something like that.

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domino harvey
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Re: Film Criticism

#1162 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 25, 2021 12:00 pm

The Cahiers Young Turks. Of course, because they were so influential, many of the filmmakers they champion seem like establishment picks because they changed the establishment

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Big Ben
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Re: Film Criticism

#1163 Post by Big Ben » Mon Jan 25, 2021 12:37 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:50 am
Ray Carney is, er, what’s a polite term for it? Eclectic? Idiosyncratic? Something like that.
Seconded, although I would add elitist on occasion too. I think the part about Carney that rubbed me the wrong way was his persistent belief that art could only be one very specific thing. His recommended film lists had movies on them that were not readily accessible to the average person which certainly made things difficult if you wanted to watch certain things that Carney deemed "good". He also for whatever reason tries very hard to be the only authority on John Cassavetes and the discussions that arose from those attempts to muscle out others could get pretty unpleasant at times. His site is certainly something too.
Last edited by Big Ben on Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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dustybooks
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Re: Film Criticism

#1164 Post by dustybooks » Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:01 pm

If you're starved for new Carney content, don't forget he reviews stuff on Amazon occasionally. Here's what he has to say about Certain Women:
One of the greatest contemporary works of art, and in my personal view, Kelly Reichardt's finest work so far. But if you're used to (or fond of) popular entertainment and wary of new ways of thinking and feeling (as appears to describe more than a few of the reviewers on this page), "save your money" as one of them puts it; you're not ready, willing, or able to appreciate something this deeply, subtly, sensitively beautiful and insightful; stay with the kind of mainstream pop-culture presentation you're used to. You'll be happier and you'll make your friends and family happier. But if you are ready for an education in how to see and feel and think about complex inward spiritual and emotional experiences, this is the place for you to have a great adventure, the greatest of adventures, an adventure of consciousness.
My favorite way of convincing someone a film is great is to remind them how stupid and shallow they are if they don't like it.

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domino harvey
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Re: Film Criticism

#1165 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:07 pm

One of my favorite things about Ray Carney (and it's a very short list) is that alongside all the Mumblecore-adjacent indies he champions, he is also a huge fan and author of a book on the King of Hollywood Schmaltz, Frank Capra. I mean, I like a lot of Capra too, but cognitive dissonance much?

EDIT Also, don't forget our classic thread

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hearthesilence
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Re: Film Criticism

#1166 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:43 pm

dustybooks wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:01 pm
If you're starved for new Carney content, don't forget he reviews stuff on Amazon occasionally. Here's what he has to say about Certain Women:
One of the greatest contemporary works of art, and in my personal view, Kelly Reichardt's finest work so far. But if you're used to (or fond of) popular entertainment and wary of new ways of thinking and feeling (as appears to describe more than a few of the reviewers on this page), "save your money" as one of them puts it; you're not ready, willing, or able to appreciate something this deeply, subtly, sensitively beautiful and insightful; stay with the kind of mainstream pop-culture presentation you're used to. You'll be happier and you'll make your friends and family happier. But if you are ready for an education in how to see and feel and think about complex inward spiritual and emotional experiences, this is the place for you to have a great adventure, the greatest of adventures, an adventure of consciousness.
My favorite way of convincing someone a film is great is to remind them how stupid and shallow they are if they don't like it.
Isn't that always the best approach with everything?

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mizo
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Re: Film Criticism

#1167 Post by mizo » Mon Jan 25, 2021 3:36 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:07 pm
One of my favorite things about Ray Carney (and it's a very short list) is that alongside all the Mumblecore-adjacent indies he champions, he is also a huge fan and author of a book on the King of Hollywood Schmaltz, Frank Capra. I mean, I like a lot of Capra too, but cognitive dissonance much?
He loves Capra because Cassavetes loved Capra. I think he even calls him a Hollywood director with an indie spirit, or something like that.

