Photo from The Reeler: VanAirsdale and Zacharek on the right; Edelstein and Gleiberman on the left.
In other Contrarian News:
The Reeler (aka S.T. VanAirsdale) moderated a critics' panel on the best and worst films of 2006 Wednesday in New York. The critics: David Edelstein (New York Magazine), Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly) and Stephanie Zacharek (Salon.com). According to The Reeler's own account of the evening, Zacharek said, "...I think there is some sort of unspoken sort of pressure. Like, 'If I put something really weird on there, people are just going to think I'm cracked.' " Writes VanAirsdale:
I couldn't control myself. "Exactly!" I said. "So how long before we admit that Top 10s are completely intellectually bankrupt exercises?"OK, this exchange strikes me as peculiar (and a little disturbing) in several respects:"I think what Stephanie has captured, though -- if what (she's) saying is true -- is that these lists have become very political," Gleiberman said. "But in a strange way; not in the way of people putting on these big commercial movies so they please their editors and to show that they're on the side of the people. But even in picking idiosyncratic films, it's films that all the critics kind of collude on deciding are good; therefore, maybe they can get away with putting those films on their list in terms of their editors. But the point is that they're not reflecting 100 percent themselves. And I don't get the idea of any critic who reflects anything other than himself. What's the point of going into this profession? It's not really that important anyway. I mean, it's all about your own reaction. I think if you take that out of it, you've lost the reason for doing it."
"That's why you should all treasure the crackpots," Edelstein told the crowd. "You know? Don't look for the people who are just going to rubber-stamp the Oscar-winning movies. Seek out minority points of view -- even insane points of view -- that maybe will help you do some fresh thinking, because it's amazing how easily we settle into this conventional wisdom. Even critics, in our splendid arrogance, I mean... I can't tell you how lazy my thinking is and how often, and how I need great critics to shake me up. Like, you know, the people on this panel."
1) Has anyone ever suggested that Top Ten lists are not "intellectually bankrupt enterprises"? (If so, are these the same people who still believe Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction?) Don't we all know that these hierarchies and pantheons we build are really just silly little games we like to play -- ones that critics and the outlets who publish them (and even readers) employ as handy gimmicks to summarize and revisit the movies released during a given calendar year (which, of course, is itself a completely arbitrary measure)?
2) Isn't there a bit of "intellectually bankrupt" bait-and-switch at work here, given that the premise of the panel itself was a discussion of the "best and worst movies of 2006"? Does the fact that the audience is being enticed to attend with a promise of a best/worst discussion not, instead, echo the format of the "Ten Best" list, and underscore the enduring popular appeal of these annual masturbatory exercises?
3) I've never written for a glossy New York-based magazine or even a glossy webzine (I'm a longtime west coast newspaper and web guy), but I find it mighty disturbing that critics would feel pressure from their editors -- or their consciences -- when making their little lists, whether it's by trying to appease their editors and readers with commercial choices (or de-facto Oscar predictions), or fearing alienating them with choices that they might be consider too odd or unpopular. Whatever happened to the critic's editorial independence (not to mention professional integrity)? I thought most critics tried to use their lists to help bring attention to off-the-beaten-track personal favorites that might be overlooked by others. Isn't that the point? I agree with Gleiberman: "I don't get the idea of any critic who reflects anything other than himself. What's the point of going into this profession?"
4) Manohla Dargis has spoken of the critical collusion, the monolithic opinion-forming, that Gleiberman alludes to in New York. (That's why Dargis says leaving NYC was liberating for her as a critic.) How do these critics collude? Why do they share their opinions with one another before they've written their reviews? This seems terribly unprofessional (and clique-ish) to me. During my years as a reviewer in LA and Seattle, we critics would of course talk about movies we'd seen, but never with the intent of trying to sway one another or form a collective opinion. Can anybody shed further light on what Gleiberman is talking about?
5) I think I understand the impulse behind Edelstein's crackpot endorsement (although I think he may have labeled his fellow panelists crackpots), but he does say, "I need great critics to shake me up." A great critic can do that. A mere crackpot can't. That's a distinction that needs to be made (as I tried to do in my "Do the Contrarian" posts, Parts I and II). Crackpots are a dime a dozen in print, broadcasting and on the web. We are overrun with crackpots in the media. They're everywhere, and they're not gonna shake you up because they're just poseurs, self-promoters and exemplars of lazy thinking. The most they can do is waste your time. Do Sean Hannity or John Gibson actually have the brains or substance to shake up your thinking about politics? No, because they're crackpots -- extremists for the attention-getting sake of being extreme. Let's not confuse recklessness or idiocy with daring or inspiration.
I don't think that Top Ten Lists are "intellectually bankrupt enterprises" precisely BECAUSE they are (or can be) political in nature. Canons are important, even though they have fallen into disfavor in academia. They are one of the primary means by which films are promoted; the question is who is doing the promoting - the studios/marketers or the activist critics? Granted, Top Ten Lists are probably the most minor of all canons, but they still serve a useful and vital function.
