DISQUS

Campaspe · 2 years ago

We really are curiously in sync this week. Over at my place I just posted in brief about a film by Jean Negulesco, a guy who made several movies which I treasure but cannot really defend as cap-A Art. Or even little-a art. It does rather boil down to which sort of cinematic Twinkie you choose to consume.

I do believe, however, that certain types of genre dreck get more respect than others, and that is frequently tied to who enjoys it. The sort of stuff Tarantino favors--grindhouse, slasher, giallo, kung fu, whatever--appeals to the still very male critical establishment, and therefore gets more respect. Whereas the kind of stuff I favor when I want empty movie calories--the lesser-grade women's pictures, Sandra Dee, Baghdad-and-boobs--have less boy-appeal.

OutOfContext · 2 years ago

The whole concept of 'guilty pleasure', which runs along side this post, becomes less relevant to me as the years pass. Mrs. Context has always refused to accept the idea and has won me over.
I understand the other distinction you make, the unchallanging vs. the challenging and that one is still somewhat important to me.
Part of the beauty of age is the ability to find beauty and meaning in a wider variety of intellectual experience, some not overtly challenging and certainly not sanctioned as art. I can't think of any way that Tarkovsky's Mirror is more satisfying to me than Midnight Run, both movies I really like. I realize the purpose in making those two movies may have been completely different, maybe even at odds, and I am curious to know those things, but in the end, they both hold special spots in the mythological atmosphere of my brain.

I too frequented the TLA in the early eighties during my school days and part of the whole experience was the feeling of specialness combined with the restlessness of youth in seeking out the new and maverick. That feeling has never gone away, I just seem to satisfy it in common and unexpected places nowadays.
...Or maybe as Mrs. Context says, "You're just getting more stupid."

We really are curiously in sync this week. There's a little Dana Andrews connection, too.

Dan Leo · 2 years ago

Dear Siren, excellent point about the sorts of movies that appeal to the old boys' club. I'm sure there are women out there who love the Zatoichi movies, I just haven't met any of them (whereas I, like a fool, have watched all 73 of them). I have to make a funny face when critics get carried away with this stuff though -- I checked out your one link to the guy who compared Hostel II to Buñuel, and I was all -- wha? (But to be fair, I haven't seen either Hostel.) Oddly enough for someone who's perfectly happy watching a 70s yakuza movie even though he has only the faintest idea of what the hell is going on at any moment in the movie, I too have a soft spot for certain types of "women's" pictures, especially the old ones, when you had such great women stars. Speaking of Negulesco, I remember watching Three Came Home when it came out on DVD and I was one big soggy handkerchief by the time the end credits rolled. I just checked his filmography, and you know what I would love to see again? The Rains of Ranchipur. This was totally the sort of movie that would wind up on The Schaefer Award Theatre.

Dear Out of, I do agree with your sentiment. Different types of movies (and books, and music, and people) affect us in different ways. If I had the critical acumen I might try to talk a little more deeply about certain types of books and movies that are basically genre works but that somehow also work as art, although you might get your art mixed in with a lot of not-art. (We all know what the accepted examples are: The Seven Samurai, My Darling Clementine, The Godfather, etc.) The trouble is, you start talking like this about the Zatoichi movies and you can easily take all the fun out of them.

Tom Watson · 2 years ago

Siren said that these flicks "appeals to the still very male critical establishment, and therefore gets more respect."

Bingo. Looking for art.

Kevin Wolf · 2 years ago

Good, fun post, Dan. We are pretty much in agreement.

I think OutofC brings up an important point re the "guilty pleasure" vs the challenging/not issue. Seems to me a guilty pleasure is one person's "not-challenging" cinema choice -- for whatever reason and for which there may be no good reason other than personal taste (or lack thereof).

Whereas your average non-challenging flick is probably agreed upon to be, at least by fans of the type or genre in question, okay time filler. That is, more than a few isolated obsessive types will buy in.

It's possible some of the genre pictures that are generally enjoyed may have a chance at being elevated in the film pantheon simply because they're rock-solid good. On the other hand, the oddball flicks that can only be enjoyed by the few are less likely to have that happen.

OutOfContext · 2 years ago

The trouble is, you start talking like this about the Zatoichi movies and you can easily take all the fun out of them. Actually Dan, I'm more about putting the fun into the more obviously artistic auters like Visconti (I just bought a used copy of the Criterion edition of the Leopard that I'm looking forward to watching)and Bergman, than taking it out of the explicitly entertaining offerings. I like hearing artistic and social criticism of works of art, but I'm usually more interested in the how and whys of the work getting created. In a way, and it's odd to say this on a blog with 'critics' in the title, I would argue against too much interpretation in art, at least when someone tries to couch it in objective terms. In a critic, I value the interaction of the critic with the work, if I find the critic's perspective as engaged as the artist. Come to think of it, it is the critical equivalent of what 'new journalism' did to journalism in the sixties, and I think blogs are a great medium for this work.

Dan Leo · 2 years ago

Thanks for the comment, Out of. It's so true that innumerable critics and reviewers and just plain bores have done their best to take a lot of the fun out of watching movies (and reading books, and watching plays, and looking at art, and listening to music, and eating and drinking, and living), and will continue to do so. I don't mind anyone interpreting art, just don't put me to sleep while you're doing it.

I think every film critic, and film fan should watch this documentary called Bergman Makes a Movie, from 1962, by Vilgot Sjoman. Just a beautiful depiction of the whole process of Ingmar Bergman writing, directing, doing post-production and finally attending the opening of his movie Winter Light. One of the things I loved most about this documentary was the sense of fun you saw in Bergman at work on this rather austere but beautiful movie. I mean he's utterly serious and precise about every slightest detail, but he's also cracking jokes and laughing with the actors and technicians. You see him kidding around with an actor, then it's time to shoot again: the actor because he's a trained actor is immediately in the moment, Bergman is completely concentrated on the scene, they shoot a few moments of brilliance; cut. Then they're joking around again.

Art doesn't have to be painful, either to create or to experience, and it would be nice if it weren't painful to read about.