Eyeless in Monument Valley, Part II
View image: Above: That gritty Hollywood literalism and/or naturalism: "Off-putting to the contemporary sensibility."
I was wrong. Last night, just before going to bed, I read Stephen Metcalf's "Dilettante" column, "The Worst Best Movie: Why on earth did 'The Searchers' get canonized?". This did not make it easy for me to get to sleep, so I dashed off a preliminary response in which I harshly characterized Metcalf's piece as an "inexcusably stupid essay... about a classic John Ford Western." But now, re-reading the column in the light of day, I realize that Metcalf was hardly writing about "The Searchers" at all. And nearly every observation he does make about the film itself is cribbed from something Pauline Kael wrote (see more below). He'll just flings out an irresponsible, non sequitur comment like, "Even its adherents regard 'The Searchers' as something of an excruciating necessity," and let it lie there, flat on the screen, unexplained and unsupported. So, while I stand by my claim that what Metcalf has written is stupid and inexcusable (for the reasons I will delineate below), I don't think it has much to do with "The Searchers."
Instead, Metcalf is reacting to his own perception of the film's reputation (and in part to A.O. Scott's recent New York Times piece admiring "The Searchers"), using the movie to snidely deride people Mecalf labels "film geeks," "nerd cultists" and:
... critics whose careers emerged out of the rise of "film studies" as a discrete and self-respecting academic discipline, and the first generation of filmmakers—Scorsese and Schrader, but also Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and George Lucas—whose careers began in film school.(The latter are later characterized as "well-credentialed nerds.") The fault, then, in Metcalf's mind, is not so much in the film as in those who brazenly take film seriously as an art form. Using "The Searchers" as an anecdotal, ideological bludgeon, Metcalf attempts to attack the impudent and insidious notion that movies are worthy of serious study and artistic interpretation. Holy flashback to Clive James!
View image: "What makes a man leave bed and board and turn his back on home?" The physical grace of John Wayne.
I wonder what Metcalf means by the phrase "discrete and self-respecting academic discipline"? Is he saying that film, if studied in academia at all, should merely be used -- as it so often has been -- solely as an audio-visual aid in literature or drama or history courses, and not taught as film? As such, should film be put in its rightful place as an "inferior" medium, groveling before superior books and plays with a reverential, self-abasing cry of "We are not worthy! We are not worthy!"? That's certainly been the case in many American schools and universities over the past half-century or so....
Metcalf confesses that he has, in fact, seen "The Searchers" -- recently, once, and for the first time:
Coming to "The Searchers" for the first time, I was surprised at how fidgeted-together this supposedly great film is, how weird its quilting is, of unregenerate violence with doltish comic set pieces, all pitched against Ford's signature backdrop, the buttes and spires of Monument Valley. Though visually magnificent, the movie is otherwise off-putting to the contemporary sensibility, what with its when men were men, and women were hysterics mythos and an acting style that often appears frozen in tintype. (Hank Worden's turn, as the lovable village idiot, is particularly gruesome in this respect.)First of all, watch out for anyone who uses a lame term like "visually magnificent" to describe a movie without offering further elaboration and evidence. Film is a visual medium; if all a movie does is to offer up pretty pictures (see "Thelma and Louise" for an egregious and inappropriate use of excessive pictorialism), then that hardly qualifies as "visual magnificence," any more than the prettified mallworks of Thomas Kinkade ("The Painter of Light") constitute "magnificent" landscape painting.
But the key phrase here, I think, is "off-putting to the contemporary sensibility." Horreurs! Metcalf insists that "this silly film" be judged through the lens of political correctness, circa 2006. Never mind that it was made in 1956, an opening title sets it in "Texas 1868" (in an isolated homestead in the middle of the Southwestern American desert, no less), and that it is overtly stylized in every respect. "The Searchers" -- from its opening shot of the doorway -- is self-consciously mythological, poetic, and, in its characters' choreographed body language, even balletic. (To give Metcalf some credit, he does acknowledge that the moment when Ethan lifts Debbie, and then cradles her in his arms is "one of the more thrilling moments in anyone's movie-watching life." I just wish he would speak for himself and refrain from exerting authority over others' responses. And how can a movie that builds to such a thrilling moment also be "impossible to enjoy"? Does that moment exist in isolation from the rest of the movie?)
The archaic-sounding spoken language (precursor to the profane blank verse of "Deadwood") isn't "realistic," either, and isn't inteded to be -- and that may be off-putting to contemporary sensibilities, like the language of "The Odyssey," "Beowulf," "Hamlet," "Moby Dick" and "Miller's Crossing," to name a few. When Ethan shoots out the eyes of a dead Comanche, the Reverend (Ward Bond) asked what good that did him. Ethan replies: "By what you preach, none. By what that Comanche believes, ain't got no eyes he can't enter the spirit land, has to wander forever between the winds. You get it, Reverend." Then, turning to Jeffrey Hunter: "C'mon, Blankethead." What a marvelous mix of rhythms, tones and images are contained in that one brief speech. But that's exactly what may make some modern folks "uncomfortable." As critic Michael Atkinson described it, "The Searchers" is "is as far from an ordinary mid-century western as 'King Lear' is from a soap opera."
View image: "Baby!" Martha pushes her youngest child Debbie out of the window into the wilderness, while her body also yearns to hang onto her as long as she can. She will never see her daughter again. I find this moment heartbreaking because the eloquent movements of the actors express something beyond the reach (and maybe the ken) of naturalism.
Like his model Pauline Kael ("The lines are often awkward and the line readings worse... the performances are highly variable"), Metcalf writes that "The Searchers" is "alternately sodden and convulsive in its acting." (That sure sounds highly variable to me!) But, as if it weren't obvious from the movie itself, Ford began in the days of silent cinema (he directed 67 films between 1915 and 1928), and the performances in this film are quite openly characteristic of silent film styles. Call them melodramatic or expressionistic; as I said, I prefer "balletic" or "poetic." Watch the way the mother reaches out in anguish and desperation after her youngest daughter as she is passed out the window to escape a deadly raid. Or the way Ethan stands in the doorway at the end. Or (as we shall discuss in a moment), that indelible moment in which Ethan grasps Debbie and lifts her into the air. Are these stylized, exaggerated movements sullen or convulsive? Some may think so; I think they're essential to the style, the atmosphere -- and the spell -- of the movie, and help account for why it remains so beloved and fascinating today. (As I mentioned before, "The Searchers" even ranked on the AFI's decidedly non-academic list of 100 Greatest American movies, in between those two silly, sodden and convulsive museum pieces "Pulp Fiction" and "Bringing Up Baby," the latter a shameless screwball comedy featuring some outlandish performances -- one must say, in range and tone, they are "highly variable" -- from a pair of ancient relics called Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.)
