CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

THEY SHOOT CRITICS, DON'T THEY?: AMERICAN FILM CRITICISM

THROUGH THE POSTMODERN AGE

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communications

By

Josh Lies

January 2007
The thesis of Josh Lies is approved:

Date

Eric Edson, MFA Date

t
Date

California State University, Northridge

11
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank John Schultheiss for acting as the chair of my thesis

committee and offering excellent guidance as I continued to revise the manuscript. More

importantly, I would like to thank him for opening my eyes to a number of movies and

providing me an example of how much good one can do with a life dedicated to film. On

a similar note, I would also like to thank Rick Mitchell for being on my thesis committee

and showing me how much one can accomplish with enough dedication. Additionally, I

must equally thank Maria Elena De Las Carreras for her moral support and immeasurable

contribution to the foimulation of this thesis. Lastly, I would like to thank Kenneth

Portnoy for offering his name as a titular member of my thesis committee.

111
 Table of Contents

Signature Page_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ii

Acknowledgement __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ iii

Abstract____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ v

Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I

Laying a Critical Foundation _________________________________________________________________________________________ 3

Building a Critical Structure __________________________________________________________________________________________ 6

Finishing Critical Touches _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 38

Works Cited 70

Appendix A _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 75

Appendix B _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 76

Appendix C ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------77
Appendix D _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 80

lV
 ABSTRACT

THEY SHOOT CRITICS, DON'T THEY?: AMERICAN FILM CRITICISM

THROUGH THE POSTMODERN AGE

By

Josh Lies

Master of Arts in Mass Communications

This thesis project is the culmination of a fascination I have long had with film

critics and their writing, for as Andrew Sarris once said, "Between working in a coal

mine and being a film critic, I think being a film critic has a lot to be said for it." The

essay begins with what is essentially the start of the type of film writing I focus on

throughout the text. I have abstained from discussing academic film criticism and instead

centered my thoughts on popular film criticism, from Vachel Lindsay in the early part of

the century through the contemporary writing in today's mainstream press. Following

this type of film criticism from its infancy to our current postmodern world, I have

attempted to conclude that the present situation is detrimental to both film criticism and

film critics. The exploitation of film reviews in current advertising strategies is leading

the way for this downfall, and this thesis should hopefully shed more light on this subject.

IV
 Introduction

Having been deeply interested in film for a significant duration, it was only a

matter of time before I became equally enthralled with the mainstream critics writing

about these movies that were so fascinating to me. As I worked my way backwards,

starting with today's critics and following the references I would come across along they

way, it seemed that contemporary critics were progressively getting cited more and more

in movie advertisements. My cinephilia guided me to the skillful writing done by some

of history's pickiest film critics in the likes of Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, et al, but

the quotes that were being used in these trailers and print ads were ridiculous in their

praise of w01ihless movies. On top of that, they typically were also from critics I had

never heard of nor could easily find. As time went on and I continued reading more

criticism, this situation continued to grow and become ever more apparent to me.

My thesis project began from the fascination ofthis developing predicament. I

was reading the groundbreaking reviews written in the mainstream press by Kael, San·is,

Agee, and Bosley Crowther, but all of the contemporary articles from film critics about

the film criticism in the popular media pertained to how the profession was failing its

readers and failing itself. Computing this simple problem could lead to only one

conclusion, which inevitably involves a declining interest and respect of film critics.

Through scholastic endeavors and personal research, it seemed nearly unavoidable that

my thesis would center around the state of popular film criticism as it pertains to that

which came before and that which will come in the future.

One article that solidified the basic groundwork of the research involved in this

project was the symposium published by Cineaste in 2000 that involved nearly all of

1
today's most important popular film reviewers discussing their thoughts on today's film

culture centering on film criticism. My subsequent research led me to similar aiiicles

relating to many critics and film journalists discussing their own thoughts about

contemporary film critics, especially pertaining to the 'blurbmeisters' whose blurbs are so

frequently used in the previously mentioned movie ads. Often, these articles would cite

other articles, which would, in tum, lead me down another similar path relating to past

critics and the milieu in which they wrote. As I incorporated these articles, I would also

constantly stumble across specific passages in certain critics' writings that helped me

formulate my own ideas about how each critic related to his or her own time, as well as

how he or she affects today's film culture.

Through all of the research involved in this project, I rarely came across any

opinions that attempted to string today's situation into any solid hypothetical

prognostication. While I am not pretending to provide the end-all on the subject of where

popular film criticism is going in today's crumbling atmosphere, I do hope to shed further

light on the subject. Many of today's critics openly admit to their misgivings about their

place in film culture, and this thesis is attempting to take their misgivings one step further

by contributing to a small group who are trying to start the alarm before popular film

criticism is sucked into the world of marketing and becomes completely ignored.

2
 Laying a Critical Foundation

When literary critic R. P. Blackmur wrote in his notable essay "A Critic's Job of

Work," "Criticism, I take it, is the formal discourse of an amateur," his intention was to

propose that when analyzing a work of art the critic should not regard criticism as the

type of work done by a professional with a rigid viewpoint (885). Rather, the critic

should approach the work from a fresh mind-set. Though he was not discussing film

criticism in his piece, Blackmur could have just as pointedly been doing so. To

Blackmur and other literary theorists, the critic represents the perfect reader, and in the

most utopic sense, a critic should guide one through a piece of art to find a richer

understanding of it. In respect to cinema, the critic should assist the viewer in unveiling

interpretations that may have been missed or overlooked; in other terms, the film critic

needs to be the ultimate sponge.

With the ability to reach its audience on such a visceral level, film has the

unequaled capacity of making every viewer feel like he or she should be reviewing films,

however unfortunate that may be. In today's world filled with such excess, it seems that

anyone can be a published critic, which has resulted in so much hackneyed critical

writing that even the most unworthy movies get praise. Reading through a month's span

of the countless amount of film criticism available in the mainstream press, the glowing

movie reviews might lead one to believe that now is the greatest period in film history;

yet, a trip to the multiplex will prove otherwise. Roughly a hundred years after the birth

of cinema, the increase in mass media combined with cultural changes continue to have a

profound, if detrimental, effect on film criticism.

3
 While the methodologies of film critics can differ immensely, film critic Dwight

Macdonald established some common groundwork for film critics when he wrote that

their three primary tasks are "to judge the quality of the film, to state precisely, with

examples, just why one thinks it good, bad, or different, and to relate it to other films and

the history of art" (Murray 217). As mentioned previously, not all critics agree on their

job description. French critic-turned-filmmaker Francois Truffaut stated about criticism,

"What is worthwhile, yet difficult, is analysis. [ ... ] What is interesting is not

pronouncing a film good or bad, but explaining why" (Murray 230). Contrary to how

much of today's criticism reads with many reviews containing only snippets of scales and

thumbs, Truffaut's explanation corresponds to how most respected film critics view their

profession.

The role of the critic is an important one in any art form. Flm critic David

Edelstein writes, "Anyone who dismisses critics or criticism in principle is implicitly

saying that a work of art ends the moment it has been consumed - that it's not supposed

to have any kind of after-life" ("Film Criticism" 33). As audiences left the nickelodeons

in the early part of the 20th century, film enthusiasts were writing about the effects of

simply splicing two pieces of film together. While these writers disputed the value of

montage versus mise-en-scene, the average viewer most likely passed judgment without

much reflection. From this general launching point came the theoretical writing of those

discussing the philosophical implications of consuming the moving picture and the more

immediate writing done by those reviewing the films.

Largely absorbed by the academic community, film theory and its theorists are

typically found in intellectual circles separate from the popular culture audience that

4
mainstream critics find as their audience. The simple act of watching a movie means

images and sounds are being processed and interpreted. The academic film critic tackles

the issues sulTounding the implications of this consumption. Their world is one where,

for the most part, where the writing is done and consumed by the same group of people.

On the other hand, the mainstream critic writes reviews on a more immediate basis under

the umbrella of analyzing and judging. Rarely will moviegoers come out of the theater

and discuss how a film related to Sergei Eisenstein's views on Marxism and its

correlation to the movie's editing strategies like an academic theorist might do. Instead,

it is more common to hear how one disagrees with a critic's review or opinion of a film.

Taken from somewhat of a marketing angle, the film review involves a critic's take on a

movie largely in this direct relationship with the movie attending masses. It is because of

this intimate relationship with the general audience that film critics' writing in popular

media outlets can have an enormous impact on film culture. Through their writing, they

have the opportunity to can enlighten readers about the theories written about in

academia while simultaneously discussing other art forms. The best mainstream critics

imbue their subjective perspective on all artistic topics while always keeping in mind that

their writing can educate and entertain. It is not the job of academic film theorists to

connect with the general public; however, it is the duty of mainstream film critics to

accept this responsibility with the utmost gravity, for they are the ones closest to the ears

of the general public.

As a form of popular entertainment, many feel that nothing more than a simple

verdict of 'good or bad' is necessary in film commentary. Yet, to the film critic, each

piece of criticism, "should delight, instruct, and stimulate independent thought," claims

5
film critic John Simon, "It should be as well written as a piece ofliterature and withstand

the test of time" ("Film Criticism" 42). Unfortunately, today's criticism reveals a film

community betraying their oath to this philosophy. To fully understand the diminishing

state surrounding today's film criticism, one needs to only look back into its history and

follow how it gradually generated speed through each successive generation to reach an

incredibly significant height of respect, only to soon find itself in its current state of

despair.

From the beginning of film criticism with Vachel Lindsay's writing in the early

part of the 20th century to Roger Ebert at the century's end, film criticism has been on a

roller coaster of highs and lows. Lindsay's 1915 book The Art of the Motion Picture

gives readers a thorough breakdown of the foundations of cinema and during this he also

analyzes D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), among other films and aiiists. A

notable poet, Lindsay provided a view that cinema was a form of populist expression

opposing the authority of art for the elite. Discussing film as a whole, Lindsay wisely

predicts that it "will affect as many people as the guns of Europe," and he goes on to

explain that it "is not yet understood in its powers, particularly those of bringing back the

primitive in a big rich way" (290). Lindsay's efforts went into making film respectable in

the eyes of those who saw film criticism as a waste of time, commenting on a spectacle

meant for those less educated. He declares that his book is for anyone interested in

finding a means to best come to terms with this new art. In his introduction to Lindsay's

book, film critic Stanley Kauffmann writes, "Lindsay was interested in opening up

powers, in showing possibilities to film-makers, in showing possible demands and

rewards to film-goers" (xv). Lindsay's book is widely thought as the first important

6
piece of writing on film, and the idea of what he was attempting is not far from the

objectives of mainstream contemporary critics like Roger Ebert nearly a hundred years

later.

7
 Building a Critical Structure

The 1920s and 1930s brought a form of film criticism more familiar with that of

today. This occurred notably with Robert Sherwood's criticism in Life and The New York

Herald and with Otis Ferguson, who dished his perspective on cinema in the pages of The

New Republic through the 1930s. Both he and Ferguson wrote for a fairly long period

during what is roughly the cinema's adolescent years, thus making their writing

extremely important to film criticism.