Having seen him up close trying to analyze films, I really think Carney would probably have an appreciation for a lot of Hollywood cinema, if he weren't so damn dogmatic about "indie good, Hollywood bad." It's a position that I always feel like he came to in reverse - like he just has a personal preference for films that are scrappy and improvisatory, but rather than admit it's a preference, he's reverse-engineered a whole (flimsy) critical apparatus that argues those films are real cinema and everything with a style that doesn't match his own tastes is simplistic garbage. When he's praising the films he likes, it's often pretty easy to imagine those same words being applied to films he attacks. He probably would praise them, if he could take off those ideological blinders

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Sternhalma Weinstein
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Re: Film Criticism

#1168 Post by Sternhalma Weinstein » Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:34 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:07 pm
One of my favorite things about Ray Carney (and it's a very short list) is that alongside all the Mumblecore-adjacent indies he champions, he is also a huge fan and author of a book on the King of Hollywood Schmaltz, Frank Capra. I mean, I like a lot of Capra too, but cognitive dissonance much?

EDIT Also, don't forget our classic thread
What is his general take on Capra? I think Capra's work is rich enough to sustain a variety of interpretations, but what I've read from Carney seems reductive at best.

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Randall Maysin
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Re: Film Criticism

#1169 Post by Randall Maysin » Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:36 am

Constable wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:13 am
a notably unorthodox view on films in the sense of which films they rate highly and which they don't
You probably know them already, but Pauline Kael and John Simon detested all sorts of canonized films. Their most dramatic divergence from established thinking I can think of offhand is that they both dumped on Fellinis 8 1/2, and also never, or barely ever, gave a John Cassavetes movie a good review (both of which I love them for doing).....I think the two of them had a lot more in common than either might admit. There are tons of other examples too. If youre not very famiiar with them, be warned that theyre both not always the....nicest....film critics in the world.
Last edited by Randall Maysin on Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Foam
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Re: Film Criticism

#1170 Post by Foam » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:15 pm

There's a mailbag post where Carney clarifies his thought on mainstream film:
You labor under a misunderstanding.

Many, many, many "mainstream films" are wonderful. I don't put them down. I don't denigrate them wholesale. I put down the cult of Hitchcock and Welles and Tarantino and the Coen brothers and a few others. First, because a director like Alfred H. is not really as interesting or deep as the critics say he is; second, because of the whole "cult" aspect of the following. It represents uncritical adulation and fosters the wrong sorts of critical values that end up misvaluing other works and directors. (E.g. do a search on the site for "cultural studies," "pop culture," "trash," "metaphor," "puzzle" or "mystery" or "suspense" or "clarity" or "sfumato" and you'll see some of my analysis of the failures of these incorrect critical values.)

I'd rather bless than curse. I do bless more than curse. You just haven't read my books I think. My web site is more of the polemical me. The books celebrate and love and adore many things, many actors, many directors. But I can't write about them all. I'm only one person with one life.

I love many of the filmmakers you name. Yeah, Bela Tar. Yeah, Visconti. Yeah, Murnau. I love Jacques Rivette. I love Jean Renoir. I love DeSica. I love Jean Vigo. I love Harmony Korine. I love Chaplin. I love Keaton. I love Preston Stuges. I love Billy Wilder. I love Chantel Ackerman. I love Ingmar Bergman. I love Robert Bresson. I love Yasujiro Ozu. I love Federico Fellini. I love Roberto Rossellini. I love Carl Dreyer. And too many others. Etc. Etc.

I love the acting of Robert Duvall. I love Bette Davis. I love Joan Crawford. I love Crispin Glover. I love Nick Cage. I love Chris Walken. I love Gena Rowlands. I love Ben Gazzara. I love Philip Seymour Hoffmann. I love Humphrey Bogart. I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I love Gene Kelly. I love Sean Penn. I love Jerry Lewis. I love Ingrid Bergman. I love Marlene Deitrich. Etc. Etc. And too many others.

I love Rebel without a Cause. I love Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I love Casablanca. I love Now, Voyager. I love The Earrings of Madame D.... I love Dark Victory. I love Vincent, Francois, Paul, et les Autres. I love Place in the Sun. I love An American in Paris. I love Swingtime. I love Top Hat. I love Intermezzo. And too many others. Etc. Etc.

I teach many of these works in my courses. I tell students about them. I show clips from them when I want to expain things about indie films.