What serves less function, to my mind, is the summary polls, where a bunch of Top Ten Lists are added together to form an overall "consensus" which is where the problems roll in. It's the individual critics' lists that are interesting, not the aggregate results. Consensus only breeds mediocrity, or at least more consensus. I suppose that I am, in a sense, arguing for the "crackpots" but I'd rather say I'm arguing for the individual vs. the mass.
Furthermore, the "consensus' reflected by these aggregate polls is misleading. A few years ago "Sideways" topped the Film Comment poll. Hardly any critic rated Sideways as the best film of the year, but more critics were able to agree that Sideways was "worthy" of Top Ten status than any other film, so it came out on top of the aggregate. I suspect the same is true of The Departed this year.
Hi Jim -
Why do you always take shots at conservatives? What about people on the left like Mike Moore and Noam Chomsky? It seems to me that you like to personally attack people to whom you disagree with. That's why you always harp on Fox News, but you don't have any problems with liberal bias in the NYT, Boston Globe, or any major print publication. You are blinded by leftist Ideology. Also, if you're going to consider somebody a crackpot, could you please backup that comment with some examples. For example, In 1979, Robert Faurisson, a French literary critic and professor of literature, published two letters in Le Monde which included claims that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist. The outrage caused by Faurisson's writings resulted in his conviction for defamation and subjection to a fine and prison sentence. Chomsky's came to Faurisson defense saying that "I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust." Could you give me some examples of Hannity's and Gibson's lunacy?
Whoa whoa whoa...how did we go from film critic crackpots to Nazi gas chambers? Politics exist in film and film criticism, but back that thang up a second.
John: I don't think Hannity and Gibson are "conservatives" by any traditional definition of that term in American politics -- not in the sense that Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford were traditional American conservatives. Partisans, yes; conservatives, no. That's why you're seeing so many "true conservatives" -- even within the Republican Party -- trying to reclaim the word from the crackpots on Fox and elsewhere. (Andrew Sullivan's book "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How To Get It Back" is about just that, and is splitting the ranks of those who call themselves conservatives.)
Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky have made plenty of intellectually dishonest crackpot statements in interviews and op-eds, but they're also smart enough (in certain parts of their work) to have made me think on occasion. I almost used Cindy Sheehan as an example of a lefty crackpot, but while I respect her grief over her son, I don't think she qualifies as a political pundit.
As for Hannity and Gibson -- the examples are too many to mention, but here:
Gibson: the "War on Christmas"
Hannity: implying that the guards around Terry Shaivo's hospital room were preventing her loved ones from giving her "a sandwich or a drink of water" -- when the issue was that she couldn't swallow, which is why she was hooked up to a feeding tube in the first place.
And as for the NY Times, two words: Judith Miller. If there's been any bias in the paper's reporting it's been in favor of the Bush administration. On their op-ed pages, they publish David Brooks and (until his stint expired) libertarian John Tierney, alongside Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman.
P.S. I think Chomsky was being overly literal about his definition of the term "anti-Semitism" -- in that denial of the Holocaust does not specifically relate to a bias against all Semitic peoples (including Arabs); or that it did not address another narrower meaning of the term, which is to the ancient Christian charges of blood libel against the Jews. Still, Chomsky ought to know better. Holocaust denial is not only ridiculously bad history, much of it is political in nature, promoted by those who (in their rather twisted logic) believe that to acknowledge the Holocaust is to somehow validate or justify the existence state of Israel -- which is something they virulently resist doing. There was a good PBS doc last week on the rise of modern anti-Semitism that got into some of these matters.
We're going off topic here, but anyone interested in the Chomsky/Faurisson affair should watch the documentary about him "Manufacturing Consent". In it he talks about why he defended Faurisson's right to write a book spouting Antisemitism. The basic point of his being "If you don't agree with freedom of speech for those you disagree with, you don't believe it at all". He wasn't defending the views themselves, but he's been attacked over the whole thing for decades.
Anyway, back on topic. I think Edelstien was referring to the crackpots like Pauline Kael, willing to get behind movies that have been publicly ignored or derided. Even though a lot of what she has said is difficult to agree with, it does open up a new perspective to watch films.
Of course, even the academy are liable to insanity a little too often (*cough* Crash *cough*).
Providence is on your side this week Jim. Stanley Kauffmann's article in The New Republic entitled "Years Past" provides his first year end wrap up of favorite films. His choices are:
Brokeback Mountain, Caché, Fateless, Friends With Money, L'Enfant, Down in the Valley, Only Human, Gabrielle, Edmond, The Bridesmaid, The Illusionist, Old Joy, The Queen, Climates, Flags of Our Fathers, Copying Beethoven, The History Boys, The Secret Life of Words
The inclusion of Brokeback Mountain and Caché would indicate that he's being honest about what year he actually saw the films. It raises a question I've sometimes wondered about. If you saw Citizen Kane for the first time last year, have you seen the best movie of 1941, or the best movie you've seen in 2006?
