I know, we shouldn't give him any more attention, but the elusiveness of his language (it's not quite English, but what is it?) is fascinating. Try to pin down meaning, or responsibility, and they just slip away...
Armond White, review of "Mr. Jealousy," June 3, 1998:
I won't comment on [Noah] Baumbach's deliberate, onscreen references to his former film-reviewer mother except to note how her colleagues now shamelessly bestow reviews as belated nursery presents. To others, "Mr. Jealousy" might suggest retroactive abortion.
Armond White, referring to the comment above in a non-review of "Greenberg," March 17, 2010:
The last line is not Oscar Wilde but it's also not a death warrant; its impact is in your inference. It clearly points out the clubhouse aspect of Baumbach's raves, then contrasts natal congratulations with their demurral. No more than that. The abortion quip is easily understood unless your goal is to besmirch another critic and wage a personal attack.
30 Comments
The thing that gets to me is that it took so long for so many to realize that White is a fraud. He was being treated as a serious thinker by some since back in the '90s. But I thought his pieces were poorly written and argued back then and he has become more cartoonish since.
It bugs me that White's gibberish was perceived as insightful and deep by enough people for so long that he has had a paid writing gig for two decades and has had books published. Are some so desperate for a contrarian opinion that they support one that is as mindless as the mainstream opinion? I truly believe that a mentally disturbed man has been enabled for too long and it is not funny anymore.
I would also add that Armond's Greenberg rant disproves the notion of the superiority of the print critic because even the worst online film critics would not have published anything this rancid.
White is correct about one thing: his prose sure ain't Oscar Wilde!
White's use of language to misrepresent is so insidious it often makes one go to the dictionary to make sure he is not intending a given word's secondary meaning. In this case, equating an "abortion" to a natal "demurral" grossly understates the original insult he lobbed at Baumbach.
I've honestly never seen any of Baumbach's films, their quality being beside the point in this fiasco. But as has been stated elsewhere on your site, ad hominem attacks like this one really injure what little credibility a contrarian like him has left.
To then deny his own intentions in using the word "abortion" is self-sabotaging, as our friend Bill Ryan pointed out on his blog The Kind of Face You Hate. My favorite part of his post there:
...we see here the entire Armond White Problem illustrated, plain as day, although your ultimate defintion of that problem may vary (in other words, its impact is in your inference), but basically it's one of these:
1. White doesn't say what he means.
2. White doesn't mean what he says.
3. White doesn't care what he means or says.
4. White knows exactly what he's doing at all times, and is some kind of nefarious super-mind, planting the abortion line into his Mr. Jealousy review over a decade ago, and demonstrating an inhuman patience before paying it off earlier today.
Except it can't be that last one. I don't know too many people who are still swept up in any admiring way by White's word-smithery, so it's like saying someone is a great liar: if you know they're lying, how great can they be?
His most recent PERSONAL attack on critic J. Hoberman is even more self-destructive. Attacking a well respected critic as a racist with some kind of axe to grind simply for posting the original "abortion" comment (in context, since he posted the review that included it in its entirety) is the height of hypocrisy. His own racial insensitivity is on display in his GREENBERG diatribe only three sentences in where he uses the extremely insulting term, "Indian-giver."
I read that Bill Ryan article. I also read the comments. Some guy named DENNIS COZZALIO wrote this, a perfect assessment of Armond White's strategy. I know a commentator on one blog quoting another is a little frightening, but...
"Armond has self-made his reputation as the unimpeachable speaker of truth to power through an incredible onslaught of muddy language and tenuous connections that are, to my mind, constructed precisely to muck up the waters with unprovable statements themselves decorated by fuzzy, obscure language and phrasing. Much better to couch your ideas, half-ideas and lack of ideas in a barrage of lofty-sounding word coupling, usually invoking some sort of morality-- moral compass, moral integrity, moral vacuousness, you name it-- that can be employed as a case for or against, and without much call to get into the specifics of what you actually mean. Then enough people will be either duly impressed or duly confused by the language and it will be much easier for you to claim some sort of unique grasp on the work in question because nobody can pinpoint precisely what the fuck you're talking about in the first place. "
In spite of all the discourse this has stirred up, this is the most effective denunciation of White's Greenberg 'review' that I've seen. You don't need to extrapolate on why White is a fraud, his own words illustrate that point better than anything.
