I enjoyed our "Contrarian Week" discussions so much (even made it its own category!) that I wanted to open it up even more and ask my fellow movie bloggers to discuss any and all aspects of contrarianism on their blogs (and send me a link!) for a "Contrarian Blog-a-Thon," the weekend of February 16-18, 2007 -- a full month from today. That's the weekend before the Oscars, so things should be pretty dull around then (and if you're not sick of Oscar speculation by then, you never will be). Please help me spread the word.
Most of us like to inveigh against the conventional wisdom from time to time. What do you think makes for a good contrarian argument -- or a bad one? Make your own contrarian argument for/against a movie or a specific moment in a movie or a filmmaker's work or a whole genre if you want to. Just make sure you build a real argument (with examples!) rather than a crackpotty ad hominem attack.
I'm excited to see what you come up with. Please feel free to drop me a line (address in nav bar above) to let me know if you're "in." Muchas gracias!
View image Clint Eastwood, a Caucasian American, made a movie about Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima in WW II. How "liberal" of him!
2006 was a big year for stories about the "death of movie criticism" -- which were really just bandwagon-jumping trend pieces about the increasing numbers of studio products that the studios themselves don't deem worthy of the expense of advance critics' screenings. How can this be tied to some mythical decline in the influence of film critics? Have critics ever had the power to sell a stinker to the public? Or to warn a substantial portion of moviegoers away from a bad movie with a monster ad budget, marquee names and/or genre appeal (horror, comedy, action)? Would "You, Me & Dupree" (which was pre-screened for critics) have done substantially better at the box office if it had gotten good reviews? Of course not. Word-of-mouth travels fast.
So, if American film criticism is wounded or dying, it's not because of any publicity department's policies. It's because of the crap some of the critics -- even some of the most reputable -- are writing.
If you want to watch film criticism writhe in agony from a mortal wound, if you want to see critical standards expire pitilessly before your very eyes, you need only read Jonathan Rosenbaum's four-star ("Masterpiece") review of Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" last week:
One reason I wasn't sure what to think of "Letters" the first time I saw it was that I didn't know how it would be received in Japan. I wondered if it would seem accurate to most viewers there. I've since learned that the response has been very favorable and that it's been near the top of the box-office charts since it opened.
A Japanese film critic and friend, Shigehiko Hasumi, who was around eight years old when the Americans landed on Iwo Jima, admitted to me that even though he likes "Letters From Iwo Jima," he prefers "Flags of Our Fathers." I suspect he prefers it for the same reason I prefer "Letters From Iwo Jima" -- because it tells a less familiar story. (I'll concede that "Flags of Our Fathers" is stylistically more ambitious -- in its exploration of how images are made and turned into emblems -- but that doesn't necessarily make it more successful.) I told Hasumi I worried that "Letters From Iwo Jima" might define the humanity of the Japanese characters only in terms of American traits (a bias I see in spades in "Lost in Translation"), but he assured me the film is true to a "certain Japanese reality." He added that he found the portraits of the pro-American Japanese officers in the film a bit "romantic," comparing them to John Ford's depictions of Confederate officers in such films as "The Horse Soldiers."
Critics be warned: Don't form your opinions about a movie until you've checked the box-office charts and the critical and popular reaction from the region in which it is made or set! (I did a Google search for 腐ったトマト, but I couldn't find a Japanese rottentomatoes.com -- what am I to do?)
If Rosenbaum wanted to include the critical opinions of this "close friend" Shigehiko Hasumi, why didn't he ask him what those opinions were? We learn that Hasumi preferred "Flags of Our Fathers," but Rosenbaum can only "suspect" why. He says Hasumi "assured me that the film is true to a 'certain Japanese reality'" -- but what "certain Japanese reality" might that be? And is there only one?
I share Rosenbaum's concern about films that "might define the humanity of the Japanese characters only in terms of American traits" (but I don't see how it applies to the deliberately jet-lagged, discombobulated, "stranger in a strange land" sensibility of "Lost in Translation" -- which, heaven forbid, was not popular in Japan!) But I don't read Jonathan Rosenbaum to find out how a picture is being received in Japan, or anywhere else. I'd like to know how he sees the movie.
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?"
"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."