Metcalf also makes the mistake (it's almost a pathetic fallacy) of asserting that if something can't -- or won't -- be articulated by the filmmakers themselves, then it isn't suitable for discussion by anyone else. In Metcalf's formulation, only the artist can define his own art. He writes:
That Ford should be admired and dissected by a legion of academics would have been amusing to Ford, a self-styled man's man (and by many accounts, a self-styled drunk's drunk) who once said, "My name is John Ford. I make Westerns," as laconic a kiss-off to one's nerd-cultists as one could imagine.
View image: Through a doorway, into another emotional dimension: Martha gently caresses Ethan's coat.
View image Ethan discovers Martha's body, out of view, inside a burned-out structure. This time, the camera looks out at Ethan the Outsider from beyond the threshold of death, rather than within the shelter of civilization as in the opening and closing shots.
(Actually, Ford introduced himself that way, famously, during a notorious Director's Guild meeting, speaking out against Cecil B. DeMille and the anti-Commie Red-baiters in the membership, but more about that below. Perhaps Metcalf is thinking of William Shatner and his "kiss-off" to Trekkies in an old "SNL" sketch.) Howard Hawks had a similar attitude about his work. To filmmakers like Ford and Hawks, directing movies was their job, and they were professionals. And Shakespeare considered himself a popular entertainer. But so what? Since when do someone's overtly stated artistic ambitions serve to limit or enhance the aesthetic value of the art itself? Ever heard the adage, "Trust the art, not the artist"? If El Greco said his "View of Toledo" was meant to be just a picture postcard, would that lessen its reputation as a great painting? If Stravinsky dismissed his "Rite of Spring" as mere ballet programme music, would that diminish what we hear in it? And, conversely, if Neil Simon proclaims himself the greatest playwright of the 20th Century, does that make it so? I sure hope not. I suggest Metcalf watch Peter Bogdonovich's "Directed by John Ford" to see just how irascible Ford could be with critics and academics; it doesn't change his work one bit. (Later Metcalf quotes a crude and laconic explanation, given by John Wayne in some unidentified interview, for why Ethan does what he does -- as if the Duke could offer the final word in artistic interpretation.)
Metcalf falls into another muddle when he cutely attempts to reduce "Hamlet," "The Turn of the Screw" (or, maybe "The Innocents"?) and "The Searchers" to a series of seminar questions. I will quote him and -- in the spirit of his questions -- provide the simplistic answers he seeks in italics:
Now, "Why didn't he kill her?" is right up there with "Why does Hamlet dither?" and "Did the governess really see Quint and Miss Jessel?" as one of the great seminar unanswerables; it is sure to keep discussion going for the allotted 50 minutes, along with: Wait, why did he want to kill her in the first place? (Could it be because, in his xenophobic view, she had been kidnapped into a fate worse than death? Try asking this question of the Muslims who, under Sharia law, kill their own wives and daughters when they are raped or commit adultery. What might it mean, to Ethan and to the movie, if a nubile white girl -- his brother's daughter -- is kidnapped, raised and bred within a tribe of people he sees as heathens and savages? Know anything about the Judeo-Christian obsession with bloodlines, as detailed in the bible?)Ah, yes, "Who knows?" Because art should answer questions, not raise them, right? Because any question that can't be addressed, definitively, after a single viewing of a film is not worth asking? Metcalf's reductive view of art (and, especially, movies) is, well, off-putting to any critical or aesthetic sensibility.Was he in love with Debbie's mother, his milquetoast of a dead brother's dead wife? (Did you perhaps intuit something like what the Reverend notices -- and discreetly chooses to respect and/or ignore -- about the gestures and glances that pass between Ethan and Martha? What do you think?)
Why is Debbie the only hint of good sex in the movie? (OK, I'll bite: You say Debbie, as played by the "ravishing" Natalie Wood, is the heart of the movie's "kinky allure." How do you think Ethan feels about that, imagining what those "young bucks" might be doing with his neice? If, as you say, the movie's other women [even Lucy?] are seen -- by Ethan or by the film -- as "sexless," including the forbidden Martha, where does that concentrate all the movie's repressed sexual energy?)
Are Ethan and Scar doppelgängers? (Does the pope defecate in the woods? Are bears a national threat?)
Does Ethan spare Debbie because the scalping of Scar has purged him of his own most perturbing desires? (You think he's purged? If so, why doesn't he come into the house at the end of the movie? Why does he turn and walk away?) Who knows?
The answer to why Ethan decides not to kill Debbie isn't expressed in rational, linear thought or language -- it's expressed in the thrilling moment Metcalf cites, a moment that is beyond reason or words. It's expressed in the motion and timing of Ethan's lifting and cradling Debbie when he finally, after all these years, gets his hands on her. If there's a human being who honestly doesn't understand the answer to the question "Why didn't he kill her?" in that moment, who doesn't feel it's right and necessary to the movie, who thinks it is nothing but an artificial, tacked on Hollywood "happy ending," then I don't quite know what to say. To oversimplify: When Ethan lifts her, she is real for the first time in years, not just the abstract object of his obsessive quest. She's his flesh and blood, the daughter of his dead brother and the woman he loved. He's already seen what happened to his elder niece Lucy; but now he holds one possible future in his hands. I feel all of this in that moment -- and it has nothing to do with "problematizing" the movie in terms of race, gender, politics, or the public personae of Wayne and Ford.
Not that it has anything to do with "The Searchers," but Ford was a staunch Roosevelt Democrat, what Republicans today would call a radical Hollywood liberal. Metcalf falsely conflates the personal politics of Wayne and Ford, which in fact was a source of friction between them. (See the recently broadcast American Masters documentary, "John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend" -- which happens to be included with the new 2-disc DVD set of "Stagecoach.") Ford famously attacked Cecil B. DeMille and the Commie witch-hunting alliance backed by John Wayne at a Directors Guild meeting DeMille tried to oust Joseph Mankiewicz from the Guild presidency and smear him as a Communist sympathizer.