It is often said that Sherwood was the first critic to fully grasp the medium in his

work. In Sherwood's April 28, 1921 review in Life of Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of

Dr. Caligari (1920), note how he applies his knowledge of other arts in his examination

of this film, "It is a distinctly Poe-esque conception, and it is treated in a remarkable

manner" (American 122). Sherwood has a strong grasp on what shapes the German

Expressionist movement this film falls under. His writing shows a critic comfortable

writing about art beyond the immediate boundaries of cinema as he goes on to explain in

the review, "The scenes are all represented by means of futurist art-it is not Cubism or

V orticism, but rather Post-Impressionism-so that the picture has the quality of a weird,

horrible nightmare. Streets, buildings and trees are crazily crooked and grotesque-and

yet terribly real" (American 122). Sherwood is also able to explain his thoughts in

describing his viewpoint. He claims F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924) "is a

marvelous picture," but does not leave his reflections on the film at that. Sherwood goes

on to explain how the movie is "devoid of flourishes or frills" and how Murnau and his

constituents:

8
 "have done things with a movie camera that has never been done before. Their

manipulation of photographic effects is simply astounding; they have used the

lens as a great painter would use a pliant brush that produces broad strokes or fine

lines, sharp angles or graceful curves. They have made a moving picture that is

really worthy of the name" (American 158).

Sherwood's explanation of what makes this film special illustrates how he was pushing

film criticism into a mode of writing that expressed feelings beyond the medium's

fundamentals, even though many cultural elitists continued to dismiss the art form and

those writing about it.

Like Sherwood, Otis Ferguson had a firm grasp on cinema and its capabilities. In

his February 19, 1936 review in The New Republic of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times

(1936), Ferguson showed that his writing also displays a knowledge of the medium and

its potentialities, a trait that would become essential to a film critic. Rather than have

another member of the journalistic community relegated to write about the movies as a

trivial side project as many in the mainstream press once did, these early critics made

writing about movies a serious trade. As sound was taking over the movies, Ferguson's

review of Chaplin's film notes how film was evolving and how the "old-time

atmosphere" of the picture takes its inspiration from a previous era of film (American

332). Ferguson writes, "Above everything, of course, is the fact that the methods of

silent days built up their tradition in group management and acting" (American 332).

Ferguson's expounding on what is derivative in the film shows how the best critics

always stay ahead of current trends. In the review, Ferguson continues on to explain how

the angles of the movie "are incidental" and how Chaplin took inspiration from Rene

9
Clair for the conveyor belt sequence similar to how much of the iconography and story

layouts "are duplicates; they take you back" (American 332). The criticism written by

Ferguson and Sherwood showed how quality writers could excel in reviewing a less

respected art form even with little guidance from any predecessors.

These early critics set a foundation for others to follow, but it was not until James

Agee began writing film criticism in the 1940s for The Nation and Time that film

criticism began to take on a life of its own. Dwight Macdonald, among others, heralds

Agee as one of the most talented writers of his generation. Stanley Kauffmann justly

elucidates, "Few posthumous recognitions have been better deserved than James Agee's"

(American ix). History has not been as kind to Sherwood, Ferguson, and other early film

critics as it has for Agee whose work would become an enormous influence on later

critics.

The biggest difference between a type ofreview from the 1930s and one from

Agee is Agee' s impressionistic approach. Agee put himself in his movie criticism and

consequently the world played second fiddle to him in his reviews. This does not stem

from any pompous grandiosity but more from his ability to hold his reader's attention

while pouring all of his essence into his writing. No matter the film, Agee seemed to

write directly from thought to paper with no filter in between, and retroactively, it is

Agee's feelings that matter most. In his October 14, 1944 review of Billy Wilder's

Double Indemnity (1944), Agee writes:

"While I watched the movie which Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett have made

out of Charles Jackson's story about alcoholism, The Lost Weekend [1945], I was

pretty consistently gratified and excited. When I began to try and review it, I

10
 could not forget what Eisenstein said, years ago, when he was asked what he

thought of Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front [1930]. He said he

thought it was a good PhD thesis. I am afraid that applies to The Lost Weekend,

too;' (182).

From idea to page, Agee's line, "When I began to review it," is almost a pre-thought and

proof of his flare for the instinctual. A typical film critic would omit a line like this but

not James Agee.

From 1941to1948, Agee was the film critic for The Nation, and from 1942 to

1948 he wrote for Time. Edward Murray writes in his book analyzing film critics,

"Before James Agee no American film critic was respected as a.film critic" [author's

emphasis] (1 ). Few film critics receive the praise from fellow critics that Agee does.

While he remained evaluative and moral in his writing, his work did not follow standard

film criticism conventions. He was not uncharacteristically described once as "the most

physically invigorating American prose writer between Hemingway and Cheever" (Talty

62). The model for film reviews before and during Agee' s time was fairly literal in its

translation of the filmic language, but with Agee one got a critic who could make his

reader see a film in his review as vividly as on the screen.

In his study of Agee, Stephan Talty describes Agee as having the inimitable talent

of bringing a "number of voices present and conversing" in his reviews (61 ). Agee was

not as straightforward or direct as other critics, and by writing from his gut he appeared

to be searching for a refinement of the way people thought about film. Writing for Time

about Treasure ofSierra Madre (1948) in a February 2, 1948 review, Agee makes the

bold claim, "Treasure ofSierra Madre (Warner) is one of the best things Hollywood has

11
done since it learned to talk; and the movie can take a place, without blushing, among the

best ever made" (398). He was not afraid to speak his mind.

Another respected film critic during Agee's period was Bosley Crowther, who

while writing for The New York Times is said to have had the power to ruin a picture;s

financial potential with a bad review. While a very gifted and respected film critic,

Crowther' s style fit more in line with his time. Crowther wrote in a more professional,

eruditional manner than Agee. Where Agee wears his emotions on his sleeve, Crowther

uses his intellect to do his bidding. Witness the differences in Crowther' s favorable

review of Treasure ofSierre Madre on January 24, 1948, "Greed, a despicable passion

out of which other base ferments may spawn, is seldom treated in the movies with the

frank and ironic contempt that is vividly manifested toward it in The Treasure of the

Sierre Madre" (The New York Times Film Reviews 236). In that passage one gets the feel

of a critic writing from his mind rather than his heart. Likewise, Crowther' s opening line

in his own review of Double Indemnity illustrates that even when he is clever, there is

still an impersonal distance in his writing compared to Agee's. Crowther writes of

Wilder's film, "The cooling-system in the Paramount Theatre was supplemented

yesterday by a screen attraction designed plainly to freeze the marrow in an audience's

bones" (The New York Times Film Reviews 214).

In praising these films, one can sense that Crowther is keeping his affection for

them at a distance, as opposed to Agee, who almost seems less afraid to communicate his

visceral reaction of the films. Even Crowther recognized Agee's uncam1y abilities, and

he explained that "Agee' s distinction as a critic was his exceptional sensitivity to the

intimate nature of cinema expression and his ability to put his feelings into vivid, terse,

12
and witty words" (Murray 22). To his credit, Crowther's body of work is highly

respected in the film community, but unlike any before, Agee's work transcended film

criticism.·

Agee's lack of pretense helps form his writing. Manny Farber once referred to

Agee' s writing as containing "an aristocratic gashouse humor that made use of several art

centurie" (85). An example ofthis could be found in any number of his reviews, such as

Agee' s humorous opening for Double Indemnity and Frenchman's Creek (1944), "If you

laid Double Indemnity and Frenchman's Creek end to end you might still prefer to spend

the evening with Madame Bovary" (119). Agee expanded the boundaries of film

criticism. It was almost as if the movies could not keep up with him. It has been said

that his film writing was "as if a major writer on crime and punishment had been sent to

cover the purse-snatching scene in St. Louis" (Talty 59). Stephen Talty describes Agee's

film reviews as having three important elements that were once thought irreconcilable in

a film critic, though they now seem essential in any art critic: "a hungry largeness of

mind, a snapping wit, and a strong embattled compassion" (58). Agee also had a unique

way of handling his subject that allowed him to appreciate the different aesthetics

existing in the early cinema of Eisensteinian montage as well as both the static nature of

Charlie Chaplin's work and F. W. Murnau's active camera.

One of Agee's peers, and probably his most famous immediate successor, Manny

Farber, attacked film with a similar subjective approach, though he was not as relentless

in pursuing such an impressionistic reaction. Following closely behind Agee, Manny

Farber became the critic for The New Republic and The Nation in the 1940s and

established himself as one of the more influential film critics writing in this era. Robert

13
Polito explains that Farber's writing "arrives at a kind ofbackdoor poetry: not lyrical, or

routinely poetic, but startling original" (123). Farber drove to find the core of a film and

exhaust all of its thematic details in his reviews. While Agee' s diatribes often competed

with the actual film, culminating in a review that often was of a movie Agee wished he

saw rather that the one he did see, Farber, conversely, did not so much compete with the

films he wrote about as much as he ran alongside them, writing on a separate tangent.

Though he's been referred to as a maverick, not all fmd his technique favorable,

however. Polito critiques Farber, "His writing can appear to be composed exclusively of

digressions from an absent center" (124). Nonetheless, this absent center allowed

Farber's writing to shift and transform in a fluid nature.

Described as the 'Mitchum of film criticism,' it is said that Farber's writing in the

1950s appears to have come from a man in a bad mood the entire decade. Though this

may be true, an angry critic can provide a valuable analysis from someone feeling let

down by the films under discussion. Contemporary film critic Stephanie Zacharek writes

about Farber, "Implicit in everything he writes is a challenge. He demands that you think

your way through pleasure, that you have to isolate what you enjoy about a work and

think about why it gets to you" (Polito 123). Several of the best attributes of Agee and

Farber have carried through the history of film criticism, but much of today's writing

lacks this important trait Zacharek describes, that is, the ability to verbalize and explain

the how's and why's of enjoyment and despair. For those that were truly listening, many

of these succeeding critics owe a great deal to Farber's writing; as film critic Greil

Marcus states, "The idea, the arrogance, the sense that there were only a certain number

of things that really needed to be said and that I, Manny Farber, know what they are, and

14
here they are, and out the door" (Polito 123). The best of those that continue in this

manner write from an artistic viewpoint rather than trying to simply score a film one

through ten, a strategy embodying the worse of today's criticism. It seems that many of

today's critics could use a little of Farber's anger and demand more than what the film

industry is giving instead of bowing to their every need with high acclaim for every film.

Film criticism began to take a new shape as the 1950s became the 1960s. A

progenitor to this new period, Dwight Macdonald began as a political activist before

becoming a film critic. Writing monthly film criticism for Esquire, as well as for other

periodicals, Macdonald has often been described as being guided by a political and

moralistic sensibility fitting to the period's active political atmosphere. Almost

completely shunning the content driven criticism of the past, the 1960s found film

criticism focusing on film's formal characteristics.

Macdonald separated himself from these formalists with his politically conscious

writing, reportedly based on his Marxist and Trotskyite leanings. His method of

criticism, as illuminated by Edward Murray, "involves two basic questions about a film:

'Did it change the way you look at things'; and, 'Did you find more (or less) in it the

second, third, nth time?'" [author's emphasis] (213). Though he focused more on content

than form like many of his predecessors, his work at the time was as important as any.