OK, this exchange strikes me as peculiar (and a little disturbing) in several respects:
President Bush reminded me of the District Attorney in Chinatown (that is, in "Chinatown") the other night, as he stood in the White House "liberry," stiffly mumbling about his "new strategy" for Iraq, which amounts to: "As little as possible." Then Jon Stewart made me cry last night (with laughter and outrage -- and relief that somebody was telling the manifest truth) as he cut through all the lazy, endlessly recycled punditry about how Bush was "really putting it all on the line this time" (as he's been said to do every time he makes an empty gesture toward Iraq, or his Boratian "War of Terror"). Talk about creating a false sense of drama. Bush put nothing of himself on the line. He risked nothing. He did... as little as possible.
The only people Bush is putting on the line are the troops and the Iraqis. As Stewart pointed out, what is the addition of 21,000 more troops (returning the level to that of two years ago) supposed to accomplish that it didn't accomplish back then, when conditions were a whole lot better than they are now, and we still couldn't secure Baghdad? We have 130,000 troops in Iraq now, Stewart observed. Another 21,000 is a 15 percent increase. "That's not a surge, it's a gratuity. It's a tip," Stewart said. (Watch the whole segment here.) Perhaps Stewart's best metaphor for the President's actions: "He cooked up a giant, giant pot of shit, and looked at it last night and said, 'You know what that needs? ... A pinch of salt.'"
The real strategy? Do just enough to pretend you're trying, then blame the failure on the American people (for not supporting a losing strategy) and Congress (for not supporting a losing strategy) and the Iraqis (for being Iraqis). Amazing. Now here's a (bullshit) artist who shows nothing but contempt for his audience -- and his "characters" (i.e., the lives he's cynically and recklessly monkeying around with).
"The highest levels of casualties have occurred in the operations with
the lowest levels of U.S. troops, suggesting an inverse ratio between
force levels and the level of risk. Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo
had no postconflict combat deaths. The postconflict occupations in
Germany and Japan proved relatively risk-free because both Japan
and Germany were thoroughly defeated and because their govern-
ments had agreed to unconditional surrender. The low numbers of
combat deaths also show that postconflict nation-building, when
undertaken with adequate numbers of troops, has triggered little vio-
lent resistance. Only when the number of stabilization troops has
been low in comparison to the population have U.S. forces suffered
or inflicted significant casualties."
If Bush had proposed to send in 200,000 more troops I still would have thought it was a bad idea (being about three or four years too late), but at least I might have thought he was (once) serious about trying to bring stability, freedom and democracy to Iraq. One again, he's done nothing more than reveal what a bad bluffer he is.
"I've been making pictures for 40 years," said the intense, fast-talking Scorsese in an excerpt from "The Entitled," during which the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" can be heard in the background. "For 40 years, I've been making pictures. And I've always been fascinated with the struggles a man must endure when people don't appreciate him. People say I'm the best. I didn't say it, they did. I just do my work. But for years they've been talking and you know it. You do. I deserve that award, is all I'm saying."
[...]
"For years I did the little pictures about the types of people I grew up with," said a passionately gesturing Scorsese in another "Entitled" scene. "Then I did the prestige-y, historical stuff like 'Last Temptation' and 'The Age Of Innocence' because I related to the characters, you know, outsiders in repressive environments making fateful choices. Then I started making the big sweeping epics, like 'Kundun' and 'The Aviator.' I've made comedies and documentaries, even concert films. Ever heard of 'The Last Waltz'? No? Okay. You should."
Continued Scorsese, "What happens? Nothing. Nothing for the versatile visionary who lives and breathes pictures."
Dana Stevens (at Slate.com), Susan Gerhard (SF360.org), and I are the only critics I know of who put "Man Push Cart" on our best of 2006 lists. Roger Ebert probably would have been a fourth, if he'd made a list this year -- because he programmed "MPC" in his Overlooked Film Festival. Time and DVD will no doubt correct this ghastly critical oversight.
If it hadn't been for the 1981 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll, I would never have discovered one of my all-time favorite albums: Human Switchboard's "Who's Landing in My Hangar?" It's the only studio LP by a Velvet Underground-influenced band from Ohio (Bob Pfeifer, Myrna Macarian and Ron Metz), released on Faulty Products/IRS Records and, well, it didn't get much advertising or marketing support. (You can still read Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide mini-review here. See if you can find it on LP. It never made it to CD.) It came in at #11 in the poll, and ranked #10 on The Dean's List, between Psychedelic Furs' "Talk Talk Talk" (yes, the one with "Pretty in Pink" on it) and Tom Verlaine's "Dreamtime" (another favorite of mine to this day).