To quote (flaming lefty!) critic Joseph McBride, who wrote a book-length study and interview with Ford along with Michael Wilmington:
Particularly among younger and more liberal audiences, the kind we knew [in the late '60s and early '70s] in Madison (where students in our film class had hooted at "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"), Ford was seen as nothing more than a flag-waving reactionary who supported the Vietnam War and hung out with John Wayne. That was part of Ford’s personality at the time -- a longtime progressive, he had turned to the right because of the war and his general unhappiness with the way America had not lived up to his vision of its potential -- but there was so much more to the man and his work that many people simply could not see.I'm impressed, and moved, by this assessment of Ford's once-progressive vision of America (on-screen and off-), a vision he lost even as his view of Native Americans mellowed and ripened into "Cheyenne Autumn." Today, anyone claiming that America has not lived up to its potential is most likely to be accused of being a radical left-winger; the right defends the status quo as evidence of America's innate greatness, and proof that we do not have to change or become "better" because we already are. (Indeed, the only way we could get better, according to the reactionaries, is by retreating into an idealized, romanticized past that never existed... outside, perhaps, of mid-century John Ford films like "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" or "Wagon Master" or "Young Mr. Lincoln.") But, again, all this has more to do with Metcalf than with "The Searchers." So, back to the movie:
View image "Let's go home, Debbie." But can he -- or either of them -- ever really go "home" again. Guess that's the subject for another bogus Metcalf seminar.
Perhaps Metcalf's worst blunder comes at the end, when he fatuously/facetiously writes:
Ah ha! So that is why Ethan doesn't kill Debbie! Because at the end of the day, the half-crazed auteur must finally give way to the crowd-pleaser, right? And so when Wayne finally hunts down Debbie, only to raise her up, it's a moment of pure cinema. … Well, I don't know. And neither did John Ford.Wow, the arrogance here is... not exactly breathtaking, more like oppressive, asphyxiating. Metcalf has no idea of what John Ford did or did not know -- only that John Ford directed this picture, for reasons of his own. Neither does he "know" what I -- or you -- are capable of enjoying, even though he deems enjoyment of "The Searchers" "impossible."
If Metcalf wanted to say that he found the movie confounding and not entertaining, then that would have been fine with me. His antipathy and disaffinity for art, criticism, and all things cinematic are evident from what he says about "The Searchers" in particular, and that's fine. His words speak for themselves. But don't use "The Searchers" to take gratuitous and ill-supported whacks at film and film studies. And don't presume to speak for others when you can only speak for yourself.
P.S. Metcalf also blatantly appropriates the language and opinions of Pauline Kael, and misrepresents those of Roger Ebert:
Not coincidentally, pop critics like Pauline Kael, who found much in the film "awkward," "static," and "corny," and Roger Ebert, who finds the movie flawed and "nervous," have been the most vocal dissenters in the cult of "The Searchers."As soon as Roger is out of the hospital, I will ask him if he considers himself a "vocal dissenter in the cult of 'The Searchers'" -- a movie he included in his first volume of "The Great Movies," and about which he wrote:
The poignancy with which he stands alone at the door, one hand on the opposite elbow, forgotten for a moment after delivering Debbie home. These shots are among the treasures of the cinema.Metcalf gives his "last word" to Kael, who wrote: "You can read a lot into 'The Searchers,' but it isn't very enjoyable." But he also appears to have given her the first and second and third word. If you read the Kael's capsule review in "5001 Nights at the Movies," you'll find most of Metcalf's talking points, and even some of the language he passes off as his own. Here's an excerpt from Kael to be compared with Metcalf's piece:In ''The Searchers'' I think Ford was trying, imperfectly, even nervously, to depict racism that justified genocide; the comic relief may be an unconscious attempt to soften the message. Many members of the original audience probably missed his purpose; Ethan's racism was invisible to them, because they bought into his view of Indians. Eight years later, in ''Cheyenne Autumn,'' his last film, Ford was more clear. But in the flawed vision of ''The Searchers'' we can see Ford, Wayne and the Western itself, awkwardly learning that a man who hates Indians can no longer be an uncomplicated hero.
It's a peculiarly formal and stilted movie, with Ethan framed in a doorway at the opening and the close. You can read a lot into it, but it isn't very enjoyable. The lines are often awkward and the line readings worse, and the film is often static, despite economic, quick editing. What made this John Ford Western fascinating to the young directors who hailed it in the 70s as a great work and as a key influence on them is the compulsiveness of Ethan's search for his niece (whose mother he loved) and his bitter, vengeful racism. He's surly and foul-tempered toward Martin, who accompanies him during the five years of looking for the girl (who by then has turned into Natalie Wood, in glossy makeup, as if she were going to a 50s prom), and he hates Indians so much that he intends to kill her when he finds her, because she will have become the "squaw" to what he calls a "buck." The film doesn't develop Ethan's macho savagery; it's just there--he kills buffalo, so the Comanches won't have meat, and he shoots out the eyes of a dead Comanche. The sexual undertones of Ethan's character almost seem to belong to a different movie; they don't go with the many crude and corny touches in this one. Ford's attempts at comic relief are a fizzle -- especially the male knockabout humor, an episode involving a fat Indian woman called Look (Beulah Archuletta), and the scenes with Hank Worden overacting the role of a crazy man.(Metcalf writes: "Hank Worden's turn, as the lovable village idiot [Mose Harper], is particularly gruesome..." I wonder what he thought of the use David Lynch made of the late Worden in "Twin Peaks," where he played the decrepit room service waiter at the Great Northern. How "gruesome" was that?)
Kael is one of those critics who frequently saw more than she thought she was seeing, or found herself missing the forest for the trees. And in this case, I'd argue that's exactly what happened. She didn't have the faintest idea of what was going on in "Rio Bravo" or "El Dorado," either, and she never understood traditional Westerns (although she was fond of revisionist westerns like those favored by Metcalf, such as "Little Big Man" and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"). Nor did she ever quite grasp the screen presence of John Wayne (apart from the actor's off-screen political views in the '60s and '70s) the way Godard came to. I think she was narrow-sighted and utterly uncomprehending of "The Searchers," and many other movies (her review of "2001: A Space Odyssey" is another memorable whopper), but you don't read Kael for her opinions (which are, in fact, oftentimes not only unsupported but contradicted by her own observations); you read her for the passion and dexterity of her writing. (I could pick apart a Kael review the way Metcalf does "The Searchers" -- but I love Kael's work, for all its flakiness, inconsistencies and bizarre disproportionate verdicts.)