But most of these people and works have their champions. Why should I waste my life being a voice in the chorus? I'd rather point out what others don't know, haven't seen, don't admire, or truly appreciate the genius of: Leigh's Meantime and Bleak Moments, John Korty's Crazy Quilt, Riverrun, and Funnyman, Barbara Loden's Wanda, Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky, Claudia Weil's Girlfriends, Robert Kramer's Ice and Milestones, Paul Morrissey's Flesh and Trash, Milton Moses Ginsbergs' Coming Apart, Peter Hall's The Homecoming, Midsummer Night's Dream, Olivier's Uncle Vanya, Engels' Weddings and Babies and Lovers and Lollipops, Shabib's The Chicken Chronicles, Clarke's Portrait of Jason, Penn's Indian Runner, Vince Gallo's Buffalo 66, and a thousand others --- ranging all over, from the work of John Cassavetes to John Korty to Andrew Bujalski to Mark Rappaport to Jay Rosenblatt to Su Friedrich to Mike Leigh.

But who cares about my list or lists? Go exploring!!! Make your own list!!!! You already have!

RC

P.S. And do you see that your difficulty getting the indie or alternative works proves the need for me to sing their praises? They are difficult to get because viewers, reviewers, and releasers haven't heard of them or don't think they will sell enough to justify a video release. So you can't criticize me for trying to solve the very problem you describe: the unavailability of those works. I am trying to make them more available! And the only way I can do that is to sing, sing, sing (as Benny Goodman puts it) their praises from every rooftop I can. If I spent my time writing about the virtues of The Palm Beach Story, Bette Davis's acting or Michaelangelo Antonioni's directing, I would be wasting it. And wasting my life. People know those things already.

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domino harvey
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Re: Film Criticism

#1171 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:33 pm

Foam wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:15 pm
You labor under a misunderstanding.

Many, many, many "mainstream films" are wonderful. I don't put them down. I don't denigrate them wholesale. I put down the cult of Hitchcock and Welles and Tarantino and the Coen brothers and a few others. First, because a director like Alfred H. is not really as interesting or deep as the critics say he is; second, because of the whole "cult" aspect of the following.
Big Ann Coulter "B. Hussein Obama" vibes here

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dustybooks
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Re: Film Criticism

#1172 Post by dustybooks » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:54 pm

This is probably derailing too much, but I remember as a young film viewer just being very put off by the idea, repeatedly put across by Carney, that Hitchcock strictly made puzzle films that have no psychology or deeper meaning. (Also worth noting that Carney has at times railed against the idea of symbolism or metaphor altogether, which just seems like a strange way of limiting oneself.) It was so far from my experience of Hitchcock's work, and Hitchcock was so important to me as a gateway into other films, that I was perhaps unreasonably put off and irked by his remarks, and yet I couldn't stop reading and powered through pages and pages of his mailbag. Which means, probably, that his polemical remarks about AH had the desired effect.

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soundchaser
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Re: Film Criticism

#1173 Post by soundchaser » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:00 pm

I think you could make the argument a lot of film criticism these days is overly focused on the puzzle (how many "Twin Peaks EXPLAINED!" videos are there on YouTube?), but I definitely don't get that feeling from Hitchcock either. Rear Window and Vertigo are sideways glances at middle-class American culture, masculinity, and human interaction that just happen to explore those themes through mystery, and you don't really need to probe the metaphors all that deeply to come to that conclusion. I'd be curious to read some of his discussion of metaphor to see why he lumps it in with "puzzle" and "mystery," though.

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dustybooks
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Re: Film Criticism

#1174 Post by dustybooks » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:59 pm