McDonald stepped-down from his monthly criticism job at Esquire in 1966, and

what seems to have stuck for his reputation is not any specific reviews or writings but

more of a sense of his overall ideas in his film critic work. McDonald's storied past in

other avenues helped shape him as a film critic. He often focused on the politics in a

film, seen with his take on The Birth of a Nation and Ten Days That Shook the World

15
(1928) as "propaganda, with negroes as the villains and southerners the heroes in one as

against the same relationship between bourgeois and workers in the other" (Murray 211).

He also had very specific ideas about film art and film critics. In response to 8'lj (1963),

he writes, '"serious' critics have by now become habituated to profound, difficult films

that must be 'interpreted' from the language of art (what's on the screen) into the

language of philosophy (what what's on the screen 'really means')" (Murray 213). In a

virtual love letter to MacDonald following the publication of MacDonald's collection of

film criticism, Dwight lvfacdonald on Movies, John Simon wrote, "Macdonald is an

educated man, interested in almost all things and knowledgeable about many; especially

handy is his proficiency in literature, politics and mass culture. It is impossible to read a

page of his without feeling in the presence of a man who possesses varied information

and disposes of it with a liberality untainted by ostentation" (Movies 410). MacDonald's

film writing, while very respected, does not hold the weight or the prestige outside of the

immediate film community compared to some of the critics writing during the period

when MacDonald retired. This is likely because of his content driven criticism and his

dropping out of reviewing just at the point when critics were gaining popular notoriety.

One of the main characteristics of these critics, unlike much of the content-driven

criticism of the past, they largely kept their focus on the films themselves.

Film criticism reached new heights in the late 1960s and early-to-mid 1970s. A

few of the significant critics during this time were Stanley Kauffmann, Andrew Sarris,

and Pauline Kael. Kauffmann began writing for the New Republic in the late 1950s and

established elements in his writing reminiscent of the humanism in Bosley Crowther' s

work. Coming from a theater background where he wrote, directed, and acted, as well as

16
briefly writing theater criticism for The New York Times, Kauffmann became known for

having a powerful intellect concentrating mainly on cerebric films and acting. For

instance, his February 1, 1964 review of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964)

references a quote from George B. Shaw's Man and Superman:

"There is nothing to prevent the film's being seen as a cautionary tale; still its

subject matter is the so-far incurable in us. The text might have been taken from

Shaw's Devil in Man and Superman:

· The power that governs the earth is not the power of Life but of Death;

and the inner need that has nerved Life to the effort of organizing itself

into the human being is not the need for higher life but for a more efficient

engine of destruction" (15).

Kauffmann relates Kubrick's film back to Shaw's play exercising his knowledge of

theater and in so doing, Kauffmann relates his interpretation of the film intertextually in a

way specific to his talents as a critic.

Kauffmann's interest in the actor's art separates him from most of his

predecessors and contemporaries, going so far as to lead him to often criticize his peers

for their lack of attention to performances in films. One can find acting mentioned in any

number of his reviews, but Kauffmann spends a fairly large portion of his January 12,

1963 review of David Lean's Lawrence ofArabia (1962) discussing acting. In his

review, Kauffmann claims, "The acting, too, is so rich as to elevate the film

intrinsically." He goes on to argue about Peter O'Toole's performance, "From the start

there is the impact of a genuinely theatrical personality; this is amplified by an attractive

voice, subtly incisive readings, an interesting, expressive face-a face that is strong yet,

17
in a valuable sense, feminine. [ ... ] O'Toole is so good that, throughout the film, we feel

that the script is catching up with his complexities" (27). Kauffmann continues to write

about the acting in the film, including Alec Guinness' "easy dignity," Anthony Quinn's

"vigorous conviction," Jack Hawkins; "authority with a touch of pomp," Anthony

Quayle's role as "sturdily ingratiating," how Claude Rains is "always fine and now a

vintage actor," how Arthur Kennedy "deals competently with a crass part," and how

Omar Sharif is "glowingly noble" (27). Coupled with the unique films of the era and the

resultant innovative criticism, Kauffmann' s intellectual nature spun into an outgrowth

that would allow him to not be ashamed to refer to his critical forefathers as deficient.

Kauffmann's writing displays one of the innovative approaches in film criticism

during this period in that his analyses are never bound to any one school of thought or

subscribe to any set theories. For Kauffmann, doctrine in film criticism is a substitute for

talent. In his words, "I simply can't fmd an intellectual reason or an emotional propellant

to make me adopt any one of those approaches as the sole or even primary series of tenets

in judging a work of art" (Cardullo 4). The draw back to this can make Kauffmann

sometimes read, Edward Murray writes in his examination of the critic, as if "his criteria

of evaluation appear to shift markedly in accordance with his subject" (165). This has

left room for Kauffmann's detractors to claim that he dismisses films of which he does

not agree with what the film proposes.

While the 1960s moved forward, shoving the world into a state of political,

intellectual, and ideological upheaval, film became a topic of heated discussion. The late

1960s began what is commonly referred to as a renaissance in American film. Movies

like The Graduate (1967) and Emy Rider (1969) swung film in a direction that uniquely

18
spoke to its audience and made the movies more important to American culture than ever.

Film criticism was consequently thmst into the limelight. From this came famously

heated debates between critics, typically involving Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, and John

Simon defending their respective manner of criticism through discussing films and

filmmakers. Kauffmann, uniquely, rarely found himself sparing with his peers, even

though his philosophy left him room to discredit groups who based their entire process of

criticism on one criteria. Others who did join these debates would agree with

Kauffman's claim that these schools orbit an axis without which they would all cmmble.

One of these singular modes of thought is centered on the term coined by Francois

Tmffaut "la politique des auteurs," or the auteur theory, which was brought to American

criticism by Andrew Sarris through the original concept developed by a group of French

film critics. Sarris went to cover the Cannes Film Festival in 1961, but instead of writing

as he intended, Sarris has said that he suffered from writer's block and produced nothing.

He spent the next several months in Paris surrounding himself with critics and

filmmakers immersed in the study of film. Sarris invested a great deal of this time

studying cinema at France's famous Cinematheque and reading articles in the influential

film journal Cahiers du Cinema written by a group of film critics who would later

become successful directors, among them Francois Tmffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude

Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette.

When he returned to the States, Sarris brought with him the heavy influence he

received from these critics who would later form the French New Wave and revolutionize

film with their distinctive brand of personal cinema. In their periodical, Cahiers du

Cinema, these French critics-turned-directors created the auteur theory, defined through

19
its defending the idea of the director as the main author, or auteur, of a film. Through

their writing, these critics elevated a great deal of American films that were commonly

thought to be frivolous by the American critics of the time. Francois Truffaut

championed the work of Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard favored Nicholas Ray, and

from Cahiers came the director as superstar.

In developing the auteur theory, these French critics wrote about how even during

the studio system's creative restrictions, one can see the distinctive fingerprints of such

directors as Howard Hawks and John Ford in their respective films. Truffaut's 1954

essay on Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (l 954), for instance, discusses throughout the

piece the director's aim in not only this movie, but his entire career. "Hitchcock has

acquired such expertise at cinematographic recital that he has, in thirty years," Truffaut

writes, "become much more than a good storyteller" (79). In true auteur-centered

fashion, Truffaut's critique of the film almost concentrates more on Hitchcock than on

the movie itself. When Truffaut wrote about Hitchcock's To Catch a Thie/(1955),

Truffaut mentions early that "Hitchcock remains absolutely faithful to his perennial

themes: interchangeability, the reversed crime, moral and almost physical identification

between two human beings" (80). By recognizing and labeling Hitchcock's common

elements, Truffaut pins down what makes Hitchcock an auteur.

Soon after his depaiture from Europe, Sarris introduced American culture to the

auteur theory in his essay, Notes on the Auteur Theory 1962. His three main points of

emphasis are "the technical competence of a director as a criterion of value [ ... ] , the

distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value," and the definitive

principle, "the interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director's

20
personality and his material" (Sarris, ''Notes" 586). When implemented in his reviews, as

in Sarris's miicle in the May 12, 1968 New York Times, Sarris uses the auteur theory to

illustrate his points: "Mike Nichols earned his diploma as an auteur more for The

Graduate, with its humble literary origins, than for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[1966] with its awesome dramatic laurels. Whereas Nichols merely transferred Virginia

Woolf, he transcended The Graduate with his very personal way of directing actors in

action" [author's emphasis] (Confessions 364). Sarris applied this formula and

transformed American film criticism with his vastly influential book that categorized

directors and their films, The American Cinema: Directors and Directing, 1929-1968.

During a question-and-answer session with Sarris, moderator and acclaimed film director

Curtis Hanson said about The American Cinema, "Good film criticism imparts

knowledge that is filtered through and enriched by a personal point of view. A great

teacher opens the door and encourages you to go through that door and continue the

exploration on your own. That is what this book did for me and countless other

filmmakers and lovers of movies" (Geffner 36). Sarris's reviews took the auteur theory

and flung it into American popular culture and him along with it.

With Sarris, readers found a well-studied film encyclopedia. Sarris embodied the

type of new critic who centered life around the movies. When he discussed the aesthetics

of Easy Rider, he wrote:

"If American movies seem today too eclectic, too derivative, and too mam1ered,

so did they seem back in the twenties, the thirties, the forties, and the fifties. The

Novelle Vague tricks and Bergman-Fellini-Antonioni mannerisms are no more

voguish today than the UFA German expressionist and Soviet montage tricks

21
 were in the late twenties and early thirties. But out of all the mimicry of earlier

times emerged very personal styles, and there is no reason to believe that the same

thing will not happen again and again" (Confessions 447).

In San-is' s treatise is something appropriate to his talents, that is, a discussion of Easy

Rider led him to briefly encapsulate all of film history. Even though one can see that in

his reviews San-is never forgets his love of 'B' movies, he simultaneously maintains an

air of superiority and intelligence in his writing. San-is claims, "What consciously or

unconsciously I was doing was rewriting, or trying to rewrite, the canon" ("The

Reviewer" 22).

Film criticism reached its peak of popularity during the renaissance that lasted

from the 1960s through the mid 1970s, and it was not until this era that film critics found

themselves so highly regarded. One of these critics, Molly Haskell, explained in an

interview:

"At a certain point, film criticism suddenly became more attended to, it suddenly

became a focus of interest at the same time that film itself was becoming less of a

mass entertainment medium, and slightly more esoteric, more :fragmented, more

in need of explication, of recommendation. There was no longer this reflex

pattern of people just going to see whatever was playing, of just walking in

whenever they got there, then nudging each other to leave when they saw where

they'd come in. It became an optional entertainment, something one needed

guidance to go to, and in that sense film criticism suddenly acquired an

importance that film critics actually had never expected to have" ("Cineaste

Interviews" 342).

22
These critics made film reviewing an art of its own. Their names became synonymous

with film criticism and as recognizable as the biggest film stars of their day.

One of the reasons this renaissance took place was that there was a dire economic

situation at the major studios that allowed room for filmmakers to have unprecedented

creative freedom. Peter Biskind stated that during the early 1960s "the studios were still

turning out films like Darling Lili [1970] and Paint Your Wagon [1969] [ ... ]. They were

trying to repeat the success of The Sound ofMusic [1965] and My Fair Lady [1964] with

little success and a lot of the studios were close to bankruptcy" (Film School Generation,

doc.). The studios were forced to give creative power to young directors who had been

nursing on the expressive post-WWII European films.