I'm going to give my last word (almost) to Derek, who wrote in a comment to my initial response to Metcalf's piece (and Kael's -- I think she deserves at least co-author credit): "Yeah, and the language of Moby Dick is a little stilted and purple as well. Why would anyone want to read a blook with such FLAWS!?!"
(OK, one final note: In Dennis Cozzalio's latest quiz, "Professor Julius Kelp's Endless Summer Chemistry Test" -- about which, more later -- one of the questions reads, in part: "What film might be a potential relationship deal-breaker for you?" Quentin Tarantino has systematically used "Rio Bravo" to "screen" potential girlfriends. I've never been quite that methodical about it, but I'm not sure I would find much I could respond to within a person who didn't respond deeply to "The Searchers." (Or "Nashville," for that matter. My friend Julia once dumped a guy when she found out he was dismissive of "Nashville." It's an indication of a more serious incompatibility of characters...)
Comments
Jim,
Wonderful evisceration. I, too, took umbrage at Metcalf's comments regarding film studies. I teach a high school film class (not the upper echelons of academia Metcalf was gunning for, but it's in the same ballpark), and I fight a constant battle, both with students and teachers, about film's capabilities as a work of art.
The unit I start every semester with is the Western, and we work hard to uncover the genre's significance as a vital piece of American artistic expression -- the way directors such as Ford, Leone and Eastwood explored the hopes, myths and failures of the expansion of this country. Many students have said that the unit has made them reconsider Westerns, which they had previously seen as outdated and irrelevant.
Thanks for pounding people like Metcalf who arrogantly assume film studies is an inherently unworthy pursuit.
Posted by: Tim | July 7, 2006 07:00 PM
I was going to reiterate my previous post by saying it was unnecessary to go through with a fine-toothed comb because the problems are so obvious. This is especially true in the questions part. Who writes so many questions in their essay without realizing the problem of someone smarter coming along and actually answering them? Oh yeah, an idiot. Then, I got to the P.S. part. Posting Ebert's actual quote next to his cherry-picked words to show the kind of misrepresentation that you would find in the what-not-do section of a high school English text book was very necessary.
Posted by: Alexander | July 7, 2006 07:50 PM
Hi Jim. I wanted to chime in for the first time on your blog to thank you for taking people like Stephen Metcalf and Clive James to task for their terribly uninformed takes on film. Why is it that these people, who seem to have an amateurish understanding of film as an art, feel compelled to write at length about a subject they seem to look down upon? Neither of these "intellectuals" seem to like film critics all that much. Metcalf, as you suggest, seems contemptuous of people who try to take film seriously enough to study it; James exuded a similar condescension. (Sure, Clive, it might enhance one's film criticism if one knew "about a world beyond the movies"---but it's also obvious that you don't care all that much about movies as an art, as any good self-respecting film critic would be expected to do.) Metcalf and James, I guess, think that they're somehow being "brutally honest" by saying that a good movie ought to be entertaining enough to keep you glued to your seat the first time (James) or inflating the problems of The Searchers to suggest that it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously (Metcalf). They may think they're being excitingly contrarian, that they're just speaking for the people who go to movies to be entertained. Personally, as someone who likes to think he takes film seriously, I just feel irritated by their ignorance and arrogance. Pauline Kael at least understood the sensual potential of movies; these two writers don't even have Kael's uncanny ability to translate her passion into exuberant, immediate prose.
Posted by: Kenji Fujishima | July 7, 2006 08:37 PM
Hello Jim --
Long-time reader, first-time caller, as people say. I've been reading your meticulous dissection of Metcalf's attack on The Searchers, and something clicked when I read the comment by "Derek" about Moby-Dick. Too few people today understand poetry, in the broadest sense. Poetry is any language (including visual language, for my purposes here) that lies beyond paraphrase. A poem is how it says what it says more than it is what it says. I tell my students that in a great poem the form and technique recapitulate the theme in some way. The same is true of film. You describe how The Searchers conveys quite clearly the reasons for Ethan's decision, reasons that do not need to be articulated. But someone as deaf to poetry as Metcalf apparently is cannot hear a message unless it is stated, logical -- literally or metaphorically prosaic.
Moby-Dick is indeed a relevant touchstone for comparison. The language is often odd, a mix of Shakespeare, the Bible, the sailor's argot that Melville actually heard when he served on ships, and something else unique to him (read Mardi sometime to see what I mean). But I remember taking a course almost fifteen years on Moby-Dick and nothing else. One assignment we faced was to take any passage from the book and simply re-lineate it as poetry, without changing a word. The poems we found were amazing, and the professor said that among the nearly seventy students who had tackled the assignment over the years, no two had picked the same passage.
Well, is not your examination of opening shots analogous? You are taking a small piece of film out-of-context and examining it as a work of art in its own right -- in other words finding the poetry within the novel. Such insight is why I enjoy reading you, and is exactly the kind of understanding of which someone like Metcalf is incapable.
Thank you.
Posted by: Richard Nanian | July 7, 2006 11:26 PM
I'd just like to take an opposing view if I may; I know that we're all for hearing both sides of an argument and I frequently enjoy being the devil's advocate.
I have a very good friend who considers himself something of a film auteur, and this had never caused any friction between us until one day he mentioned that he was 'better at watching movies than me'. This seemed to me to be an incredibly arrogant and odd thing to say, and my guess is that the feelings I experienced when hearing that are probably similar to feelings that compelled James and Metcalf to write their pieces.
I have little doubt that they're wrong about a great many things in film, but I must say that after being talked down to by my friend simply because he enjoys movies like Ghost World while I find them rather boring I can see a little where they get their hostility towards 'film geeks'.
I think the bottom line for me is that a great movie should have symbolism, it should have something to say, and it should feature deep and multifaceted characters; but at the same time a truly great movie to me should also be exciting and entertaining. There seems to me to be a great deal of film critics who value the first set over the second set to a ridiculous degree.
A movie that's exciting and entertaining but features one dimensional characters and lacks any powerful theme or message is dismissed as cheeseball populist trash by the average film critic, whereas a movie that's deep, filled with symbolism and complex themes and complicated characters, yet boring as sin, is hailed as a masterpiece.