Regarding the "cliqueishness" of NY film critics, you can see some of this in Slate's Movie Club for 2004. The first half of it was made up almost entirely of Paulettes (obviously NY-based), and the way that factor alone influenced the discussion was fairly painful to witness. I can definitely see what Dargis might be getting at, here. (All that being said, I am a big fan of Edelstein's).
Now, I'm not sure if any of these critics discuss their opinions before they write their reviews, but I'm willing to bet they attend a lot of the critics' screenings together. If that is indeed the case, though, at least they don't influence each other's opinion, if these reviews of War of the Worlds by Edelstein and Zacharek are any indication.
Dan: We had a similar discussion at a year-end gathering of movie critics in Seattle last night. Some people had "Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" and "Cache" on their 2006 ten-best lists -- because those movies didn't open in Seattle until shortly into the new year (even though they had played in other cities, and for Oscar consideration, in 2005).
As for your hypothetical about "Citizen Kane," I'd have to say "both." I have no doubt that it's better than anything new that opened in 2006 -- but it did open in 1941 (if barely). So, if the criterion for listmaking was (as it usually is for these sorts of things) "movies that opened theatrically in a particular market during a particular calendar year," "CK" wouldn't qualify for the list.
This year, however, many critics cited Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 "Army of Shadows" as the best, or one of the best, films of 2006 -- because it had never before been theatrically released in the States. So, it was both a 1969 movie and a 2006 US premiere.
A few points, Jim:
1) Of course this exchange represented five minutes in a 90-minute program and doesn't quite capture the rest of the discussion.
2) It followed weeks of critics' meetings at which peoples' idiosyncratic first ballots inevitably yielded to the same old consensus films.
3) With "crackpot" I was probably trying to get laughs. I was also thinking of people like Armond, whose jibes at other critics are often maddening but who does force some of us to rethink our opinions (and, 99% of the time, to pronounce them just fine). I often envy him his certainty and wish--as I suggested--I could go my own way as fiercely. This was not an admission I made lightly. Probably since starting at New York Magazine I've been too cautious. I should have panned The Departed, for example, instead of giving it a muted mixed-to-negative review. Coming from EW, Owen I'm sure feels even more pressure to conform, even if he doesn't conform.
4) No one respects Manohla's writing more than I do. But I heard from an LA critic that LA screenings of Notes on a Scandal and The Good Shepherd were pretty disastrous, and I wasn't surprised to see many LA critics panning those films. My take is that it's cliquier out there, but who knows?
5) Ten best lists are a pain. They're depressing to do. They are inherently a compromise. We do them because our readers like them and because there's something onanistic about sitting around and ranking movies. (See High Fidelity for a fuller evocation.) That Owen, Stepahnie, and I spoke out in frustration should be taken as a healthy sign.
No, I'm not saying that what I said was especially brilliant or eloquent. But I don't think your pique (however intelligent and respectful) is quite merited.
Thanks, David, for providing some perspective. My own comments were in the context of my self-proclaimed "Contrarian Week" -- which began with a look at a few Armond White pieces that assumed an overtly "contrarian" pose, but that seemed to me to be empty gestures.
As I said in my original post, I think I understand the context of your "crackpot" comments -- I just wanted to be sure I re-emphasized the point I had made earlier in the week: that we are surrounded by crackpots (I think of Fox pundits) who'll just say anything to get attention. My pique was aimed at them, not you or your fellow panelists -- which is why I wanted to further underline the distinction between "crackpots" and "great critics."
I like your comment about how Armond White may "force some of us to rethink our opinions (and, 99% of the time, to pronounce them just fine)." Reminds me of what I used to say about Andrew Sullivan, when he was supporting an idealistic fantasy war in Iraq without considering the one that was actually being waged. Sometimes I found it useful (though infuriating) to read him because he would miss the point closely enough to help me see what the real point was.
Anyway, thanks for your insights -- much appreciated as always!
Jim, of course you think of Fox pundits when you think of crackpots! You filter out the crackpots on the far left and zero right in on the crackpots on the far right as a result of YOUR bias. Most people do this. And when people unintentionally reveal this bias, as you have done, it does little more than give the reader a better idea where THEY are coming from. Who do you tend to be critical of? That reveals you. This isn't deep-but it's true.
JE: "Unintentionally"?
Oh, and one other thing. Why isn't "It's Pat: The Movie" on your list of your favorites. It's classic! Actually, I think it takes a lot of chutzpah to have that one on your resume and still feel comfortable panning other movies.
Ok, Jim. Intentionally, then. In other words, irrationality is ok as long as it's coming from the Left. Why don't you take a look at Media Matters and Daily Koz sometime? Not only are they loonier than Hannity in their rants, they are also far more hateful. Proud lefties like you, (your smug smartassness being revealed by your "Unintentionally?" response) can be counted on to be selective in their denunciations, which is why they are unlikely to sway many people's opinions since their agenda is so transparent. It also is rather cowardly, given that so many critics, in general, seem to share such similar political positions on most issues. Homogeneity of thought is such a bore. I'm not particularly conservative, either. I just get tired of reading the reviews of what appear to be a large group of clones.
Later, dude.