Which is why I find it helpful to scour critics' polls (and individual lists): to alert me to titles I may have overlooked -- and, perhaps, may even come to treasure. (Just beware of those who prize obscurity -- or obtuseness -- for their own sake.) The First Annual LA Weekly Film Poll has a nifty interface, where you can click through by category, see which critics voted for what, or look at individual critics' lists. There's even a Worst Film category, the top four winners (winners?) being:
1) "Lady in the Water"
2) "Babel"
3) "World Trade Center"
4) "Miami Vice"
Everything else averaged two points or fewer. (I really dug watching "Miami Vice" myself. It was an exercise in style, not unlike "The Departed," but it had a spark that, actors aside, I felt Scorsese's picture lacked.)
Contrarian dispatch: Are critics patronizing Scorsese?
View image Critics gather 'round to watch "The Departed" on their laptops.
Is there anybody who doesn't want Martin Scorsese to win an Oscar? Even if you don't think "The Departed" approaches his best work? For me, his best films are "Taxi Driver," "GoodFellas," "King of Comedy" and "New York, New York" (and I'm very fond of most of his others, including "After Hours," "The Last Waltz," "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "The Color of Money") -- and I've written at some length about all of them over the years explaining why I think so. If I had to get hierarchical, I'd probably rank "The Departed" somewhere below "Color of Money" and above "Boxcar Bertha" -- mainly because it strikes me as one of his most mechanical, least personal films. I just didn't get the feeling his heart was in it all that much.
But, so what? Unquestionably, Scorsese deserves recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- and, as is often the case in Oscar history, he may get it for something that does not represent his finest work. Or even the best of the year. And that's OK. The Oscar doesn't really have anything to do with artistic merit, but Scorsese's a real moviemaker (he thinks in images), a longtime pro, and a movie lover to his core. The Academy should recognize him for everything he's done for movies, not just for "The Departed." (This would be one of those "career Oscars" -- like when Henry Fonda won for "On Golden Pond" -- or Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman.")
Which brings me to the latest issue of cinema scope (a publication with a web site that's more attractively designed than the print version), in which Managing Editor Andrew Tracy makes an argument about "The Departed" and Scorsese that might be called, oh, I don't know, contrarian, perhaps? Here's the gist:
Do we really need Martin Scorsese? Heresy though it may appear, the question interrogates not so much the man’s work as its reception—and in light of his recent output, the latter is far more interesting than the former. As Scorsese’s ambitions continue to wane in the belatedly careerist, Oscar-seeking course upon which he has set himself, there is a manifest refusal to let him go the way of other filmmakers whose efforts no longer match their ability. Good filmmakers naturally inspire proprietary feelings, but Scorsese has become less a going concern than a public trust, his secular sainthood guaranteed even further by his laudable contributions to film preservation and restoration. At stake here, it seems, is not simply the fate of one director but of the cinema entire—or at least of American cinema, which in this particular discourse amounts to the same thing.
Godard is a contemptuous artist, too. Forget "Le Mepris." Ever see "Weekend"?
We heard a lot in 2006, as we do every year, about nasty filmmakers who were said to have viewed their characters (and, hence, their audiences) with contempt, or who "made fun of" them, or treated them with condescension, or who just don't seem to like them very much. Across time, such charges have been leveled at Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Christopher Guest, the Coen Bros., Todd Solondz, Sacha Baron Cohen, and many other artists -- especially those whose work has tended toward the comic or caricaturish. And then there's all of film noir to consider, a whole kind of moviemaking that does not view the human animal with kindness or affection.