Spawned by the political upheaval of the time, a young generation was growing-

up with a sense of alienation from their parents. Witness for example the range in the

Academy's Oscar nominations for Best Actor in 1969 with John Wayne in True Grit

(1969) to Dustin Hoffman for Midnight Cowboy (1969). As the studios grasped for

anything that might have some success, what they found was a wave of young

filmmakers who could speak to a public disinterested in a bygone era of film. A flood of

creative freedom rushed over the filmmakers during this period and what sprouted from

this would be unforgettable films from directors and screenwriters such as Francis Ford

Coppola, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, and Paul Schrader, among many others.

Another benefit to the burgeoning film critics writing reviews during this time

was the combining of collegiate film study and a high quality of popular films. Young

people were gravitating to film more than ever. "What was exciting in the sixties was

that the thematic and the aesthetic studies of film were coming together," Molly Haskell

23
elaborates, "There was a convergence, and it wasn't then considered academically

disreputable to discuss films thematically" ("Cineaste Interviews" 346). It was during

this period that Pauline Kael battled Andrew San-is in a public forum unequaled in the

history of film criticism, and most important of all, people were listening.

There was a clear difference between the Ferguson's and Crowther's and the

renaissance critics of the late-1960s and 1970s who became so famous. One of the signs

that a changing of the guard was taking place was how Crowther was notably falling out

of touch with readers when he was forced to write about such ground-breaking films as

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 enigmatic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Following the lead of the

Cahiers critics, these fresh-minded American critics began to look at film completely

different, separating themselves from their ancestors. Film critic Vincent Canby

suggested that the critics at Cahiers taught their American counterparts "how to see

things in films that, until then, were simply taken for granted for, worse, not understood

at all" (Canby 15). Canby goes on to explain, "It's not important that the Cahiers writers

were right or wrong about Hitchcock, Ford, Hawks, Anthony Mann, Edgar G. Ulmer,

Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray, Billy Wilder or William Wyler, among others," but what is

important is that "before Cahiers, few people ever bothered to argue about such things"

(Canby 15). Unlike those before them who focused on the political and social

ramifications in a film, for the Cahiers writers, style was substance. Subsequently, their

American counterparts eschewed the gentlemanly state of film criticism and took over the

film community by storm.

Soon after film entered the curriculum of universities in the 1960s, the general

public looked at going to the movies as an important venture. It is no coincidence that

24
during this time attentively reading film criticism became status quo. A wave of gravity

and seriousness swept through popular culture and brought with it a high level of

significance to both film and film criticism. In his exposition on movie criticism David

Shaw references Susan Sontag's explanation about this specific moment in film history,

"Going to the movies, thinking about movies, talking about movies became a passion

among university students and other young people ... Film was no less than a secular

religion," to which Shaw concludes that "film critics were the high priests - or at least the

esteemed apostles - of this new religion" (1 ). It is no secret that this wave has crashed,

but left in its wake is the optimism that film criticism can have enough meaning and

influence to move its readers.

In regards to the film criticism in America before he began writing, Sarris once

claimed that the serious reviewer had basically disappeared when he first broke into print.

Though he may have been slightly exaggerating, Sarris made his voice heard during this

period. He says, "I was the beneficiary as well as the victim of the intellectual vacuum,"

and he often eulogized little known films in his writing that were dismissed by other

respected critics (Murray 3 8). What was probably more accurate was that a lot of critics

writing when Sarris began were journalists covering the movies. Sarris, however was

just coming from an atmosphere in France where film rang supreme. Together, the

French and the new American critics opened the door to see film with new eyes,"[ ... ] the

generation of critics I grew up with - the Cahierists, the auteurists - I think we

discovered new cinema," said Sarris in an interview, "We discovered things from the past

that had been neglected" ("Cineaste Interviews" 286). Sarris managed to do this all while

25
upholding in his approach the option to discredit well-known films and film movements,

such as Eisensteinian editing and Italian Neo-realism for their emphasis on content.

By judging and placing directors and their films in ranking order, Sarris

catapulted himself into the upper-echelon of film critics. In a description of himself

Sarris explains, "I wrote with a kind of seriousness, as ifl were writing the final word"

(Walsh, "An Interview"). A great deal of the youth who were in love with movies would

agree, journalist Peter Biskind explains, "He ranked directors in hierarchies, which had

an instant appeal for the passionate young cineastes who now knew that John Ford was

better than William Wyler, and why" (16). Nonetheless, many still found Sarris's writing

unsubstantiated. Kauffmann, for one, had a problem with the auteur theory's ability to

assume "that any criterion is applicable or, if one chooses, none at all" in working

through a film. No one spoke out louder against the auteur theory than Pauline Kael.

Kael wrote that the theory and the way Sanis and other auteurists value one director over

another is tantamount to the personal expression of a director "shoving bits of style up the

crevasses of the plot" (Mun-ay 48). Edward Munay expands on Kael's reservations by

explaining that the auteur theory's reading of a film through the unity or consistency of

personal imprints "is removed as a standard by which a film is evaluated and applied as

the standard by which a true auteur is judged" [author's emphasis] (48).

In fact, most criticism of Sarris relates to his inability to stray from the auteur

theory. Continuing on the topic of Sanis' s writing, Murray claims that it "is at its best

when he forgets the dogma of auteurism and concentrates on analyzing form and content

in pictures which, by common consent, have achieved a recognized position in film

history" (63). The well-published battles Sanis had with Pauline Kael over her

26
opposition to the application of his theories helped make film criticism famous,

fascinating readers with their diverging style in their reviews. Unlike Sarris, Kael's

modus operandi was to never subscribe to any set theory, choosing instead to write from

a pluralistic foundation. John Simon wrote that Kael read like an "uninhibited campus

bull session, bubbling with impudent wit," while Sarris's style "was more baroque, full of

unleashed alliteration and esoteric insider stuff" ("Such Sweet Sorrow" 41 ). Sarris

funneled his passion through the auteur theory whereas Kael let her writing flow with an

unconventional freedom. They famously battled over Orson Welles' auteurist

contributions to Citizen Kane ( 1941) through Kael 's legendary two-part article "Raising

Kane," and Kael's rant against auteurists in her piece "Circles and Squares" is now an

essential part of film history. Through their conflicting dichotomous relationship came

film criticism's highest point of recognition.

By using her inimitable free-flowing approach, Kael opened-up her reviews and

made them, at the peak of her creativity, small pieces ofliterature in the way John Simon

describes as the goal of any great critical writing. In pluralist criticism like Kael's,

typically less film-centric than an auteurist critic, the pluralist balances between the

synthesis of form and content with other disciplines usually unrelated to the fmmal

analysis of film. In doing this, the pluralist reaches an understanding of the film in

regards to film and life as a whole. While some of these discourses might seem irrelevant

to analyzing film, the pluralist is able to incorporate everything. Kael explains in the

author's note of her collection ofreviews, Deeper into Movies, that she writes "because I

love trying to figure out what I feel and what I think about what I feel, and why" (xv).

27
 Kael's review of Michael Antonioni's Red Desert (1964) has her in full pluralist

mode when she includes a story about how she once visited a wealthy woman who had

no idea what was inside the art books displayed on her shelves. Unrelated to the actual

film, Kael's account portrays a woman essentially living as a fake, dishonestly portraying

a life she was not leading. Through the telling of this story Kael includes in her review

her beliefs on the attitudes of affluent desolated people. ill turn, she is able to get a grasp

on the film and its main character in this roundabout way to come to the conclusion,

"Despite this relationship to the world around us, I found the movie deadly: a hazy poetic

illustration of emotional chaos-which was made peculiarly attractive" (Kiss Kiss 31 ).

Kael's inclusion of her beliefs about the attitudes of wealthy people in a movie review

comes from the roots planted by the subjective prose of James Agee, a critic Kael often

mentions in the highest regard. Justifiably, Kael credits James Agee for influencing her

style, "When I was a teenage philosophy student at Berkeley, my friends and I were

devoted to James Agee because he was the only movie critic who spoke to us" (Quart 8).

If Agee wrote from stomach to paper, then so did Kael. Notice the similarities

between how Agee begins his The Treasure of the Sierra Madre review with Kael' s

famous review of Last Tango in Paris (1972), "Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in

Paris was presented for the first time on the closing night of the New York Film Festival,

October 14, 1972; that date should become a landmark in movie history comparable to

May 29, 1913-the night Le Sacre du Printemps was first performed-in music history"

(28). Neither critic writes with the slightest hint of a necessitating a future apology.

Reading them to many is like discussing movies with a friend, which is why so many

28
flock to their writing and in the same way Kael adored Agee, the same sentiment would

later be repeated by Kael's own followers.

Kael never allowed herself to become trapped "by an inflexible definition of art,"

Will Brantley writes in his examination of her, "as well as an inflexible system or theory

of film or criticism and history" (47). Like Agee before her, Kael wrote from her gut and

let herself bleed all over her best reviews. Brantley goes on to mention how Kael' s

refusal to establish a set doctrine or follow a predetermined code led many critics to

mistake her "anti-theory stance with anti-intellectuality" (51). Nonetheless, many readers

found her subjective style engrossing, valuing her independence as a means to help them

see a film through their own perspective.

When Kael was in love with a movie she said so, and when she hated one, she

also did not keep that a mystery. Her review of The Sound ofMusic took no prisoners as

she lambasted its makers for choosing only the safest options in making the picture:

"I think it is not going too far to say that when an expensive product of modern

technology like The Sound ofMusic uses this sort of 'universal' appeal, it is

because nothing could be safer, nothing could be surer. Whom could it offend?

Only those of us who, despite the fact that we may respond, loathe being

manipulated in this way and are aware of how self-indulgent and cheap and

ready-made are the responses we are made to feel" (215).

Kael concludes her review by indicting those involved in the making of the movie as

being nothing short of capitalistic pigs. She writes, "It is not only that people who accept

this kind of movie tend to represent work which says that this is not the best of all

possible worlds, but that people who are gifted give up the effort to say anything. They

29
attune themselves to The Sound ofMoney" (Kiss Kiss 217). With this type of honesty

oozing from her pieces, it is no wonder she had the affect she did. Her opening line for

her well-known review of Robert Altman's Nashville (1975) reads, "Is there such a thing

as an orgy for movie-lovers-but an orgy without excess" (Reeling 86)? In that line is a

critic's humor, connectedness with her audience, and an obvious love of the cinema.

Kael's style changed the way film criticism was written and perceived by the

general public. She claims that when she started writing she "cited Eastern critics (I was

living on the West Coast then)- the best ones, such as Dwight Macdonald and Stanley

Kauffmann - as examples, of the mandarin solemnity that was sinking movie criticism"

(Quart 8). Even though the critics during Pauline Kael's time always projected an air of

appreciation for great art and literature, they were also taught by their predecessors at

Cahiers to defend 'B' movies for their cinematic value. There were definite standards for

the critics writing during American film's renaissance, and while they may throw a fist at

the snobbery of high art by proclaiming their love of Hitchcock, they would at the same

time discuss without hesitation themes of alienation or other more cerebral aspects of any

given film. Before Kael, a structured, intellectual attitude encompassed most respected

film criticism, which indirectly helped open the door for visceral writing like hers and the

popular debates among the new critics of the day.