To me there's just one kind of masterpiece; a film that both rivets you to your seat and evokes strong emotions, and also gives you a great deal to think about. Critical darlings like Sideways are to me not inherently superiour to a popcorn thriller like Jurassic Park. I judge a movie based on how much it moves me, emotionally, in the way it intends to. I'm not trying to say I didn't like Sideways, actually I did, about as much as I liked Jurassic Park, just in totally different ways.
I suppose that I feel the film critic's job should be to tell me whether I will probably enjoy a movie, and whether it is well made; but far too many critics these days would rather tell me what I ought to enjoy, and will talk down to me if I don't agree.
This is why I'm an ardent Roger Ebert fan. I agree with almost all his reviews, but even where I don't, at least his reviews will tell me whether I'm likely to enjoy a movie or not. Where he dislikes a film I enjoyed, at least his reasons for it don't somehow dismiss my reasons for liking it. And I get the feeling that he would probably not dislike or dismiss or look down upon someone who doesn't like a film he likes, or likes a film he dislikes.
I'm sorry if this makes me a bad/stupid person, but I find almost every John Wayne/John Ford western pretty boring, and I much prefer the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood westerns. And I don't want to be told that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to movies either. As a matter of fact, I have a personal DVD collection of over 500 DVDs and watch a movie almost every day. And as a matter of fact, as a English as a Foreign Language teacher, I often teach films in University.
Posted by: Nic Hautamaki | July 8, 2006 12:59 AM
Hi Nic:
You bring up some really interesting ideas that I'd like to get into in a future post. For now, let me respond to some of the points you raise:
I think you're quite right when you say: "To me there's just one kind of masterpiece; a film that both rivets you to your seat and evokes strong emotions, and also gives you a great deal to think about." I guess the question is how does the film "rivet you to your seat." Sure, some films are harder to watch (or require more attention and concentration from the audience) than others, but that -- in and of itself -- doesn't necessarily make them "boring," any more than it makes them superior to movies that (as people like to say) are "more entertaining." If you take a look at the movies featured (so far) in the Opening Shots Project, you'll see mainstream movies ("Superman," "His Girl Friday," "Star Wars," "Dazed and Confused," "CE3K," "Blade Runner," "Cabaret") as well as what some would categorize (rightly or wrongly) as more difficult, unconventional, or challenging movies ("Cache," "2001:A Space Odyssey," Fassbinder's "Beware of a Holy Whore").
Personally, I don't think any of these movies are the least bit hard or taxing to watch, but my point, again is simply that "boring" and "entertaining" are in the eye (and, perhaps, the rear end) of the beholder. And a movie isn't any better or worse just because it's "entertaining" -- or because it's "esoteric." All that matters is what people get out of these movies.
As I mentioned on another comment thread: I've never seen a more entertaining movie than "Citizen Kane." Talk about a roller-coaster ride! It dazzles you with every shot! Likewise, I think Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" is probably the most effortlessly, enjoyably entertaining movie around -- but "Vertigo" is absolutely spellbinding and captivating in a way that affects me more deeply and profoundly.
You're a teacher, so you know that everybody needs to develop critical thinking skills to apply to all aspects of life, from art to politics. The thing is, nobody has to be "taught" to watch a movie, the way we have to be taught to read. There are no symbols to encode and decode in order to see the pictures. Babies seem to understand basic cinematic grammar instinctively.
But there are ways of understanding what we're seeing. Just as in literature and poetry there are elements (metaphor, leitmotifs, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhythm) that help enrich our experience of the written word, there are similar elements (composition, montage, light and shadow, color, movement, etc.) that -- even if we're not conscious of them -- shape our experience of a movie. Those things are worth noticing, understanding and appreciating, which is what I mean when I tell people there are ways to get more out of the movies they see.
Finally, you reminded me of a recent conversation I had with a film critic friend who was talking about a movie (I can't remember which one, but I think it was a Ron Howard picture), which he described as numbingly boring because, as a movie, it was utterly predictable. Not just the story and the dialog and the character development, but the camera placement, the cutting, the music cues. He said he could guess, from moment to moment, just what the next unimaginative, routine shot choice would be, or when the next cut would take place -- and he was almost always right. That kind of lack of energy and imagination in a film, for me, makes it boring, no matter how many fights and chases and plot twists it contains, or what the story is about.
P.S. I don't know what your friend was getting at (your description makes him sound kind of like the Comic Book Guy on "The Simpsons"), but if I were you I'd call his bluff and ask him to demonstrate exactly what he means when he says he knows how to watch movies "better" than you. Does he really know anything you don't, or is he just adopting a superior attitude?
Posted by: Jim Emerson | July 8, 2006 11:23 AM
I hope it's okay if I play devil's advocate a bit too, though from a slightly different angle. Although I agree with most of your criticims of Metcalf's article, I actually enjoyed the original article. I thought it was authentically funny and thought-provoking, even if as an argument for its title claim its empty. The humor is very provocational, and it does have the feel, at times, of a personal attack on anyone who likes The Searchers or, at other times, on self-avowed or accused "film geeks." So I do understand the vehemence of the responses I've read. He definitely invited it. Nevertheless, I think there are interesting points being made.
First, if we see his attack on film geekery as a caricature of the extreme case (on the film-lovers' version of the Simpson's Comic Book Store Guy) rather than as an attack on anyone who takes film seriously as an art form or finds it worthy of serious discussion, then I think it rings amusingly true--though as exaggerated, broad critique rather than serious argument.
Second, I'm really intrigued by his suggestion that in some extreme cases of film-geekery, high praise of films may (sometimes!) have more to do with the self-interests of a cultural industry than with the qualities of work. I think one can indeed question, e.g., the necessity or value of Film Studies as a formal academic discipline without supporting the extreme view you've suggested Metcalf might hold (film's inferior status as an artform, e.g.). I don't think this is outrageous. After all, the studies of painting or photography are not independent academic disciplines, why should film be?
Whatever substantial criticism is occurring in Metcalf's essay is hard to discern, but I find it suggests interesting questions worthy of thinking about. What is "film studies", or what ought it be? What gives it critical authority? What specifically gives the well-credentialed geek (by which I assume he means trained in film studies) their authority--an authority that is being implicitly invoked when Metcalf's assessment is accused of being "uninformed" or "amateurish." The suggestion is there is such a thing as "expertise" in film-evaluation or that there is a special body of knowledge than objectively grounds aesthetic judgments about film, thus the merits of being "informed" or schooled in film.