In answer to specific allegations of of alleged contempt (such as Jonathan Rosenbaum's characterization of Altman's attitude toward Lady Pearl in "Nashville"), I have tried to explain why I think such charges are false, or at least misguided. It seems to me, in these cases, that the contempt being expressed is more likely to be that of the critic for the director or film (or reader) than that of the director for the character or the audience (unless we're talking about a movie by, say, Alan Parker). But it's impossible (and futile) to argue with a blanket statement like: "The Coens mock everybody. They're laughing at the audience!" -- meaning, of course: "They're laughing at me!" (please read in the voice of Piper Laurie in "Carrie"). My response is: 1) that's a rather vague aspersion; 2) if you got the joke you wouldn't feel like you were being laughed at; and, 3) yeah, it's true. Many forms of comedy -- satire, parody, etc. -- contain an element of mockery. Even contempt.
So, I'm here to speak up for contempt! (How very contrarian of me!)
The rich, powerful and pretentious are obvious (and ripe) targets for humor and derision. Their problem is that they're just people, with flaws like everybody else, only magnified (and made more irritating and dangerous) by their position in society. They deserve to be knocked down a few notches. But you don't have to be rich, powerful or pretentious to be a hypocrite, or a boor, or a twit, or an oaf, or a cretin. You don't have to possess great wealth or celebrity or influence to be smug, stupid, petty, ignorant, pathetic, tasteless, crass, callous, crude, or just downright annoying -- and, thus, worthy of comic derision. Such people really exist! I've seen them with my own eyes! What's more, I've been them!
"Hey, look at those assholes over there. Ordinary f----in' people. I hate 'em."
-- Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), "Repo Man" (1984)
"Hell is other people."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit" (1944)
I sometimes wonder if those who worry about expressions of contempt for characters (particularly "ordinary people") in movies have ever had jobs in which they had to deal with the general public. Or have ever attended some kind of party or social function at which they have met some people they would rather not have met. Is this not part of the human experience? Don't most people have some pretty awful qualities? Why should an artist be expected concentrate on their benign or "sympathetic" traits -- or to come up with some kind of artificially "fair and balanced" view of them? Some people's most interesting characteristic is that they are idiots. Or worse. Did you like "Seinfeld"? Those characters were despicable in every way. Some people thought that was why they were funny.
Is misanthropy not the most universal and understandable of all sins? For all our achievements and evolutionary refinements, we are a pretty damnable species. And, as the only one capable of (and perhaps unwittingly committed to) destroying all life on our own planet, we are also the richest, most powerful and pretentious. Don't we deserve to have a laugh at ourselves -- or, at least, at those idiots right over there?
P.S. I am reminded of the words of Luther Ingram and Mack Rice, as sung by the incomparable Mavis Staples (and, yes, I'm going through one of my periodic obsessive Stax phases, so get used to it):
Keep talkin' 'bout the president won't stop air pollution
Put your hand over your mouth when you cough, that'll help the solution
Mavis means you. And she's singing in the context of a Christian family gospel/soul group. Good gosh a'mighty, now -- even the Staple Singers aren't afraid to make the average person the butt of an occasional, rather contemptuous, joke. Amen to that.
"[This character] was life and hope, as she is the only one carrying a child. This is a society without procreation, so that's why they make such a fuss about finding a girl being pregnant. I got that whole idea by reading about elks in Lapland: suddenly these herds would stop reproducing, and no one could figure out why."
A description of the premise of a certain dystopian thriller now in US theaters? Nope. It's Robert Altman describing his 1979 picture "Quintet," quoted in "Altman on Altman," edited by David Thompson (2005).
I don't think much of Mel Gibson's ultra-literalist directorial sensibility (my main problem with "Passion of the Christ" is that it failed to engage on any symbolic, religious or mythological level), but this piece in the New York Times last week, by archaeologist Craig Childs, piqued my interest in seeing "Apocalypto." Childs sees it as a truer reflection of the historically violent -- and symbolically violent -- nature of Native American tribal life than the popular stereotype of American Indians as passive, stoic, peace-loving peoples. (And that stereotype developed, in part, as a corrective response to the savage portrayals of "Injuns" in so many American movie westerns).
Writes Childs (author of the forthcoming book, “House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest”):
Being told by screenwriters and archaeologists that their ancestors engaged in death cults tends to make many Native Americans uneasy. In Arizona, Hopi elders turn their eyes to the ground when they hear about their own past stained with overt brutality. The name Hopi means people of peace, which is what they strive to be. Meanwhile, excavators keep digging up evidence of cannibalism and ritualized violence among their ancestors.
How do we rectify the age-old perception of noble and peaceful native America with the reality that at times violence was coordinated on a scale never before witnessed by humanity? The answer is simple. We don’t.
