I'm always intrigued when critics and academics try to characterize themselves -- or the appeal of something they like -- primarily in opposition to something else that they don't like. Or vice-versa. I'm not just talking about contrarianism but, specifically, about attempts to define or justify something not by what it is, but by how it allegedly does not resemble another thing. Like Jonathan Rosenbaum recently did with his pantheon-gate-slamming, anti-Bergman piece (e.g., "His works are seen less often in retrospectives and on DVD than those of Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson..."), or Prof. Ray Carney in his intro/promo for a series of independent films that flew "under the radar" at the Harvard Film Archive. Tell me what you think of Carney's "Now how much would you pay?" sales pitch:
If we ask why many of these works are still lurking in the shadows or searching for a distributor, the reasons are not that hard to come up with. These films do not push dependable box–office ticket–sales buttons. Their characters are not “cute,” “charming,” or “sweet” in the "Napoleon Dynamite" way. Their stories are not “clever,” “crowd–pleasing,” or “feel–good” in the "Little Miss Sunshine" way. They do not feature big–name actors making “in–joke” cameos. Though most of these films are made by Gen–Y artists about Gen–Y characters, they don’t even fit the pattern of Gen–Y movies. Their male characters are not introverted and narcissistic; their female characters are not whiney or clingy; and their narratives are not reducible to the group–hug ethos that says everything will be OK if only you have friends. The films in this program do not pander to the prejudices or predilections of young viewers or attempt to flatter audience members of any age. They take the pulse of contemporary American life toughly and unsentimentally. They challenge the viewer to look at experience in new and potentially disorienting ways and, at their best, ask the viewer to think freshly about the untapped expressive possibilities of the art.It seems to me that this exclusive hard-sell approach shamelessly panders to the prejudices and predilections of young viewers and attempts to flatter audience members of all ages.
At what point do critics turn into fashionistas, more concerned with dictating today's styles or appealing to hipper/holier-than-thou posers than addressing the movies themselves? To me, this seems like such an adolescent approach: "Yeah, man! Disco sucks!" We all do it on occasion, but some rants are more effective than others.
There's a terrific discussion at The House Next Door about Carney and his complaints about the lack of mainstream media coverage (greatly exaggerated by Carney) for the series he cannily sold as anti-mainstream. (What did the filmmakers themselves think of that approach?) I don't know how well Carney's laboriously insular sales pitch actually worked, selling exclusively to a crowd that wants to flatter itself as anti-mainstream and elite (or elitist). But for me Carney's prose (perhaps especially his patronizing use of the term "Gen-Y," which in his hands sounds more than ever like a personal lubricant) destroys any credibility he might have as someone capable of understanding what makes an interesting movie. All I know is what he dislikes about commercial and Sundance-indie stuff, which is pretty much the same crap we're all sick of. But what does that have to do making a series of "under-the-radar" movies sound appealing? Are these films worth seeing just because they're NOT "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Little Miss Sunshine"? Wow, what a recommendation.
Does Carney's approach turn you off as much as it does me? Do so-called "mainstream" anti-intellectualism and Carney's bitter and equally reactionary anti-anti-intellectualism seem like two sides of a coin?
They are absolutely two sides of the same coin (I was going to chime in on the Carney discussion at "The House Next Door", but gave up when my computer had problems). To say that anything released with mainstream backing is automatically inferior to Carney's cause celebres is just as bad as saying "I won't go see that movie. It doesn't have any stars in it or any car chases".
Rosenbaum, normally a much better critic than he demonstrated in his Bergman piece, also resorts to criticism by comparison, which is a dangerous game. Sure, we all compare things (i.e. Peter Jackson is no Steven Spielberg), but to criticize Bergman because he's not Godard, or to praise a film because it's not "Napoleon Dynamite" doesn't really do a service to film discussion.
Carney's piece is particularly laughable. All he tells us about the movies he is promoting is what they aren't, and he hopes we reach the same conclusion that they are not penetrating the marketplace because they are lacking in the audience-friendly/pandering qualities of "Napoleon Dynamite", etc.
I don't doubt that some of the films Carney is trumpeting are worthwhile and experimentally interesting, but he should at least discuss their particular virtues rather than claiming they have worth for what they lack. I could shoot footage of a wall for two hours, and when my masterpiece would struggle to find distribution, I could claim that it was because it wasn't "charming" or "feel-good" enough for the masses and cry foul in the way Carney has done.
Ray Ray is still stinging from being left out of the Criterion Cassavetes set. I registered a class with him once in my BU days, and only lasted a day. I think it was just as much that I was too young then to appreciate what he was offering, as it was his overly hard sell, but I found it off-putting at the time.
Still, if the sales pitch works and gets people to watch a group of films they might not otherwise see, I don't have a problem with it. That remains an "if" though.