This may be so. Surely knowledge of the history of film can be useful to improving artistic evaluation of film. Perhaps "film theory" can be as well. I can't say, since my academic knowledge is limited to traditional aesthetics, so I'm not familiar with the literature of film theory. My uninformed impression is that much of film theory is outdated literary theory applied to film, which, if true, would be cause for skepticism. In any case, even if there is a meaningful measure of expertise in the artistic evaluation of film, and a specific, definable body of knowledge that plays a significant role in establishing that expertise, it's not obviously ridiculous to ask the question.
Getting back to the point about the possibly self-serving nature of film-geeks praising certain films, I think this was the point of the (I thought) funny comment about "seminar unanswerables." The suggestion was that teachers of film studies praise movies that make for good film courses. Obviously an exagerration--but couldn't it have a kernal of truth in some extreme cases?
I think he's hinting at a broader critical claim that people who write seriously about film are sometimes inclined to overvalue a film about which we can write interestingly at length. Again, I think this is plausible in some cases. And this doesn't in any way require the view that has been attributed to Metcalf that film isn't art or that it's not worth writing about. On the contrary, isn't it a worry that film is being demoted to secondary status, as a prop for film study and commentary? Isn't the suggestion that the film expert's work has been given a higher cultural status than the work itself, and the canon they produce reflects that?
Are these criticisms correct? Obviously there's no argument in the original piece--and I don't think this is necessarily a fault given the kind of piece it is, more of a humorous provocation than a thesis. But I think they're interesting and plausible and worth further consideration, even if they turn out to be false.
Posted by: CK Dexter | July 8, 2006 01:08 PM
Jim, quickie question that I hope you would be so kind as to answer, since you brought up the politics/personal quirks of reviewers above:
- I understand that the notorious conservative film critic Michael Medved (someone who, as judged by some of your previous writing, you seem to literally HATE as a reviewer and as a human being) is also a huge fan of The Searchers. Given this, would that necessarily make him a better reviewer than Kael or Metcalf? Would love to hear your response...
STEVE/Lakewood, CA
Ebert Fan & Medved Defender
Sure, Steve: Maybe my real problem is just with people who pass themselves off as film critics and whose last names have six or seven letters, beginning with M, E...
You see, I really don't have much of a sense of Medved's taste in movies. What I don't like, usually, are his arguments for why he likes or dislikes individual pictures -- like when he says "Millon Dollar Baby" (a movie I think is, uh, deeply flawed) is a commercial for euthanasia, or "Brokeback Mountain" has an "anti-family agenda." It's not what he likes or dislikes, it's the way I feel he distorts, oversimplifies and misrepresents what the movies ARE for his own political purposes. (In fairness, I believe he did say "Brokeback" was very well made.) So, for all I know, he could think "The Searchers" is the greatest movie ever made because it is a scathing indictment of racism and revenge (which it is, on a simplistic level) -- and I still wouldn't think he fully understood or appreciated the movie.
As I implied in what I wrote above about Pauline Kael, I think a critic's "verdict" on a movie should be the least interesting thing he/she has to say about it. I read critics for their insights, and I've never gotten many from Medved -- who is a polemicist, and hasn't even pretended to be a critic since his TV show with the (excellent writer and film historian) Neal Gabler went off the air.
Plus, my personal impression of him that time when I interviewed him about his "Hollywood vs. America" book, was that he was dishonest and unwilling to defend what he'd put in print. I'd point out something he'd said, right there in the book, and he'd just try to weasel around it. If he had the courage of his convictions I might strongly disagree with him, but at least I could have some respect for him and we could have some kind of meaningful dialogue. But I certainly don't HATE him as a human being. I don't even know him as a human being, just as a public figure trying to sell books and ideology. Sometimes I think he's a little too much like A-- C------, willing to take a stance to get a reaction but not willing to stand behind it (or maybe even to believe in it). And that's not a character flaw limited to conservatives. Hilary Clinton and my own senator, Maria Cantwell, have been doing the same thing, though they do it to get re-elected while Medved does it to sell books and court a talk radio audience. Mention Medved's name in a room full of film critics and they'll just laugh or admit they don't know who he is. Nothing personal, he's just not considered a movie critic. -- JE
Posted by: qdpsteve | July 8, 2006 08:42 PM
Jim,
As a proud holder of an M.A. in Film Studies (which is to say "currently unemployed") I am somewhat biased, but I liked Part 2 of your response to Mr. Metcalf quite a bit. I have no problem with him questioning "The Searchers'" status as a masterpiece - the film canon is young and must be open to challenge and constant change to avoid the dreary ossification of "Great Classics of Western Literature" type lists. Personally, I greatly prefer other Ford/Wayne collaborations, esp. the brilliant Fort Apache/She Wore A Yellow Ribbon/Rio Grande cavalry trilogy. Metcalf stumbles in his reasoning, however.
Knee-jerk anti-intellctualism is pandemic in American culture; though it has far more odious manifestations, the one that annoys me most (as a film scholar and critic) is the two-fold assumption that: 1) films are "just entertainment" and 2) anyone who intellectualizes films doesn't enjoy them properly.
Regarding Point 1: The idea that films are "just entertainment" is offensive on two levels. First, film is not just entertainment - it can be educational, inspiring, infuriating; it is great music; it is painting; it is time, etc. Second, "just entertainment" implies that entertainment is either easy or somehow of lesser value. There's no reason "just entertainment" can't be great art that reveals depths even its creator was unaware of.
On point two, I spent three years in grad film school. I read both critical collections and film theory books on a regular basis. And the root of my interest in film remains what it always was: cinephilia. Bordering on cinemania. I love movies. I love them more now than I did three years ago. Learning more about film, thinking more about film, and constantly challenging my own beliefs about film has expanded the scope of movies for me to love.
I can be a snooty intellectual and say that "Chronicle of Anna Madalena Bach" is brilliant or that Alain Resnais has changed the way I understand not just cinema, but also life. And I can happily place "Pink Flamingos", "Jaws" and Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" in my Top 100 right alongside those "film studies" type films.
I take great pleasure in taking great pleasure in so many kinds of movies. Film studies made that possible for me.