soundchaser wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:00 pm
I think you could make the argument a lot of film criticism these days is overly focused on the puzzle (how many "Twin Peaks EXPLAINED!" videos are there on YouTube?), but I definitely don't get that feeling from Hitchcock either. Rear Window and Vertigo are sideways glances at middle-class American culture, masculinity, and human interaction that just happen to explore those themes through mystery, and you don't really need to probe the metaphors all that deeply to come to that conclusion. I'd be curious to read some of his discussion of metaphor to see why he lumps it in with "puzzle" and "mystery," though.
I do have to agree with you that this sort of puzzle-oriented talk can be exhausting, and it even affects the discourse around films like Certified Copy at times, so I have to tip my hat to Carney for some prescience on that front, but I think he's unnecessarily snobbish about it. As for the metaphor bit, here's something pertaining to this from 2004 on his website:
Ray Carney wrote:Look at Mulholland Drive. And, for an even more depressing experience, look at the critical accolades showered on it. Film Comment devoted a large part of an entire issue to it. In celebration of what? A series of smart-ass tricks and games. Big friggin’ deal. That’s the best someone can do with a couple million dollars? I don’t care how the New York critics revel in it, or what they call it, it’s cynicism to me. You wouldn’t need all the emotional back-flips and narrative trap doors if you had anything to say. You wouldn’t need doppelgangers and shadow-figures if your characters had souls. I always think of something Robert Frost’s students said he used to ask over and over again in class: “Is this poem sincere?” Robert Graves had a similar bullshit test. He used to ask, “Is this poem necessary?” Those are not bad questions to ask about any work of art. Movies like Mulholland Drive and Kill Bill are not about sincerity or necessity but stylishness. We don’t learn anything important about life from them.

This adoration of cleverness, this love of wit isn’t something new. Lynch’s fan club didn’t invent this value system. Oscar Wilde was prancing down this runway a long time ago. The critics loved it then and they love it now. Look at the votive lights that have been tended at the Hitchcock shrine for more than fifty years. I was leafing through an old issue of MovieMaker where a good friend of mine, David Sterritt, was being interviewed and described Hitchcock as a “philosopher-poet.” That got my attention. That’s what a filmmaker should be. So I couldn’t wait to read his answer to the next question the interviewer asked – about what made Hitchcock’s work so great? I was all set for a poetic, philosophical answer. Then Sterritt said something about the way in Psycho the first thing visible in Sam and Marion’s hotel room is the “bathroom” and the way the driving in the rain scene involved “water and blades.” Get it? Marion is killed in a bathroom, in the shower, with water streaming down her body, by a blade, and – ta dah! – there are all these allusions to bathrooms, showers, and blades earlier in the film. Can you run that by me again? Is that the poetry part or the philosophy part?

It’s an immature notion of art. I can understand the appeal. Everyone went through that stage. I did too. In high school. The class read The Great Gatsby and when we were done, the teacher pointed out these metaphors. The green light and all those other references. I thought I had understood the novel before that. But then I suddenly realized how I had missed all this metaphoric stuff. I raced though the text finding all these things I hadn’t realized were there. It was like reading a different book. It was a heady experience. It was exciting. I had never known you could do that. There was all this hidden stuff, just waiting to be excavated. That must be what a work of art is. It had secret meanings. Wow. Amazing. I felt like an intellectual for the first time when I did it. But that was high school for gosh sake. I was just a kid. I got over it. A few years later, sometime in college I guess, I realized how trivial it all was. That it was all just a parlor trick. But there are apparently thousands of film reviewers and students and professors out there who never got over the green light at the end of Gatsby. Art is about finding hidden messages in invisible bottles thrown ashore by the artist. It’s that pattern that emerges when you connect the dots. Bathroom. Rain. Wiper blades. Shower scene. Knife blade. Get it? It’s all so clear. So crisp. So abstract. So tempting. It’s the pleasure of filling out a crossword puzzle or manipulating one of those cereal box decoder rings and cracking the code. “Look at what I can do. Look at the secret connections I can find.” It’s pretty intoxicating. Like finding the word that slips magically into 12 down and links with 5 and 7 across. It gives the critic all this power over the text. It makes him feel smart.

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soundchaser
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Re: Film Criticism

#1175 Post by soundchaser » Tue Jan 26, 2021 2:08 pm

I figured he'd hate Lynch, which is a shame, but I don't necessarily disagree with his critique of that general approach to "solving" a film. I do think he's sort of missing the forest for the trees, though -- Mulholland Dr., along with some of Lynch's other great films, passes his hypothetical poem test because it creates moods, feelings, and experiences that could only be conveyed through film. I agree that the windshield wiper interpretation is a pretty facile one, but I don't think that's Hitchcock's fault.

(And yes, I agree with you on Certified Copy. The main joy of that film for me is its refusal to be grasped in those puzzle terms.)
Last edited by soundchaser on Tue Jan 26, 2021 2:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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