Even if we give White the benefit of the doubt and agree that "the abortion quip" is "not a death warrant," but is actually a more convoluted turn of phrase "contrast[ing] natal congratulations with their demurral," let's please acknowledge just how convoluted it is.
What really offends me is his statement that this deliberately beguiling sentence is considered by Armond to be "easily understood." Of course it's not easily understood Armond - like everything you write, it's terribly overwrought. But by passively-aggressively suggesting that your true meaning is "easily understood," you suggest that anybody do didn't understand your meaning is:
A) stupid and
B) "wage[ing] a personal attack."
Well, here are two things I believe in:
A) You should express your ideas as simply as you can without dumbing them down rather than overcomplicating them to seem smarter than everyone, and
B) Overcomplicating ideas that aren't logically sound to begin with is worse.
It's rather remarkable that he can suggest in a film review that its filmmaker's mother receive a retroactive abortion while barely making any reference to the movie itself and then later claim that anyone who criticizes his comment for lack of substantive criticism is making a deliberately personal attack against him. And he does it without a hint of irony!
The thing with White is that he has written well enough to maintain some credibility which he then uses for his flights of fantasy. I'm still unable to dismiss him completely. This is a good sampling of his writing:
http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2007/12/white-power-ten-armond-white-quotes.html
His prose isn't English, "Southland Tales" isn't a real movie, and rap isn't really music.
But hyperbole is the most useful thing in the world.
Since you bring up rap...
I once tried to find video of Armond White, just to see if he was ever taped talking about film or other reviewers.
The only thing I found was a video from over ten years ago when White was a guest on the Charlie Rose Show. Ironically, Armond was a voice of reason defending conscientious hip-hop artists like De La Soul against the ramblings of hip-hop-and-jazz-fusion-hater Stanley Crouch.
It's interesting to seek out because Crouch's bullheadedness and penchant for hyperbole and unfair attacks always struck me as similar to Armond White's - and here's a video of Armond White calling him out on it!
I don't have a link, but the video archive at charlierose.com should have it for anyone who's interested.
The last time I saw handstands that elaborate, they were being done by a Russian gymnast. At least she was endearing to watch.
Ah, the old "I was contrasting natal congratulations with their demurral" defense. I've used it several times myself.
I've always wanted to come up with a lucid explanation of why White's reviews are so nonsensical, and I think I finally figured out why I can't. The man in simply a crazy person. He spews nonsensical tautologies as if they were obvious truth, and is boiling over with rage that the world doesn't appreciate his genius.
I find his writings insightful in exactly the same way I find the Time Cube webcite insightful: it's an unvarnished look inside a mind that just doesn't work properly. Armond White is Gene Ray with a thesaurus.
Jim, Wage war! I think it's deserved. White and Emerson will be the new cat fight people will want to hear about.
He shoots himself. Nothing more to say. Besides, how can you have any meaningful exchange with someone who can't express himself coherently and (consequently?) can't/won't stand behind what he's written? Can you interpret what he said (or thinks he was saying) in those two paragraphs quoted above?
I hate to be defending Armond White (of all people), but he's right. The paragraphs explicated:
1. I won't comment on [Noah] Baumbach's deliberate, onscreen references to his former film-reviewer mother except to note how her colleagues now shamelessly bestow reviews as belated nursery presents.
In this sentence, White is writing that Baumbach's praises for Mr. Jealousy were unearned. Much as you might give a toy to a newborn because you're friends with his parents, he's claiming the good reviews were given to Baumbach because the critics were friends of his mother.
2. To others, "Mr. Jealousy" might suggest retroactive abortion.
In this sentence, White is counterpointing the idea of gifts for a newborn. If you were looking for an antithetical to a friend giving a parent a gift for a newborn, it would be giving the parent an abortion.
It's a crude thing to say, but it's clearly not a wish for Baumbach's death.
vs.