Prior to 1492 it was a complex cultural landscape with civilization ebbing and flowing, the spaces in between traversed by ancient lineages of hunters and gatherers. To the religious core of pre-Columbian Mayans, a beating heart ripped from someone’s chest was a thing of supreme sacredness and not prosaic violence.
If “Apocalypto” has a fault, it is not with its brutality, but with us in the audience who cringe, thinking the Mayans little more than a barbaric people. The fault lies in our misunderstanding of a complicated history, thinking we can lump a whole civilization into a single response and walk out of the movie saying, “That was disgusting.”
View image The great Rufus Thomas, the World's Oldest Finest Teenager, does "The Breakdown" (follow-up to "The Contrarian").
"I enjoy the occasional flaying of a sacred cow."
-- anonymous movie critic
Can your monkey do the dog
Can your monkey do the dog
Well, my dog can monkey
just like you
But can your monkey do the do the do the
dog like I do?
-- Rufus Thomas
The first thing you'll notice about an auto-contrarian (or reactionary) piece, whether it's an op-ed column or a movie review, is that it doesn't so much try to build a point-by-point rebuttal or counter-argument. Instead, it prefers to disparage something or someone by association, by making ad hominem attacks on (real or imagined) supporters of whatever it scorns.
So, for instance, when Stephen Metcalf writes a "What's All This, Then?" piece tearing down "The Searchers," he first attributes the film's reputation not to any merits it may or may not possess as a film, but simply to his generalizations about people who like it. Then he derides them as "film geeks," "nerd cultists," "critics whose careers emerged out of the rise of film studies as a discrete and self-respecting academic discipline," and filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius and George Lucas, whom he labels "well-credentialed nerds." So, you get the idea. Rather than make observations about the movie itself, you insult those who admire the movie and use that to smear the movie. It's a schoolyard tactic: If you like "The Searchers," you're a nerd! Notice how the discussion is no longer about the movie, but about who Metcalf thinks is a nerd. (And never mind that "The Searchers" is a "termite" movie : Critically overlooked/dismissed as just another western when it was released, it's a movie that grew in stature over time, as more critics and moviegoers got to see and evaluate it.)
If Metcalf had written a piece that dissected "The Searchers" from a new angle, that demonstrated what the film does (or fails to do) and why he felt that was or was not a worthy achievement, then I might have enjoyed his flailing of a sacred cow, too -- even if it didn't persuade me to change my own view of the cow. Moo. I find this sort of thing happens rather often, where I'll read a critic's take on a movie and think: "Wow, I'd probably feel the same way if I saw that movie, but that's just not the movie I experienced."
View image The Pale Man knows how to do The Contrarian. He sits motionless until an external stimulus prompts him into motion.
There's a brand new dance
That's easy to do
It's called the Contrarian
And it's all about you!
Strike a hipster pose
And admire your reflection
Just be sure you're facing
In an opposite direction!
(apologies to Rufus Thomas)
Is Armond White too easy a target? Does any other movie critic have a blog devoted to "parsing the confounding film criticism" he produces? (See the hilariously titled Armond Dangerous.)
At the risk of sounding contrarian, I want to suggest that White (published on the web via the weekly New York Press) is by no means the worst movie reviewer in the United States. He just pretends to be the baddest.
The all-too-common White review is a reactionary tirade that owes a lot to the angry shtick of aging hipster comedians like Dennis Leary and Dennis Miller back in the 1990s ("hipster" being White's favorite term of disapprobation). White can also be funny, but I wish he thought so, too -- and that his humor arose from his observations about movies rather than his hysterical indignation.
In this sense, White doesn't necessarily practice film criticism, although what he writes is almost always based on his real or imagined characterization of what other critics have already written. The movie itself sometimes gets lost in White's internal monologue as he rages against some chimerical critical consensus.
In the Bizarro World, Armond White is Jeffrey Lyons. He's the negative campaigner's blurbmeister. Just substitute disses for superlatives and you'll find a similar (anti-)promotional blurb mentality at work. This is the most elementary form of so-called "criticism" -- purely heirarchical rather than analytical or exploratory. It's not even "This is why I prefer this to that"; it's just "This is better than that because I choose to say so."