Unprecedentedly, Kael's highly publicized feud with Sarris made film criticism

nearly as important as the films being reviewed. Those taking Sarris' s side saw Kael as

uncultivated, proclaiming for example, as Edward Murray states, that her writing stems

from "an adolescent vision: anti-intellectual, anti-art, nonaesthetic 'aesthetic"' (129).

The lack of a consistent, unifying theory in Kael's work occasionally led her into

30
contradictions, allowing her detractors to point out that Kael would take the side of a

formalist and then later adopt the opposite stance and oppose formalism. Others negate

the charge that Kael never defined her particular brand of criticism by hailing her

diversity and encyclopedic recollection of all the arts using that as their means to define

her. Will Brantley asserts, "Kael's recall of history is only one building block in her

performance; it is the knowledge she brings to the subject of the moment that might

justify our calling her an interdisciplinary critic even though her immediate topic is film"

(39).

In her writing is a knowledgeable rebel fighting for the new style of cinema and

pushing to make film reviewing an art of its own. Kael tried to take criticism away from

the same type of establishment that reportedly got her frred from reviewing films for

McCall's with her condemnation of the immensely popular film The Sound ofMusic.

"Her version of the antiwar movement's hatred of the 'system' was a deep mistrust of the

studios and a well-developed sense of Us. versus Them," Peter Biskind explains, "She

wrote about the collision between the directors and the executives with the passion of

Marx writing about class conflict" (40). Kael followed to her last impulse her idea that

movies are a visceral experience evoking emotional before cerebral responses and being

lucky enough to write during the time that she did, her impulsive writing could not have

been a better fit.

What quickly becomes apparent in Kael' s body of work and what made her such

an enormous influence on future critics is that "there is no party of which she wishes to

be a member," writes Geoffrey O'Brien, "if she has to declare anything it will be the

sovereignty of her own taste" (Marcus 21). Kael's major complaint against the auteur

31
theory was that only some films necessitated interpretation through the director. While

battling the professionalism of the auteurists, Kael wrote in an almost colloquial manner.

Film critic turned director Paul Schrader explains that Kael brought film criticism to the

average filmgoer by personalizing film criticism. Schrader states, "Pauline's writing was

as much about herself as the films. Using the insidious 'we' ... she made the reader part

of her experience. Robert Warshow once wrote that 'a man watches a movie and the

critic must acknowledge that he is that man.' But he never wrote like that. Pauline did"

(Marcus 24). An example of this type of personalization can be seen in her review of

Nashville, Kael continues, "I've never before seen a movie I loved in quite this way: I sat

there smiling at the screen, in complete happiness" (Reeling 86). Upon reading this

passage, it is hard to not imagine oneself sitting next to her at the theater having the same

reaction because beyond this is a critic who has earned the right to use this type of

language. Her enthusiasm for film made her magnetic and her appeal contagious. People

paid attention to her writing and opinions like someone they could trust, and be it right or

wrong, there was always a good argument. Nonetheless, Kael's method led to the

inevitable allegation that if one envelops one's criticism with experience as the first and

foremost definition, then nothing can ever truly be defended beyond one's experience

versus another's. Kael wrote into the 1980s, but as the passionate climate of the 1960s

and 1970s disappeared into a movie-making atmosphere that became less focused on risk

than profit, she began to flounder.

Inspired by the groundbreaking films of the period, Sarris and Kael made film

criticism romantic in the 1970s. Said Andrew Sarris about his predecessors, "I think

where the contradiction arises is that many of us felt for a long time that the humanist

32
critics - people like Bosley Crowther and Siegfried Kracauer - had talked so much about

content, so much about social ideas, that forms were completely ignored and we had to

make up for all this lost time" ("Cineaste Interviews" 242). Being in love with movies

during the 1960s and 1970s, as Philip Lopate stated, "was to participate in what felt like

an international youth movement. We in New York were following and [ ... ] mimicking

the cafe arguments in Paris, London, and Rome, where the cinema had moved [ ... ] to the

center of intellectual discourse" (Monaco 65). The critics at Cahiers helped teach the

American critics of this period how to think. The Americans, in tum, took the torch and

ran directly into the spotlight.

The influence of Sarris and Kael spread to Boston in the late 1970s where a large

faction of the next wave of film critics, such as Janet Maslin, David Denby, and David

Ansen, were using such periodicals as The Boston Phoenix and The Real Paper as their

training ground. As one of these writers claims about Kael, "All roughly the same age,

we share the experience of encountering her work in our youth, and feeling as if a stick of

dynamite had just gone off between our ears" (Carson 23). Paul Schrader concurs,

"Granted, Manny Farber, Parker Tyler, Andrew Sarris, and Amos Vogel were all sniping

at the Eastern Establishment, but it was Pauline who breached the walls" (Marcus 25).

What passed for film criticism before the critics in the Sarris and Kael era now seemed

staunch and unimaginative.

The end of the 1970s ushered in the blockbuster movie behind the impetus of

Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) and films gradually became less of an audacious

venture for studios than an economic commodity. Peter Biskind writes of this

transformation, "The amounts of money riding on a picture are so great that it tends to

33
impede the creative process, you don't want to take those risks because you're afraid

you're going to lose your shirt. One film can kill a studio, essentially, that's what

destroyed the 70s" (The Film School Generation). Even Kael began to take heat in the

early 1980s with Renata Adler's famous assessment ofKael's work, The Perils of

Pauline, whittling the critic down into worthlessness by explaining how Kael's resistance

to doctrines, theories, and methods meant that her writing could only recede into an un-

refreshingly thin dialogue. As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, the fervor of the era

dissipated and much of what made film criticism so powerful went with it.

While not much progressed with film criticism in the late 1970s and early 1980s,

there were still some shining moments for the upcoming batch of critics. For example,

when Janet Maslin worked her way into writing for The New York Times in 1977 and

began reviewing films "under the artery hardened Vincent Canby - a man who once said

he'd never been wrong about any film he had reviewed," writes Sean Elder, her fresh

approach made her look "like a bomb-throwing radical" ("Maslin Bails"). Unfortunately,

situations similar to this were few in number as the era of Nashville and Taxi Driver

(1976) gave way to an era of soulless films made for teenagers at the mall. Speaking

about the current state of movies just before her passing, Kael said, "I sometimes read

these really well-educated men writing their hearts out on crap, and I'm depressed

because they're wasting so much first-rate intellect on such low-grade material. That's

one of the reasons I quit. I just felt I couldn't go on doing that" (Davis 105). Personified

in the writing of the Paulettes, as Kael's followers are often refen"ed, Tom Carson

explains that during this period "the most depressing phenomenon is that virtually all the

Paulettes enthusiastically ape Kael's most dubious quirks - the souped-up descriptions,

34
the willingness to play favorites and the attention-seeking hyperbole - rather than the

flintily idiosyncratic intellectual rigor that made her great" (23). With the credibility of

film criticism dwindling, the arrival of film critics on television news programs, such as

with Gene Shallit and Joel Siegel, opened a pandora's box whose content has have

continued to spread film criticism as thin as the movies being covered.

While film criticism on television makes it more accessible to wider audiences,

the short segments provided for the reviews give the wrong impression of what criticism

is capable of accomplishing. A critic on TV can say how he or she 'really liked' a

particular film and leave their discussion with nothing more. While this would seem

ridiculous in a written review of a film, the influence of television criticism has shifted

the written review into this shallow soundbite attitude. The films of the 1980s typically

lacked controversy and film criticism followed suit. This transformation might be most

appropriately apparent in Kael's career where she once "spent most of her life swimming

against the current," Tom Carson elucidates, the 1980s saw her over praising insignificant

movies "with the fervor of someone afraid of being left behind" (23). Carson continues:

"The disappointment felt by her oldest admirers at her fmal phase may simply

reflect our unhappiness that the movies themselves haven't lived up to the great

promise of twenty years ago. Missing their power to transform us, and her ability

to transform them for us, we see writing that doesn't transcend its subject as a

failure of alchemy" (23).

Even if films are not, on the whole, on par with the films of thirty or forty years ago, the

art of film criticism should be evolving instead of becoming more disrespected.

35
 As one generation of critics gives way to the next, their work should lead to a

higher level of writer, even if the films being reviewed are poor as a whole. Critics

should be the ones demanding more; they should be the angriest. Criticism should be

treated with sincerity, rather than like an inferior form of writing performed by the dim-

witted as it is deemed for the most part in today's film society. Not surprisingly, many of

today's respected critics seem to have nothing but derogatory statements about their

profession, a lot ofthis having to do with film criticism on television. Ironically, the

popularity of film criticism in the 1970s helped usher criticism's move into television

which has had a largely negative impact on the entire film community. While some

critics periodically found themselves on television shows, it was not until the early 1980s

that reviewing films made a home on TV, generally within news programs or with the

pairing of two critics discussing a film.

The most famous television film critics, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, went into

syndication in 1982. Obviously, their program is not solely responsible for the failings of

modem criticism, but the incorporation of criticism on television during this time helped

decentralize any sort of authoritative voice as postmodern attributes began invading the

culture. Criticism is important to art and should not only provide the viewing public an

educated reading; it should also propel artists into creating more challenging work. Most

critiques of movie reviews on television argue that it is not able to do this. "If I have a

credo," writes film critic Stanley Kauffman, "it is that the criticism of film, or of any art,

can be literature in itself. The reader can be enlightened by the best criticism and,

additionally, can be glad that the art in question has brought about a corollary art" ("Film

Criticism" 36). Those opposed to what film critics do on television argue that it is nearly

36
impossible to enlighten anyone within the constraints of that medium, contrary to what a

print critic is capable of achieving.

While that argument may have validity, the current situation in most periodicals is

that the amount of space provided for film criticism is declining and achieving anything

in a shortened column has become increasingly difficult. Even though most periodicals

give film top billing, little of this space is being slotted for criticism. While there might

be some theater and literary reviews in a given magazine or newspaper, very little

attention is typically paid to these other aiis. This issue has not gone unnoticed by film

critic Roger Ebert who has been writing reviews at a newspaper for over twenty years,

''No art foim is covered more completely and at greater length in today's newspapers

than the movies. A lot of papers review virtually every film released - and, in many

cases, no books at all[ ... ]" (46). Movie reviews extend their arms to an incredibly large

audience, and yet the amount of space provided for this type of criticism appears to be

dwindling right along with the amount of people who seem to care about what these

critics are writing. In many of these instances, criticism is increasingly being replaced

with entertainment industry 'puff pieces' focusing on only the upbeat attributes of a film

or a film's star. Since a puff-piece article usually translates into a puff-piece review, it

comes as no surprise that there is now a general distrust of and aversion to film critics.

It has been said that when one provides criticism for a piece of art, one does not

speak on that piece alone, rather, one joins a conversation that existed previous to the

critique and will continue after it. "You can't talk about one film individually, apart from

every other film that's been made," film critic Andrew Sarris stated. A piece of criticism

does not stand apart from the history of criticism that came before it. Unfortunately,

37
many of today's critics do not seem to write with any sense of history, and this is an issue

that seems to coincide with the current postmodern epidemic of society's general focus

extending beyond nothing but the immediate.