1. The last line is not Oscar Wilde but it's also not a death warrant; its impact is in your inference.
In this sentence, he's writing that he wasn't wishing Noah Baumbach dead in 1998. He states that people inferring such are doing so because they willfully choose to.
2. It clearly points out the clubhouse aspect of Baumbach's raves, then contrasts natal congratulations with their demurral.
In this sentence, he is writing that Baumbach's 1998 praise was only a gift to him by a closed critical community as a result of his birth to his famous mother. In essence, he claims Baumbach's success is only due to nepotism.
3. No more than that.
He's slighting Baumbach's films here, claiming that if Baumbach weren't the son of a famous critic, he'd be unknown and his movies would be uniformly panned.
4. The abortion quip is easily understood unless your goal is to besmirch another critic and wage a personal attack.
Self-explanatory.
Is White right about why Baumbach is praised? I have no idea. I don't think so. Kicking and Screaming is legitimately great. I thought Squid and the Whale was good (if admittedly overpraised). I loathed Margot at the Wedding, but certainly most critical/neopotistic favors would have dried up by now.
But he's right that people are misstating his words in an attempt to smear him. And not to sound petty, but this language, while not simple I guess, is pretty far from incoherent.
I agree with your explication of what White said, but here's the thing. No one actually thinks that Armond White wants Baumbach dead or wishes that he had been aborted.
It's just that using that as Part II of his nepotism metaphor is incendiary without being helpful. It's like comparing someone to Hitler - no such comparison, even if valid, is ever going help bring clarity to the issue at hand.
But you are right: this is - surprisingly - not one of White's nonsensical ramblings. It is, however, one of his "all-other-critics'-opinions-are-wrong-because-they-are-_________" ramblings. In this case, the blank is filled with "friends with the director's mom," rather than his usual "morons," "morally corrupt," or "subconsciously racist."
You should read the whole anti-Hoberman piece (that mentions "Greenberg" a few times, but doesn't say much about it -- until the "capsule review" added at the bottom): http://j.mp/cgDBT8
* Re: "(Georgia) brown shirts" -- reference to Nazi paramilitary outfit and Georgia Brown, the former Voice critic and Baumbach's mother.
You know, the smartest thing I've ever read about Armond White -- and I've quoted it before -- is Glenn Kenny's citation of a White sentence, followed by a challenge to decipher it: "I don't want to know what you think it means, what you infer it means when you put it through your own personal White decoder ring, no; I want to know what the words in the sentence as they are actually written actually mean. As, you know, an actual copy editor would understand them. Because an actual copy editor would tell you that the sentence is gibberish...."
The problem with (and the fascinatingly slippery thing about) the first White excerpt above is that the second zinger sentence does not properly align with the first. A sentence that says, "her colleagues now shamelessly bestow reviews as belated nursery presents," is followed by, "To others, 'Mr. Jealousy' might suggest retroactive abortion." In the first sentence, he's talking about Baumbach's mother's critical colleagues giving his movies good reviews because...? He doesn't quite say, or offer any evidence for saying it, but perhaps because she's his mom and she's also a critic? Does that even make sense? And look at the construction of the sentence. Are they giving the review/presents to the mother/critic or the baby/filmmaker?
In the second sentence he's talking about how "Mr. Jealousy" "might suggest retroactive abortion" to "others." So, is he saying that those who are NOT critics who bestow their reviews as "belated nursery presents" should be moved by "Mr. Jealousy" to recommend (or perform) "retroactive abortion"? (Yes, I know it's a metaphor and he's most likely not REALLY advocating time travel or murder.) Does THAT make any sense? (First it's about the mom, then the critics, then the movie, then unspecified "others" who are not the critics. Who is doing what to whom? Specifically, what is meant by the only verb, "suggest"? It seems the movie might suggest "retroactive abortion" to the others. How does that work?) Is he saying that the movie is so bad (in some critically unspecified way) that it "might suggest" to "others" that Baumbach should be retroactively aborted? Or that the movie itself resembles (or "suggests") a "retroactive abortion" to the "others"? Or that only a (metaphorically) retroactively aborted person would be capable of making a movie like this? Who knows? White's syntax is so tangled, there's no telling for sure. It's just bad writing.
