In The Company Of Glenn

Of Pauline Kael, fan mail, and other burning issues of film criticism.

I had to hit the ground running when I got back from Brookline, MA last week, so I didn’t get time to sit down and do a proper report on the “Beyond Thumbs Up: A Critical Look At Film Criticism” panels I participated in up there at the lovely Coolidge Corner Theater. We—myself, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, Armond White of The New York Press, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe, Scott Foundas of L.A. Weekly, the venerable David Sterritt and the venerable Phillip Lopate and moderators Richard Porton and Cynthia Lucia of Cineaste—were treated like royalty by the lovely staff there, and we had a grand time arguing over the course of three 150 minute panels over two days. It was kind of exhausting. (There's a very kind review of one of the panels here.)

We began by describing how we each got into film criticism; I think I got cut off about 20 minutes into my own account, by which time I was up to my first driving test. After that, one name started coming up a lot. And a lot.

Almost everyone on the panel had had some significant contact at least, or a substantial personal/professional relationship at most, with Pauline Kael.

Words cannot express

From Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick, 1978

I like and respect New Yorker film critic David Denby, but sometimes I wonder what the hell he's on about. There's a weirdly Homer Simpson-esque tone to the way he kicks off his review of Michael Clayton this week: "It's forever being drummed into us that movies are a visual medium." Yeah. Stupid people and their stupid insistence that movies are a stupid visual medium. But really—forever? "Screenwriters are chastised with this half-truth all the time," Denby continues. "They may be told to keep dialogue terse or suggestive or to drop lines altogether." Yes, they may be. If they're David Mamet, they will not be, but if they're anybody else, they may be. "After the movie is shot, directors may cut good as well as bad dialogue." That's correct also. Don't quite know what to say to it, though. "That's life"? "No shit, Sherlock"?

Denby seems to be suggesting that the correlative to this idea that's forever being drummed into us is a hostility to good, intelligent movie dialogue (which he finds in abundance in Michael Clayton). This is nonsense, as any fan of His Girl Friday could tell you. It's as nonsensical as the proposition that a) Eric Rohmer's films are very dialogue-heavy, ergo b) he is a director indifferent to visuals. Denby's complaint is a weird straw man to invent in order to defend a film, or the idea of a film, that requires no special pleading whatsover.

What is the role of dialogue in a motion picture? Depends on the picture. I've been drinking in Criterion's wonderous new DVD of Terrence Malick's very, um, visual 1978 filmDays of Heaven (a picture, by the way, that was largely shot by Rohmer's frequent DP Nestor Almendros), and the extras contain some interesting info about how the dialogue in that picture was pared down to almost nothing.

'Mumblecore' and the indie-rock analogy

I went to the "Generation DIY" panel discussion at New York's Soho Apple Store last night. Hosted by the great Eugene Hernandez of Indiewire, it featured director Joe Swanberg and actress Greta Gerwig, of LOL and the just-premiered-in-NY Hannah Takes The Stairs; blogger, Premiere reviewer, bon vivant, close personal friend and Fish Kill Flea co-director Aaron Hillis (who's also added DVD entrepreneur to his gallery of hats—I'll get to that); writer/director Aaron Katz, whose Dance Party U.S.A. and Quiet City are among the best pictures to come out of the so-called "Mumblecore" scene; and Matt Dentler, a producer of the South by Southwest arts festival, which has premiered a good number of films by members of this not-quite-movement, which has recently been the subject of pieces in The Village Voice and The New York Times.

It was a lively, informative panel, and during the Q&A portion Andrew Grant (the blogger behind Filmbrain and the founder of Benten Films, the DVD label he's co-running with Mr. Hillis, whose inaguaral release, a well-done disc of Swanberg's LOL, streets next Tuesday, and by the way, do you think this post could use more hyperlinks?) asked the panel what they made of a recent, perplexing blog post by Anthony Kaufman which stated that "[i]f these films are hyped, they may be doomed" because the hype might attract people who really liked Superbad and will hence be disappointed in the low production values of the average "Mumblecore" film, or something. Okay, I'm oversimplifying—"[D]o these films stand a chance in the real theatrical marketplace?" he asks.

The Schwarzbaum Ultimatum

I was guided to Lisa Schwarzbaum's Entertainment Weekly brief "What I Hate" via Jeffrey Wells, who links back to Joe Leydon's first citation. Both posts note that the entire piece is unavailable online, so I had to hunt down a copy of the July 27 issue to get the full flavor. The piece is online here.

How about that title, "What I Hate"? Clearly in the tradition of E.M. Forster's "What I Believe" or Orwell's "Why I Write." Very noble. Why use it up on a piece that's maybe 250 words? Her call, I guess. Schwarzbaum begins by citing her colleague Owen Gleiberman's review of the very bad Captivity (my own review of which is here) and then begins to peer down her nose. "For the sake of readers who appreciate guidance in the nuances..." keep peering... "of the genre referred to as 'torture porn horror,' I'm glad Owen took the assignment. I wouldn't." Oof. And why wouldn't she? "It's quite simple," she writes. And I do love that "quite." I'm kind of sorry she didn't just drop the other shoe and continue, "you dolt." But never mind. "It's quite simple: I hate these movies. I won't see these movies."

Now I'm thinking, geez, it must be sweet to work at Entertainment Weekly, where you can beg off of seeing something because you hate its genre. Where else does this happen? I mean, imagine you're a pop music critic at some weekly or daily and you tell your editor you won't review any hip-hop, because you hate it and it's demeaning to women and/or promotes crime or what have you. How long you think you'd have your job? Of course Schwarzbaum's got the advantage of having Gleiberman to pawn stuff off on, apparently, and what an interesting little window on their professional relationship this revelation cracks open. But never mind...

Apology to Jonathan Rosenbaum

I have been gathering up the most fearsome array of scholarship possible to respond to a thoroughly offensive assertion that kicks off the 2004 "documentary" Shadowing the Third Man, which has unfortunately been included in the supplemental materials of the otherwise excellent updated DVD edition of The Third Man coming from Criterion on May 22. I'm not going to get into my issues here—I'm trying to contact Frederick Baker, the writer/director of the film, and get his response to the one question I have for him before taking him to task. But anyway, one book I added to my library in my gathering was the great Jonathan Rosenbaum's new anthology Discovering Orson Welles.

Bart!

I've been unusually busy over the week, so I missed Variety editor Peter Bart's screed against out-of-touch movie critics in Thursday's edition. A fellow blogger e-mailed it to me, eyes no doubt rolling as he pressed the "send"command.

I like Bart. He's a smart guy and a fascinating, as they say, character. Badgering movie writers who he seems to believe are involved in some kind of conspiracy to privilege the obscure and arty over the populist is a cherished hobby of his, and I don't begrudge him this, or take his jabs personally. In the case of this particular column, though...well, there's no way that even he doesn't know just how full of it he is.

Robin Wood, le patron

"The interest of [Ernest Lehman's] Portnoy's Complaint (in so far as that dreadful film can be said to have any) lies in its total dissimilarity to North By Northwest. It seems idle to argue simply that the subject matter is different and demands a different approach; the notion that the 'real author' of Hitchcock's film went on to make it is scarcely more surprising than it would be to learn that Bresson came secretly to England to make Carry On Nurse under the pseudonym of Gerald Thomas."
—Wood, "Reflections on the Auteur Theory," Personal Views, revised edition 2006