The quaiity of the fiims being made in America at a time just after the Cahiers

critics had opened their American progeny's eyes was practically a match made in

heaven. Criticism thrives with good art as its subject, and yet, while the amount of great

films has not carried over into today's theaters, the number of films hailed as great has

seemed to increase so much so that critics appear to be the ones selling the films. In his

essay on current film criticism, David Shaw writes, "Today, essays and 'think pieces' on

the movies are infrequent, even in the best newspapers and magazines, and reviews in

many publications are much shorter; Time and Newsweek sometimes give a new movie

only a paragraph or two, and most New Yorker reviews are now less than half the length

ofKael's" (1). On top of the epidemic of shrinking space, many of today's film critics

focus on entertainment industry subject matter unlike the critics writing during America's

renaissance who disregarded this kind of jargon and instead brought their own respective

insights into their work. Like any great writer would do, these critics gave the impression

they were intelligent people covering the movies contrary to how many of today's

industry-minded critics seem to be driving film criticism into surface-level triviality.

Sadly, this type of trivial movie review being written today seems to be what is in

store for the future. The new generation of critical writers on the whole fails to explore

or innovate, as many of today's reviewers have the same middlebrow tastes as their

unchallenged audience. A change has occurred among many of the types of people who

now write and discuss film in the mainstream press, but that change has not been good

38
for the most part. Upon the release of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, Bosley

Crowther wrote three scathing pieces about the film. As the young people of the day

gravitated toward this new film with its fresh brand of subversive cinema, Crowther

wrote in his August 14, 1967 review:

"This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste,

since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it

leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty

think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap, which opened

yesterday at the Forum and the Murray Hill" (413).

Crowther, aged and obviously falling out of touch with America's youth, epitomizes the

necessary changes that need to take place in film criticism. Vincent Canby conducted a

sympathetic interview with Arthur Penn during this time and Pauline Kael wrote a nine-

thousand word love letter to the film. Peter Biskind writes that at the time of Bonnie and

Clyde, film criticism "was a gentleman's sport, dominated by Crowther's middle-brow

taste," and through this ground-breaking movie Kael and Sarris "were waging war on

'Crowtherism,' as they called it, soldiers in a battle against Philistinism" (39, 40). A

year after Crowther panned the film, Canby took the reigns at The New York Times.

Contrary to how critics are largely ignored today, "People were outraged that he had

missed what was then and probably still is a turning point in American cinema," explains

critic Frank Rich, "The audience really got him" (50). Film criticism must always flush

its system in keeping ahead of current film trends. The history of film criticism has

shown that change must occur for the profession to evolve.

39
 Finishing Critical Touches

The past twenty-plus years have done little to advance film criticism, aside from

providing readers with more critics writing more reviews. This increase in the number of

critics should mean more high-quality writing, but it has instead meant quite fhe contrary.

What has become perceived as a general public's insatiable appetite for new movies has

meant for critics not a fresh batch of challenging films every week, rather each new

weekend of releases delivers a fresh sludge of re-hashed product. "If you watch a certain

kind of movie day-in and day-out, week-in and week-out, I think you gradually come to

lose your sense of what a movie can be and ought to be," elaborates Mark Crispin Miller,

a Media Studies professor, "I think that's what's happened to a lot of critics: they find

things praiseworthy that they would have found unacceptable 10 years ago" (Mitchell 8).

Ideally, each generation of film critics should be shoving the previous generation out-the-

door when their opinions and writing style begin to feel dated. In so doing, these new

critics should be enlightening movie audiences with new concepts and viewpoints.

Granted, some critics have the ability to morph into a new mentality and always sound

current in their work, but as time passes and society's mindset alters, it is only human

nature for those with rigid viewpoints to fall out of touch.

Following Sarris and Kael is no small task. For that matter, neither was their task

of following James Agee, and yet, they seemed to do so rather successfully. Unlike

today's critics who seem eager to jump on the bandwagon of what they know is going to

be a high-grossing movie, Kael "was a cultural democrat," writes Tom Carson, "not in

the sense of praising crowd-pleasing work - whether the crowd was provincial or hoity-

toity - but because she assumed that any kind of movie could, on its own terms, be great"

40
(23). This concept is lost among too many of the critics writing today. "When I began,

forthright critics were in the ascendancy," stated Roger Ebert, ''Now there is a Quixotic

appeal to the profession" (Elder, "Maslin Bails"). Somewhere along the line it became

rewarding to praise unworthy movies, or even scarier, it is likely that some critics are

unwilling to challenge their audience for fear of being accused of being an elitist. A lot

of these amateurish critics are accused of trading good reviews for time at film junkets

where they are wined-and-dined by movie distributors under the impression that they are

actually doing journalistic work. If there is a romantic appeal to film criticism now, it has

more to do with a free lunch than with revolutionizing film.

Film reviewers have undergone a significant transformation as our culture has

shifted from an era of modernism into the current postmodern world. The search for

meaning through one's individualized isolation has transferred to trying to find

acceptance on a blank, discom1ected canvas. Socio-political theorist Frederic Jameson

clarifies that this grand movement into postmodernism has led to what is "generally

called the 'death of the subject' or, to say it in more conventional language, the end of

individualism as such. The great modernisms were [ ... ] predicated on the invention of a

personal, private style, as unmistakable as your fingerprint, as incomparable as your own

body" (114). Postmodern art, on the other hand, typically involves a pastiche or a

copying of other pieces, leaving a work of art made with an impersonal essence of the

artist who created it.

Many theorists view modernism beginning roughly at the end of the 19th century

and continuing approximately to the middle-to-late 2otii century. Modernism :flourished

in the work of those who most rejected Victorian ideas of art's objectivity, updating art

41
by imbuing it with an impressionistic self-reflexivity emphasizing how one sees rather

than what one sees. In these works, one can see an attempt by these artists to come to

terms with their advancing world using a personal, instinctive, and visceral approach in

their creations. The years ranging from the 1910s to the 1930s are commonly regarded as

'High Modernism' and incorporate such literary and artistic figures as Virginia Woolf,

James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Franz Kafka, and Pablo Picasso.

Cinematic modernism flourished in Europe in the years immediately following

World War II. One can see definitive correlations with the artist as sole creator between

the very personal films of Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini and the novels of

James Joyce. In the case of the Italian N eorealists like De Sica and Rossellini, their art

shows how they were trying to come to terms with their changing society following the

utter devastation done by the war. In contrast to how these artists worked,

postmodernism relates to a period where artists shun much of what constitutes the

seriousness of modernism. The term 'postmodemism' began popular usage largely

during the 1980s, and evidence can be seen with that era's rejection of the grand

narratives across the plain of all the arts.

Postmodern artists often work with techniques that attack the type of high art that

was nurtured through the modernists, and on some occasions, the result can be unique

and enlightening. In its attempt to deconstruct modernism, theorist Hal Foster writes that

postmodernism breaks down modernism's boundaries "not in order to seal it in its own

image but in order to open it, to rewrite it" (xi). For instance, some of the early work of

filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s shows signs of him being a progenitor of

postmodernism with his groundbreaking, self-realizing techniques. However, in terms of

42
modern film criticism, postmodern developments have catapulted the profession into

disparity by drowning film with countless reviews from anybody with the ability to form

a sentence. There is no reason film criticism should be seen as anything less than a

worthwhile avenue for any great writer, yet current trends in postmodernism have

become an alarming issue for film criticism.

The levels of high and low art were somewhat attacked in modernism when artists

would ignore the established Victorian customs of art. However, these levels absolutely

crumble in the postmodern milieu by way of mixing genres and applying various degrees

of parody and pastiche. Where once a modern artist would turn to the low arts for

inspiration, all while believing art can do for humanity what other institutions failed to

do, the postmodern artist celebrates the apparent meaninglessness of artistic endeavors in

a characteristically ironic sense. Though forms of postmodernism can be found in earlier

films, theorists typically locate postmodern film beginning around the time that the

Hollywood blockbuster began to dominate the film community toward the end of the

1970s.

In his influential essay on postmodernism, "Simulations," Jean Baudrillard writes

that it is the hyper-reality of today's society that sets it apart from the previous era by its

unequaled ability to create endless copies that eventually disregard the original. These

'simulacrum', have led to a society with such an excessive amount of information

typically provided by media outlets that there is too much information for any human to

successfully absorb. Baudrillard calls this amount of information obscene, though not in

the traditional sense of the word. He writes in another of his important essays on

postmodernism, "The Ecstasy of Communication," "Obscenity begins precisely when

43
there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes transparence and immediate

visibility, when everything is exposed to the harsh and inexorable light of information

and communication" (130). The essay continues on to explain the negative affects that

occur when a postmodern society continually produces and leaves nothing unsaid, or

even time to take in the information. The obscenity for Baudrillard is "the obscenity of

the visible, of the all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible" (131). The

obscenity for film criticism is the lack of any refinement regarding the number of reviews

and reviewers.

The excessiveness in the amount of film criticism available today is a perfect

example of what Baudrillard is contending. Relatedly, Walter Benjamin's classic essay

on the socio-economic implications of art, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction," discusses how capitalism created a situation where copies of pieces of art

can be consumed on a massive level in the same manner people consume the original.

Benjamin describes how the 'aura' of an original piece is lost when it is reproduced and

the once sacred object is absorbed in quantity by the masses, "that which withers in the

age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art" (668). While he directly

relates this to film as he states that "from a photographic negative, for example, one can

make any number of prints; to ask for the 'authentic' print makes no sense," this can also

connect to contemporary film criticism where everyone is a published critic. The aura of

the film critic, as Benjamin might say, is withering with what seems to be the near-

mechanical reproduction of the film critic who has nothing unique to say. Where

Crowther and Kael used their writing to challenge readers and filmmakers, the abundance

of today's critics appear less than eager to challenge anyone, least of all themselves. One

44
does not have to look far to undeservedly find the 'masterpiece' label in any number of

today's film reviews.

In accordance with postmodern.ism's meshing of high and low art, c1iticism

appears to be replicating this same trend. The intellectual critic is becoming an extinct

species as criticism gradually moves away from sophisticated discussion into an arena of

shallow insights. While it once took a gifted writer to gain recognition as a qualified film

critic, the tremendous amount of media outlets producing film reviews has allowed

anyone to write criticism and be recognized in movie advertisements for their efforts.

This has inevitably thinned out the quality of fihn writing. As opposed to how Sarris,

Kael, and Agee ranted about camera-work as well as sociological and psychological

issues, fewer and fewer critics today venture into any profound deliberations on the form

and content of a film in their reviews. Today's critic tends to focus less on formal aspects

and more on the dollars-and-cents of a picture or other entertainment industry news. A

common review in contemporary newspapers and magazines will describe how a movie

will affect an actor's career or how much the picture may earn at the box office, thus

shifting film criticism from exploring art to covering marketing trends.