But, again: Why in the would would you feel justified bringing up the topic of a (metaphorical) abortion by the filmmaker's mother in a movie review -- even as an alternative to a nursery present? That says nothing about the film -- other than to conflate White's rage and disgust for the mother with his rage and disgust for the son's film. If he had any critical integrity, he'd stick to writing about the movie, not his twisted off-screen fantasies about the director's mom. The ugliness of the image -- incoherently thrown into his final sentence -- is all that's left. And evidently that was his intention.
Ah, yes, this is difficult to parse.
1) Is the abortion that the film might suggest to White's hypothetical others a) an alternative TO PRESENTS--i.e. something bad to happen, instead of something good, or b) an ALTERNATIVE PRESENT--i.e. another good thing, instead?
2) Are the belated nursery presents given to a) Noah or to b) Noah's mother?
The confusion here means that I detect at least four possibilities:
1a2a: Others should consider retroactively aborting Noah instead of giving him a present.
Interpretation: This film proves that it would be more appropriate for friends of Noah's mother to remove Noah from existence retroactively than to praise him. Indicates his movie is terrible and praise unearned.
1a2b: Instead of doing Noah's mother a favour, giving her the present of a nice review for her son, she should instead have her son retroactively erased.
Interpretation: Noah's mother should not be given the gift of praise for her son, because his film is terrible; instead she should be punished by having his existence retroactively erased. Implies culpability for Noah's mother.
1b2a: Instead of giving Noah good reviews, he should be erased from existence as a belated present.
Interpretation: Noah's film proves that he hates his life and/or parents, so would be "happier" if he didn't exist.
1b2b: Instead of giving Noah's mother a good review for her son, she should be given as a present a retroactive abortion.
Interpretation: Noah's mother would be better off without her terrible son who clearly hates her, and so a better gift for her would be his erasure from existence.
There are also other ambiguities:
3) Are the "others" a) other colleagues of Noah's mother, b) other people?
4) How does "Mr. Jealousy" "suggest" anything? Does a) one of the characters, or the narrator, state this in dialogue, b) the film's overall narrative/moral structure imply this, c) the film's quality suggest that the world would be better off without Noah, or d) the film's subject matter suggest Noah's mother be better off without Noah, or Noah better off without himself?
5) What is the relationship between the film's constant, on-screen references to Noah's mother, and Noah's mother's colleagues administering praise for the film? a) Linking statement: They both involve Noah's mother in some way. b) Causation: the film was praised because Noah made references to his mother. c) Irony: The Noah's mother's friends should not have praised the film if they cared for Noah's mother, because of the way the film presents her. d) Symptom: the fact that Noah's mother's friends gave him good reviews shows that he was spoiled which also surfaces in the way his film references his mother. e) Parallel: Rather than simply making a movie, Noah brought his personal issues with his mother into the film and spoiled his objectivity; his mother's friends gave him a good review spoiling their objectivity. f) ...?
And no, I'm not going to try to parse his response.
"I won't comment on [Noah] Baumbach's deliberate, onscreen references to his former film-reviewer mother... "
Baumbach apparently references his mother [who was a critic for Village Voice] in his films; White doesn't want to comment this, though:
"... except to note how her colleagues now shamelessly bestow reviews as belated nursery presents."
Film critics are generous to Baumbach because his mother was a film critic: collectivist nepotism.
"To others, Mr. Jealousy might suggest retroactive abortion."
Rather than earning a nursery present [a good review], the film earns a retroactive abortion.
Sure, White's a shitty writer, but he's making a coherent statement; whether or not his point is accurate is irrelevant to disputing the claim that he's simply spewing nonsense.
When you have a message you want other people to understand, you put it as clearly and simply as possible to minimize roadblocks to understanding.
When you want to impress people, you use the most esoteric and abstruse words, the most convoluted sentence structure, and so on, so they think you're brilliant.
From what I've read by Mr. White, I'm certain the first is not the case, and I actually have my doubts about the second. I think he either cannot think clearly, or is hopelessly inarticulate.