I'm with you, Chris. For years, people have asked me whether knowing so much about movies (history, production, aesthetics) has caused me to enjoy them less. What a silly question! I'm also an avid gardener, I tell them, and knowing more about plants -- their names, history, characteristics, habitat, cultivation -- hardly causes me to enjoy them less! On the contrary, it opens up a whole world to me. Now, when I take a walk I notice all kinds of fascinating things (and can learn from them) that I would never have even noticed before. Same thing with movies. -- JE
Posted by: Chris Long | July 9, 2006 02:38 PM
Dear Mr. Emerson,
I am in the unusual position of agreeing (at least somewhat) with Mr. Metcalf's thesis that "The Searchers" is a flawed film, while being absolutely repulsed by the way he goes about stating said thesis.
I value your (justifiably angry) response to Metcalf's article because, regardless of what one feels about "The Searchers" specifically, it is vital that people continue to fight the good fight when it comes to ensuring that filmmaking is discussed as a serious art form. (Which, contrary to what Mr. Metcalf would have us believe, does not automatically mean that enjoyment must be cast aside...if anything, discussing movies seriously can only enhance and enrich viewer enjoyment).
How do I feel about "The Searchers"? Well, like Kael and Metcalf, I am bothered by the broadness of some of the secondary characters, which strikes me not so much as a poetic, stylized form of acting as Ford's reliance on eccentricity to provide comic relief...a strategy that doesn't quite pay off (eccentric and broad supporting characters are a staple of Ford films, something I've come to realize is not necessarily a flaw so much as a Ford's chosen way of telling stories. But to my eyes, it mars some of his films, including his masterpiece "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"). And yes, the subplot involving the Vera Miles courtship doesn't have the elemental power of Ethan's search for Debbie. But what could?
These traits of the film (for I won't be as presumptious as Mr. Metcalf to call them flaws, they're only flaws as I perceive them) prevent me from enjoying the film as much as some of my other favourite films, or even some of my favourite Westerns (including a recent masterpiece you have rightly praised..."The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"). But the traits that prevent me from full acceptance of "The Searchers" are conscious aesthetic choices made by Ford that I, as a subjective viewer, have not responded to. These (perceived) drawbacks do nothing to wash away the inherent drive of the story, the majesty of Ford's composition, the naked rawness of Wayne's performance (he was never better than in "The Searchers", unless it was in "Red River"), or the thematic richness of the questions that the film raises about racism. (And yes, "The Searchers" is confused in its standpoint, but shouldn't art be as confused when tackling complex subjects as we are? Using modern films as an example, I'd much rather have a film like "Munich" which builds one question on top of another, as opposed to simplistic diatribes like "Crash" that reduce the human experience to a cruel thesis).
I believe that it is the duty of any film critic...check that, any film viewer...to honestly evaluate and articulate both their immediate, visceral response to a film (call it "the Kael side of the brain", if you wish) and their more abstract, thoughtful analysis of how a film works through its themes in its mise-en-scene and overall style. Without the acknowledgement of the gut reaction to certain aspects of a film, one risks denying the sensory pleasures of cinema...and without the acknowledgement of a film's deeper complexities, one risks reducing analysis to "Well, it just didn't work for me".
To that end, I can sympathize with some of Mr. Metcalf's specific criticisms of "The Searchers" (many of which I share), but I can not stomach his refusal to go beyond some of his immediate reactions and explore what the film is saying and how it is saying it. Mr. Metcalf is denying one of the necessary ways of approaching a film, and accusing those who practice this method of approach of being nothing more than "film geeks". This would be the equivalent of a supposed "film snob" making the ridiculuos assertion that how one felt while watching a movie is irrelevant, all that matters when judging a film's quality is how well it lends itself to further analysis.
So, to summarize this rather long-winded post, I will say that I would never argue that someone should be ridiculed for expressing a dissenting opinion on an established "classic", or for explaining that they simply were not moved or stimulated by said classic. What does deserve scorn is the arrogance that suggests that a lack of personal enjoyment in a movie equates to some larger deficiency in that film. Mr. Metcalf's essay represents something far more dangerous than simply a dissenting voice on "The Searchers" (which, to my mind, can only be a good thing...for it makes the film a much-deserved topic of discussion once again). What his essay represents is a thinly-veiled longing for the end of film discussion, of film analysis, of film culture. Thankfully, film fans don't seem to be taking the bait.
Thank you, Alex. I agree with you and I hope people will see the difference (and I discussed this with another commenter regarding Michael Medved): It's not whether someone criticizes or not, it's how they do it and what they have to say. I hope you'll read Roger Ebert's full review of "The Searchers, " in which he expresses legitimate reservations about flaws he sees in it, but nevertheless explains why it belongs in his book of Great Movies. That's what film criticism is all about, not using a movie to bash other people ("film geeks") or some kind of academic trend that the writer finds objectionable.
If Metcalf had written a piece attacking institutionalized film programs that reduce movies to racial, sexual and political theses, I'd probably back him wholeheartedly. But I was reacting to what he actually said, not the idea of what he might have said. David Edelstein mentioned he liked seeing an established classic taken down a peg or two -- it's good to shake things up every once in a while -- but, for the reasons I described, I don't think Metcalf had much of substance to say about "The Searchers," because his real agenda was to go after film as an academic discipline. If he'd stuck to the movie, and backed up his criticisms with examples, I might disagree with him, but at least we would both be talking about the movie and not his insulting and sophomoric projections about what "film geeks" and "well-credentialled nerds" like and why.
Posted by: Alex Murillo | July 9, 2006 08:47 PM
Jim, I also wanted to throw in my two cents into the discussion of "The Searchers" and film criticism in general. I believe "The Searchers" to be a deeply fascinating film whose impact is lessened by the absurd comic relief that has no tonal place in the movie. I believe "The Searchers" to be a flawed movie because of this, but with John Wayne's performance and everything else in the movie believe that it can't be considered anything but a masterpiece. I have no problem with someone who feels differently about "the Searchers" than I do. Without opposing opinions our world would be a sad, boring place. However I have always had a problem with people saying that they did or didn't like something, or describe it as "unwatchable" or "unenjoyable" without reasoning. Maybe it's just the way my parents raised me, but "just because" is not an acceptable answer.