Contained in this societal shift is postmodernism' s allowing the untrained and

uncultivated critic to be viewed as equal to a critic who has contributed a substantial body

of film criticism. Unfortunately, this development has left respected critics lost in the

masses. Film critic Mike Clark bluntly illustrates the changing description of today's

film c1itic, "The college kids who spent time in rep theaters seeing The Seventh Seal

(1957) and Yojimbo (1961) have been replaced by a generation that can annotate every

episode of The Brady Bunch (and before that Mr. Ed)" ("Film Criticism" 30). With all of

45
these critics treated equally in movie advertisements, the average moviegoer would not

recognize the name of a respected critic when coupled with a John Doe working for a

local paper in the middle of nowhere, and by the absurd standards set in postmodernism,

these names mean the same thing.

The amount of poorly written film reviews today leaves the respected critics

searching for an explanation of their worth and accusing the type of critic who seemingly

writes reviews only for movie studios to use in ad space of being a 'blurbmeister'. For

instance, an advertisement for The Devil Wears Prada (2006) contains the two quotes

from film critics, "Sinfully funny," and "A snazzy treat" (see Appendix A). Is this trne

criticism or is this marketing speech? Says Richard Schickel, "I think it is important to

make it difficult for distributors to pull quotes from your pieces to adorn their ads. Who

wants to be an unpaid adjunct to their marketing departments?" ("Film Criticism" 41 ).

By the number of advertisements using these silly quotes from critics, there seems to be a

multitude.

The most respected critics writing during the American film renaissance were

able to earn respect by applying their subjective viewpoints with noticeable intelligence.

This is in sharp contrast to how the majority of today's critics are viewed, and justifiably

so with the previously mentioned blurbs. On top of the popularity of blurby writing, a

large part of this descent has to do with changes in society's concept of film. Much as

film can be seen as a combination of all the arts meshed into one, the most respected

critics have applied knowledge of all the arts in their writing. Film critic David Ansen

describes his work as "part mirror: a mirror that talks back to what it's reflecting, a mirror

infmmed by all the images that have passed before it" ("Film Criticism" 27). Creating

46
clever quips about movies has little to do with Ansen' s description, and yet, few seem to

care. Film is less important to society now than it has been in the past.

A common response to the mention of film critics today is that nobody cares what

they say; yet, the argument still exists in the ente1iainment industry that a critic may be

able to save a picture from death with a good review. It is often stated that studios can

make certain movies 'critic proof' by blasting the public with such an enormous amount

of hype from their media machines that no matter how many critics pan it, the movie will

still make a profit at the box office. The list of highest-grossing films of the recent past

proves this, as many of them received more than their share of negative reviews.

However, a lesser-known film may benefit from critical support as David Shaw found in

his interview with a smaller studio's executive who said, "Reviews are 'life and death to

our movies,'" (1 ). These films are anomalies for the most pmi in the film business, but as

recently as Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004), one can see how a strong critical support

can help a film stay in theaters.

Unfortunately, ifthe postmodern milieu has led to an excess and resulting decline

in the modem film review, then publications focusing on 'puff pieces' that cater to the

distributors are likely the new standard and the rare circumstances with like Sideways

will completely disappear. "Magazines now think like studios," says film critic David

Ansen, "They want a hit, we want a hit. We have to put something on the cover that will

be a hit, even if it's not a good movie. Magazines are in bed with movies. They want to

sell tickets; we want to sell magazines" (Shaw 1). Clearly, whether the movie is good or

not has become less significant for today's magazine buying and movie going audience.

Thus, it will be more difficult for smaller movies to have financial success in theaters.

47
 With superheroes gracing the covers of movie magazines and newspaper articles,

critical favorites are finding themselves struggling to merely stay afloat in the industry.

Good criticism should not be used strictly for marketing purposes and selling these

blockbuster movies. Good criticism should improve the art it comments on, and it should

also improve criticism. Truly inspired criticism has a life of its own, separate from the art

it discusses. Unfortunately, today's saturation of uninspired film criticism has been

sucked into a world enveloped by a marketing system that relishes exploiting hackneyed

writing, and the important work being done by the upper-echelon of today's critics is

getting lost in this juggernaut.

When applied to reviewing films, the economic law of diminishing returns shows

that today's increasing amount of criticism can only lead to a lack of desire for it. The

proliferation of media outlets has given studios more options with which to advertise

through these reviews, and it is rare now to not find an ad for a movie without the

endorsement of a critic. Mitch Goldman, former president of marketing and distribution

for New Line Cinema, stated, "Even on a poorly reviewed film, you can find a critic

somewhere that will absolutely have a quote for you to put in your advertising" (Shaw 1).

Of course, with so much desire from the studios for these quotes a predicament arises for

the critic and publisher to what a positive review will be worth versus a negative one.

Yet, excessively hailing movies only lessens the power of a good review and should

make those listening to these critics wonder who is writing this garbage. Many would

agree with film critic John Simon that the existence of an intelligence test for critics

''would mercifully eliminate a large number now reviewing" ("Film Criticism" 42). A

48
good review gets a critic and publisher in the good graces of distributors, which may lead

to better access to stars. A bad review gets you uninvited to the party.

Not coincidentally, many publishers are part of conglomerates that own both the

studios and media outlets. Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum explains:

"One could argue that the decline of film criticism in recent years - observable in

the habits of most newspaper and magazine editors as well as most film

academics in North America - is not so much a reflection of the changing tastes

of audiences (as these editors and academics often insist) as it is the power of

multicorporations to eliminate everything that interferes with their promotion.

Just as the so-called American independent filmmakers promoted by the

Hollywood studios via Sundance usually means the filmmakers who have lost

their independence, "film criticism" in the mainstream now refers mainly to

promotional journalism; true independents and critics have to function in the

margins" (54).

Without question, the dispute exists that film criticism has become a business bought and

sold by the major film studios. The outcome of filling print space with marketing-

friendly criticism has been a trivialization of film critics as they appear to have become

pawns in the film industry.

"Difficult as it is to believe today," writes Paul Schrader, "at the height of

America's countercultural upheaval movies truly mattered ... Art was not happening in the

museums; it was in the streets and movie houses" (Marcus 24). During this time, one

could argue that Andrew San-is was as important as any novelist. The shift that has taken

place from then to now may have something to do with the decline in the quality of films

49
being produced. At one point in American film history Andrew Sarris claimed that

Hollywood was able to 'hold its own' with any film industry in the rest of the world.

One can only doubt that he would make that same claim today, contrary to how today's

reviews read.

Somewhere lost in this conundrum of the importance of movie critics is that the

studios' consistently using reviews in their ads should mean that criticism is still

important, even if the prevailing public attitude demonstrates otherwise. By rummaging

through these pieces to find a positive quote for their movie, or more realistically, by

directly contacting these critics for a quote, one might incorrectly assume that the critic

still occupies an influential role in the film community. This could not be further from

the truth as the propagation of countless positive reviews has done little beyond proving

that these critics are just crying wolf. Film critic David Denby writes, "The studios have

either marginalized us as cranks or reduced us to semi-irrelevance by surrounding us with

hacks whom they create, nourish, and promote with junkets and blurbs. Most criticism

has been pulled into the marketing system" ("Film Criticism" 31 ).

It is not uncommon to find the same names repeated behind the quotes in any

number of current movies ads. While film criticism should be providing a historically

and aesthetically informed reading of a film, it can instead provide a critic the chance for

recognition and mass-acceptance by confirming the beliefs of the public. The most

valuable critic used to be one who did not necessarily agree or disagree with the reader

but provided a means to expand a thought about a movie or art in general. However,

when an entire culture leans in one direction, it becomes increasingly difficult to lean the

other way. In the age of postmodernism, the goal of challenging one's reader has moved

50
away from discussing the formal aspects of film to a more customer-friendly attitude. On

the topic of public and editorial influence, Pauline Kael said in an interview before her

recent passing, "If an editor encourages you to see something, there's always something

involved, whether it's advertising or a desire to please the audience. Yet the critic's

worst corruption is a desire to keep the readers happy, praising movies the mass audience

is going to love, like Twister [1996] or Independence Day [1996]" (Goodman 50).

Previous to the contemporary blockbuster, which opens in thousands of theaters

all over the country, films used to open slowly and gradually spread to more theaters over

time. Consequently, prior to today's era, critical response to a film often had a lasting

impact. If a film was one with little marketing support, as is often the case with foreign

or obscure films, then the critical response would become enormously important. During

the renaissance period and even dating back to Bosley Crowther' s years, a negative

review from a popular New York film critic could kill a small film that would normally

rely on word-of-mouth largely generated by its initial critical response. As opposed to

how the film actually premiered, in today's business The Godfather (1972) would open in

two-thousand theaters. Harlan Lebo writes in his examination of The Godfather, "As

promised, the studio opened the film in a grand five-theater premier in New York[ ... ].

By movie marketing standards of the 1970s, it was a bold move unlike anything before

attempted in New York" (200). Oddly enough, today's film economy would probably

have The Godfather replaced in the theater after its initial couple of weekends if it

performed poorly at the box office.

The large number of movies being made and released today forces distributors to

'pull-the-plug' on films with increasing quickness now, eager to substitute them because

51
of their constant chasing of the general public's desires. One studio executive stated,

"You can make so much money or lose so much money in the first weekend that a review

doesn't have as extreme an effect on success or failure" (Mitchell 8). With dwindling

space in print columns, it seems that even with a glowing review the serious critic can do

little to prevent a film from being replaced on a screen at a multiplex with an inferior

movie that might have a better opening weekend. The cun-ent situation is leaving critics

at some of the largest magazines in the country powerless, says Owen Glieberman of

Entertainment Weekly, "Too many puff critics, quote whores ... and bland, lily-livered

critics are drowning out the serious critics" (Shaw I). This postmodern situation of

criticism floundering in a decentered world perpetually focused on the present has nearly

erased the possibility ofletting a movie pick-up speed at the box-office with positive

critical response.

The rise of postmodernism has divided film critics into a sect who treat their work

with the utmost gravity and 'blurbmeisters'. Blurbs best embody the condition of

contemporary criticism, disturbingly affirmed by a marketing executive at Dream Works:

"I can get all kinds of bad reviews and still cut myself a 30-second television spot

that makes it look like I got good reviews ... "Splendid," "Magnificent," whatever

[ ... ]. We are a sound bite culture ... Youjust take the sound bite. If they didn't

say it exactly the way you want, you just take the part of what they said that you

do want ... and if they don't say what you want, you just make it up yourself

anyway" (Shaw I).

Blurbmeisters are the personification of the state of today's film criticism in that they

have given birth to a situation where using a critic's name to support a film has become

52
utterly pointless. Too often, the blurbs come from obscure critics. Film critic John

Powers stated that studios knowingly use quotes from unknown critics "to make regular

criticism seem like a joke" (Shaw 1).

In the most extreme cases, distributors have been found guilty of inventing critics.

Executives at Sony concocted the critic David Manning of The Ridgefield Press and used

quotes from him in ads for The Animal (2001) andA Knight's Tale (2001). In response to

this, the Village Voice issue for the week of June 13, 2001, included a satirical letter

written on behalf of David Manning pleading for forgiveness for the Sony employees.

The executives were eventually suspended, but the point the humorous letter makes is

sadly poignant, "[ ... ] the Sony people deserve to be cut a little slack. You expect these

busy pros to hunt through every review in The Oshkosh Telegram-Monitor looking for

quotes? (Tremendous Point!)" ("David Manning" 15). With the lifespan of movies

shortening, it seems to have become more important to get the necessary quotes by any

means necessary.