I've read a handful of White reviews and have found his prose largely nonsensical, and his rhetoric pretty arrogant, and his opinions both pretentious and contradictory. So for the life of me I can't figure out why people respect him. In Armond White's world, every movie is hyper-political, and irresponsibly so. Every movie is either grossly under-praised or over-hyped. Other critics, and 99 percent of the filmgoing public are uniformly retarded. But all of that is fine by me, its the fact that his opinions are always stated as fact despite him offering little to evidence to support them. Maybe people would respect him more if he only told us WHY he does or does not like the movies he sees. Simply stating that a film is obviously garbage, and you're stupid if you don't agree is not criticism. Oh and he thinks Keanu Reeves is the greatest working American actor.
Jim, as you seem to have a keen interest in the bizarre whirling of words that Armond is capable of cobbling together, I thought you might find this link interesting: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=685486
As a poster/moderator on Rotten Tomatoes, I took on the task of responding line-by-line to White's review of "Up" back when it came out last year. Even when you let his words speak for themselves, they betray his insensitivity to the requirements of his profession. (BTW, the response was originally written primarily for the enjoyment of my fellow RTers, so you'll have to excuse a few of the comments for a tone of greater familiarity/casualness that would not be acceptable in a professional setting.) Anyway, I thought you might find it an interesting read.
I remember reading this when you first posted it on Rotten Onions (even though I hadn't seen the film yet!), and it remains, for what it's worth, one of the best analyses of a piece of criticism I've read on the Web. (By the by, you might remember me as "Dade.") You're welcome to deconstruct my reviews anytime!
I've followed this Greenberg controversy (such as it is) with interest, because I do enjoy White's writing, and because I enjoy the various reactions he elicits. I'm not blind to his faults, and those last two sentences of his Mr. Jealousy review really are a syntactical blunder. But his Greenberg review/tirade has hypnotized me for days. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it, but I've been equally captivated by the ripple effect. The thing that perplexes me a bit is that the general consensus seems to be that White's just spewing nonsensical bile, and that he's just a delusional slob desperate for attention... and yet a lot of hyper-articulate, witty, thoughtful, and respected critics are dignifying this whole episode with a surprisingly large, considered range of responses. I guess my question is, if he's so irrelevant and laughable, why is he still a hot topic of conversation? Is he just an easy target for derision? Or what?
"Might remember you"? Sir, you wound me. As I have often said, you're one of my favorite people on the 'Net. :)
Likewise! No wounding intended! I just wanted to make sure you'd connect the real name with the alias. :)
There is only one solution for poseurs like Armond White. Give him a camera and ask him to direct a feature film, or two, or ten. That would knock the arrogance out of his system pretty darned quick, and if not, he'd get a dose of his own medicine. When I read this quote from him - "To the unbiased, I am known as a critic who speaks truth to power; it will test our film culture’s commitment to democracy if I suffer reprisals for the freedom of speech expressed in this article." - I could not believe anyone working in journalism in any subject could have an ego that big. Put him on a set where he'd have to answer to producers, writers, production designers, directors of photography, difficult actors, grips, electricians, VFX supervisors, costume designers, props, make-up, surly teamsters and on and on. He'd crack in one day. He'd never look at another film the same way again. Also he'd be in the hospital with a broken nose. Now that's something I'd pay to see.
Your over-the-top personal attack epitomizes the inherent hypocrisy in post-print criticism that Fellini so studiously avoided in L'amore in città, confirming your place among Denzel Washington and Spike Jonze (remember the awful Adaptation?) as a masquerader: the 21st century pseudo-intellect who snobbishly despises the cathartic messages of I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Transporter 3.
I hate the Hurt Locker.
http://www.nypress.com/article-20010-the-hurt-locker.html
No, I really do. Really.
As bad as Armond White is, Fiore Mastracci is worse. I haven't read a single review of Mastracci's yet where he hasn't brought up how Obama is evil and that Christianity is being sh*t on by the liberals. And this guy is a T-meter critic!!! At least Armond knows a thing or two about cinema, despite his incoherent ramblings and shock-jock troll-ism.
Leave a comment