I also would like to say that I was offended that Mr. Metcalf misquoted Roger Ebert in his article. Roger Ebert is, I believe, the most important REVIEWER of movies in the world. I do not consider him a critic, he has always seemed to review his feelings of a movie and not tried find something wrong with it, which is how I separate the good movie critics (reviewers) from the bad movie critics (critics, trying to critique and find something wrong with a movie). Ebert has always seemed to me to go into any movie with an open mind and, the same way I approach movies, by going in with the only expectation that the movie will be good or maybe on better days even great. I agree with Roger more than I disagree although we have disagreed heavily (he loved "Moulin Rogue", I very strongly did not, I loved "Brain Candy" he very strongly did not), but I believe that going into a movie with openmindedness is the key.
I have no criteria that a movie must meet in order to be great (unlike some readers who have posted saying they felt a movie had to have symbolism and things like that in order to feel a movie was great). Movies ranging from "The Silence of the Lambs" to "Toy Story" to "The Godfather" to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" to "Searching for Bobby Fischer" to "Back to the Future" to "Taxi Driver" to "Wayne's World" can be great. Every genre has good and bad movies, I get irritated when people say that they "don't like Westerns" or "don't like Horror movies" or "don't like 'important' 'message' movies". What they are saying is that they go into every movie with an agenda (it can't be scary, it can't be important) which is a sure fire way to miss all of the beauty that the movies have to offer. In the best encapsulation of movies that I have ever heard Roger Ebert said 'A movie is not about what it's about, but how it's about it." Someone who goes into a movie with an agenda like "I don't like John Wayne movies" or "I don't like Tom Cruise movies" will never truly experience movies. I have never met Mr. Metcalf, but I believe I can say with a pretty decent amount of certainty that he is one of those people.
Posted by: Kyle Lee | July 10, 2006 06:27 AM
Can anyone explain the inconsistency of Natalie Wood's character? For example, when they first find her and Ethan is going to shoot her, she refuses to go with them, saying that these (the Natives) are now her people. Then, at the end, when they come to rescue her and kill off the tribe, she is happy to go with them...
Seriously everybody, is 'The Searchers' really that profound? Or is it just a poorly acted, racist, albeit, entertaining western? The photography is great, and to have a protagonist be such a racist bastard is unusual, but other than that, who cares? Aside from all that film school bullshit analysis that people place on it, emotionally, does the film offer...anything? Does anyone really care about Debbie? Or Ethan?
How about the scene in which they kick that poor Native woman down the hill? If the film (or Ford for that matter) had an objective, intellectual view on racism as critics proclaim, why would he put comedic music followed by a shot of Wayne laughing as the poor woman falls to the ground? Perhaps because the movie IS racist?
You are all reading way too much into this cheesy western that somehow gained a reputation of being something more than it is.
Posted by: Kevin | July 10, 2006 01:48 PM
I, too, am a film person to the nth degree- I work in a film archive, a place I've discovered to be more full of film lovers and dissectors than a studio setting or a film studies class. But I completely enjoyed Metcalf's article. It didn't read at all to me like he didn't appreciate film studies. He's questioning the canon, which is appropriate and necessary as film studies progresses. Films go in and out of favor and in and out of the canon, and he's trying to look past the blinding praise to figure out why this film is there. Sure, I also happen to be a person that finds THE SEARCHERS almost interminable, though it is a fascinating sort of train wreck, influential, and has some amazing aspects to it, including Wayne's performance. I love westerns, and while I understand the reasons for its inclusions in the canon (I love a self-reflexive post-genre-heyday genre movie just as much as the next person), I don't get much out of this movie. And I think films, as well as books, music, and all art, should constantly have to prove its worthiness to keep being studied and thought about. I think you might have gotten a little too upset because you really like the movie and saw the article as a slight on film studies, which I just don't see. Yes, he doesn't really make it past the question of intent when he brings up the "I make westerns" man's man John Ford business. But we'll survive, film studies will thrive, and hopefully the canon will continue to be thought about and argued about and the films will have to prove their worthiness.
Posted by: Kelly | July 12, 2006 03:50 PM
Not a slight on film studies? It seems to me that the last paragraph reveals Metcalf's attitude rather clearly. In calling New Hollywood filmmakers like Scorsese or Schrader---the so-called "first generation of film school grads to take over Hollywood"---glorified "well-credentialed nerds," he then suggests that such directors worship The Searchers simply because they're somehow trying to emulate Ethan's obsessive single-mindedness in their filmmaking. That makes them, in Metcalf's eyes, "unworldly men" trying to live out "an earlier romance of moviemaking, before filmmakers pedigreed themselves with advanced degrees." Maybe I'm somehow misinterpreting what he's saying, but it doesn't seem to me that Metcalf has a very high opinion of people with film studies degrees; in fact, he sounds condescending rather than sincere in many parts of his piece. (When he calls the word "subvert" "another film-studies byword," somehow, in context, it just doesn't feel like he's just saying that as a fact.)
Which is probably what bothers Jim and others: Metcalf's anti-intellectual, smug tone. I agree that the film canon should be scrutinized once in a while, and certainly canonical films should be examined every once in a while to determine whether it truly holds up. Maybe that was Metcalf's intent all along. But if he was genuinely serious about trying to mount a stimulating challenge against The Searchers, perhaps he wouldn't have resorted to such things as misrepresenting Roger Ebert's stance on the film (he doesn't find it perfect, but he still thinks it's worthy of inclusion in the canon) or adopting a superior tone toward "film geeks" who would dare to try to look deeper into the film. But Metcalf, it seems to me from the article, doesn't have a sincere bone in his body: he just wants to provoke, cause a fuss, impress some people with how "daring" he is in attacking a sacred cow by telling us the harsh truth: that it's actually just a "boring" film that isn't as deep as these "unworldly" film-studies eggheads seem to want to think it is. (Not that Metcalf ever really tries to explain what he finds so boring about it; that would take a real film critic to attempt.)
It looks like Metcalf got what he wished; we're all still talking about his article.
Posted by: Kenji Fujishima | July 12, 2006 09:31 PM
If you dislike Metcalf's film criticism, try his lit criticism. Good God, when I read his stuff I think he is the worst human being alive.
Posted by: Freddie | July 19, 2006 04:39 PM
I’d much prefer being a film geek as to a film snob.
Ethan lives!
Posted by: Bob Reece | July 22, 2006 11:18 AM