Yeah, it turns me off too. I don't really have a moral problem with Carney's binary, but it seems like the product of a second-rate mind. It's so much easier to establish a film's worth or meaning by comparing it to something else; what's harder is building a case on the terms the film sets for itself. Like you said, we all do it sometimes, and that's fine, but Carney does it a lot. I don't know if you read the whole program, but here are some of the highlights from his descriptions of the films:
For In Between Days
American film is so dominated by male central characters and masculine cinematic points of view that it's all the more exciting to see a young woman’s consciousness represented this deeply and sensitively by a female filmmaker. How different Aimie’s way of encountering life – and director So Young Kim’s way of presenting it – is from a man’s.
Apart From That
Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin have created a work that, both in its form and content, is organized entirely differently from a conventional film. Their universe is a fragmented, cubistic one where characters’ identities won’t be reduced to cinematic sound bites and their relationships with each other keep shifting and changing.
Team Picture
Audley’s studious avoidance of rhetorical heightening reveals a complex world on the other side of the programmatic conflicts and patterned intensifications of mainstream filmmaking.
Honey
Honey violates most of the conventions of Gen–Why filmmaking. While the vast majority of recent indie films take their inspiration from the coolness and cerebralism of the work of Jim Jarmusch, Paul Thomas Anderson [?!], or Hal Hartley, Ball takes his from the shouts, fights, and life–and–death romantic battles that roil and shake the films of John Cassavetes.
Yellow
Amid the grainy, the gritty, and the grim – in contrast to virtually every other indie "first film" out there – Peterson brings the lyricism of song to his characters’ interactions and the lusciousness of primary colors to his visuals.
We're Going to the Zoo
Josh Safdie’s movie was made while he was a university film student
– perhaps as a rebellion against the rules his teachers undoubtedly drummed into him about how movies should be scripted, lighted, and shot.
Hannah Takes the Stairs
Swanberg’s film demonstrates a dramatic truth many Hollywood films would benefit from. By minimizing external actions, events, and plot, and building scenes around a series of leisurely, extended conversations, Hannah Takes the Stairs makes time and space for emotional revelations.
Frownland
No matter what their flaws, the main characters in mainstream movies are almost always appealing in some way. If they are nebbishes, their klutziness is endearing. (Look at the work of Woody Allen.) If they are lonely, their alienation is grand and alluring. (Look at the work of Orson Welles.) If they are evil, their villainy is sexy and rakish. (Look at the work of Christopher Walken.) Ronald Bronstein strips away the Hollywood idealizations and asks us to spend time with genuinely unromantic characters leading genuinely unromantic lives.
It's pretty pathetic, eh?
Maybe there was a context, eg. one of the themes of his course was rejecting standard film practices.
"Their male characters are not introverted and narcissistic;" Hey, neither was Napoleon Dynamite.
Boy, Frownland seems like a hoot. Why would I want to watch crap by no talents such as Orson Wells and Woody Allen when I could "spend time with genuinely unromantic characters leading genuinely unromantic lives?" Maybe I could chew tinfoil and rub my knuckles with a cheese grater while watching it.
Alex,
Surely you meant to say "Steven Spielberg is no Peter Jackson." The Berg has yet to dream of making something as endlessly enjoyable as Dead Alive. Well, at least not in the last 25 years.
This topic reminds me of the piece Noel Burch penned on canons when he argued quite simply in favor of canonizing "not-X" instead of "X" where X represented generally accepted film practices (transparent storytelling, continuity editing, etc.) and not-X represented, well you figure it out, though his particular emphasis was on films with a high degree of reflexivity.
Is it silly to make it that simple? Yes, but it also serves a political function, intending to disrupt the homogeneity of consensus just for the great honking hell of it - a surrealist project of sorts. Burch had another goal in mind with that article as well, to argue against the very possibility of any film or any kind of film being "universal" because: "not all historical or cultural groups prize the same formal features nor do the hegemonic styles and practices of cinema represent a transcendence across time and place."
I grant you that Carney hardly seems to making nearly as profound a point here, but it is also just an introduction to a series, not a dissertation. Maybe arguing for "not-X" just because "X" is so damned unchallenged in its dominance is worthy in and of itself.
This negative approach puts me in mind of the way the NYT Book Review begins every review of a new memoir, which is something like: "Oh, great. Another memoir. Another exercise in navel-gazing or hairshirting, etc." Often followed by: "But actually this one is a bit different and pretty good!" As if the category of memoir isn't as broad as fiction in the hands of a good writer with something to say. I'm betting a pretty high number of great movies contain one of more of his sniffingly dismissed elements. While some of his nots might contain virtually nothing at all. Like you say, tell us what's actually there.
That said, I agree with much of what Chris L. wrote. I just don't think you have to stump for your narrow niche by implying that everything outside it is part of the same sacred cow.
Honestly, by the end of his rant about what these films are not, I had no idea what the films actually were supposed to be. Not much of an intro.
"They challenge the viewer to look at experience in new and potentially disorienting ways and, at their best, ask the viewer to think freshly about the untapped expressive possibilities of the art." Untapped expressive possibilities of the art? Excessive hyperbole with no ground to stand on.
"They do not feature big–name actors making “in–joke” cameos." What movies is he talking about??
"They don't even fit the pattern of a Gen-Y movie..." What the heck is the pattern of a Gen-Y movie????
Why am I spending so much time trying to figure out what this guy is talking about...buffoon!!