An important trait with these blurby quotes is that it is less important to see a

specific critic's name than to notice the font size of the quote. Presumably, marketers see

a benefit to keeping a quote writer's name much smaller than the quote itself. One

possible reason for this is that keeping a writer's name small enables blurbmeisters to

hide their identity, making it appear that their names do not occur as often as they do or

that they come from such random sources. David Shaw uncovered that these

blurbmeisters "are happy to provide quotes, and the studios sometimes suggest specific

blurbs to them, either giving them a choice of several or asking questions like, 'Wouldn't

you like to say this movie was 'WONDERFUL?"" [author's emphasis] (1). In fact, an

53
executive at MGM/United Artists admitted to firing a public relations firm for using fake

quotes from critics for the Bill Murray comedy Larger Than Life (1996) (O'Dwyer's 7).

It was revealed that the firm sent a memo to critics containing possible quotes that could

be used in their advertisements that said, "If you are interested in any of them, please call

me and let me know" (O'Dwyer 7). What is the point of even having critics when the

studios are the ones writing the reviews? Roger Ebert concurs, "Many critics are more

than happy to play along, trading quotes for junkets" ("Film Criticism" 33). The surplus

of this kind of review falls directly in-line with today's obscene amount of information.

However, the obscenity of excessiveness Baudrillard argues about may soon become the

obscenity of the grotesque sort as today's critics embarrass themselves with their reviews.

As a means of evading the problem of not being able to recognize a critic's name,

some advertisements will only cite the publication and leave the author's name

completely out of it. This normally happens with nationally recognized publications. For

instance, instead of referencing how Time's Richard Schickel says something about a

film, the advertisement will attribute the quote to Time only. The fact that it was Schickel

who practically wrote a love letter to Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (2006) for Time

did not matter, as the campaign for the film only attributes the quote to the magazine (see

Appendix B). This makes it easy for general readers uninterested in Schickel's long and

illustrious career to compute not some critic they do not recognize telling them to see a

movie, but a major periodical. It might be easy to disagree with a critic, but disagreeing

with a nationally recognized magazine is a bit more difficult.

Subscribing to the idea that a less intellectually-cultured crowd attends the

common blockbuster movie, most of the quotes used in these ads are simple phrases,

54
often not more than one or two words. The distributors of these movies typically load

their ads with the customary 'Outstanding' or 'Mesmerizing' catchwords in bold print.

While this sensory onslaught is a standard procedure in any type of advertising, a clear

distinction can be made in the difference between these ads and those for films of the art-

house nature. The art-house film rarely has the financial backing to purchase the same

amount of ad space as a competing blockbuster. However, even with significantly less

room, the art-house adve11isement will typically use longer sentences from highly

regarded critics, sometimes even short paragraphs.

The advertising strategy used for most art-house pictures assumes the crowd

attending them is more intellectual and cares enough to listen to a critic. Seen on the

same page in the Los Angeles Times, an advertisement for the self-proclaimed 'existential

comedy' I 'I Huckabees (2004) shows side-by-side the full reviews of the film from The

New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, while right below it is an ad for the Jimmy

Fallon comedy Taxi (2004) (see Appendix C). The ad for Huckabees contains references

in the reviews to genre as well as 'a Sisyphean figure' and 'the semiotics generation', but

contrarily, the ad for Taxi merely declares the movie as 'Hilarious' and 'Fun'. The

difference between these two ads illustrates the clear distinction in advertising strategies

involving movie critics and their audience.

After seeing these two advertisements, one can understand the predicament in

contemporary film criticism. A full-page ad for a standard, crowd-pleasing comedy

playing in numerous multiplexes sits next to an ad for a complex independent film

probably showing on much fewer screens. The comedy has the typical blurbmeister

quotes hailing its brilliance, while the art-house film has two near-microscopic full-length

55
reviews. The amusing part about situations like this is that the general reader will skip

the two full-length reviews and the comedy is usually one that is critic proof anyway.

The comedy will thusly get no attention either, because its enormous quotes look the

exact same as the ads on the next page for the other critic-proof movies. An even more

blatant example of film c1iticism' s deterioration is when the 'blurby' ads similar to the

one like Taxi cite a respected critic next to seven John Doe's. The futility of a life spent

at the movies is transparently obvious in these ads because it is in these crossover

situations where critics should be treated differently but they are not. In the age of

postmodern excess, the postulation that a respected critic can still save an independent or

foreign film is becoming hard to believe.

The integration of celeb1ity quotes in movie advertisements runs counter to how a

standard critic's quote is treated. Whereas a quote from a respected critic in the vein of

Richard Schickel earns no special significance, a celebrity with no history in film

criticism will often get the spotlight in a movie advertisement. Recent ads in print and on

television have included the likes of Larry King and Howard Stem touting a film with

their names nearly as important as the quotes themselves. One entertainment industry

executive stated, "Oprah Winfrey can tum to the audience and say, 'I saw this movie and

you will love it,' and she will matter more than the film critics" (Shaw 1).

In a recent adve1iisement for You, Me, and Dupree (2006), the only quote used is

one from Larry King (see Appendix D). While one might value his opinion on

journalistic topics, his legitimacy as a film critic needs to be questioned. Indeed, Owen

Wilson might be "one of the greatest comedi<? actors of all time," as King alleges, but it

would be more appropriate for a film c1itic from The New Yorker to state this. The

56
inclusion of quotes like these unfortunately prove the long held belief that everyone has

two jobs, their own and that of a film critic.

In growing quantity, advertisers are using these types of endorsements and non-

critical pieces to promote their movie. "Celebrity news and gossip are so predominant

throughout the media today that it almost seems rm-American to c1iticize one of our

friends' films or performances," writes entertaimnent journalist Joe Saltzman (59). He

sarcastically continues, "After all, we don't want to hurt Tom's or Meg's or Julia's or

George's feelings by not liking their movies. What if they stop talking to us?" (Saltzman

59). With space for criticism on the decline, more and more periodicals are simply cow-

towing to the studios and distributors. Instead of running a long commentary on a

picture, a publication will run an article about the making of a film or a bio-piece on the

film's star. Film critic David Denby states, "The studios have neutralized us for the most

part by swamping us with promotional material that looks a lot like journalism [ ... ] .

They've convinced editors at papers ... that readers want feature, not real stories or

criticism" (Shaw 1).

A common pronouncement in movie advertisements is how a picture is 'the

number-one movie in the country.' This strategy exploits the insecmity of feeling that

you are not part of some special group if you have not seen this particular movie. If the

movie is not the top overall at the box-office, then the proclamation will be that it is the

top in its genre or marketed group, ala 'the number-one comedy in the country,' or 'the

number-one family movie in the country.' Rather than use film criticism, these

advertisements exploit the mob mentality. In the same previously mentioned for You,

Me, and Dupree (see Appendix D), the top of the ad declares that the movie is the "#1

57
Comedy in America, second week in a row!". Does this mean that the movie is good?

No, what this ad is saying is that if you have not seen the movie yet, you better go soon

because everybody else has. Ads like these have nothing to do with the critical response

to a picture, but they do have a lot to say about how much the movie is making at the box

office. "I realize it's important for business people to keep up with film as a business,"

writes film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, "but why anyone else should care how much

money someone else makes is a total mystery to me" ("Film Criticism" 38). The cultural

shift that has led audiences away from appreciating a professional' s interpretation of a

film construes a society afraid of challenge and a film community lacking inspiration.

With such disarray, it is not a shock that a glowing review from even the most

respected critic today can have little significance, thus making it ever more difficult for

smaller films to have success. Producer Brian Grazer states, "Being number one for the

weekend is more important than anything-it's sort of taken the place of reviews. [ ... ] If

you're number one, it reverberates through the media, throughout the entire

world ... People don't even pay attention to reviews. [ ... ] It's the herd mentality" (Shaw

1). Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan reflected the same understanding as

Grazer, '"It's all about getting the first wave into the theaters,' Turan says, 'After that,

it's all about what people tell their friends about the movie'" (Shaw 1). This type of one-

weekend business has too often swept away good films, leaving them only with the hope

of resurging in the home-video market.

As mentioned earlier, a reason for this prevailing negative attitude for film critics

may have to do with the advent of film reviewing on television. One of the main

differences between television reviews and print reviews is how much more in-depth a

58
print critic can probe into a film, even with their diminishing space. A typical television

segment of film criticism introduces a film with a short clip followed by a brief

discussion. If multiple clips are shown or if more than one movie is covered, then the

analysis time is cut even shorter, which explains how this type of criticism does little else

than speak to the lowest common denominator of film viewer. In turn, from these

extremely short reviews comes the opportunity for marketers to get their blurbs. This

event becomes circular as the blurbs get used, which then leads to more blurbs, and the

cycle continues as criticism, especially on TV, gets dumber. One TV news director

attempted to justify their work, "The biggest complaint you hear about TV film critics is

that they don't use words like dense and film noir," he continued, "My feeling is that TV

critics[ ... ] should be consumer reporters" (Goldstein 4). It seems that many of those in

charge of these television critics agree. TV critics' fan-friendly dialogue typically only

provides an insignificant 'good or bad' judgment that excludes any discussion that might

make them come across as a cultural elitist or a film snob, thus alienating them from their

audience.

Film critic Richard Corliss believes that his writing should not be confused with

the work of a TV film critic:

"I simply don't want people to think that what they have to do on TV is what I am

supposed to do in print. I don't want junk food to be the only cuisine at the

banquet. I don't want to think that all the critics who have made me proud to be

among their number are now talking to only themselves, or to a coterie no larger

than the one Kael and Sarris first addressed 30 years ago. They were Ali-Frazier:

I don't want to be Forman-Cooney" (145).

59
Film criticism's prosperity on television has spread it to a larger audience while

incongruously lowering its bar, since much of what constitutes today's film criticism

reads like the pointless reviews on TV. The proliferation of film critics on TV inspired

Armond White to write, "Film critics of the next decade will come from the first

generation to perceive that profession as a TV staple" (37). Under the presumption that

too much theoretical or intellectual discussion scares away customers, the norm seems

now to be to write with a less-than intellectual audience in mind.

In an era dominated by the need for instant gratification, one result is criticism

being trimmed-down from lengthy analytical pieces to nothing more than simple letter or

number grades, a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Relegating criticism to such simplicity

leaves it as interchangeable as the massive amount of films released today. Film critic

Joe Morgenstern said, "On TV every week there's another movie that's billed as the

second coming and you rub your eyes because it's that same piece of crap you just saw"

(Elder, "Maslin Bails"). Journalist Jack Mathews supports this notion, "What does it

matter who made Home Alone (1990) or Ghost (1990) or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

(1990)? The directors could have been selected in a drawing and the movies would

probably have done as well. The films deserve neither contempt nor praise; they are

merely out there, like packages of carmel com, pleasing the sweet tooths of American

moviegoers" ("Declining" 4).

Nothing progressive can come from waxing poetic about previous eras, but when

today's critics fall under the spell of touting mediocre films, one can not help but reach

back into a seemingly forgotten heyday, a point not ignored by today's critics. Gene

Siskel wrote in his review of Jonathan Demme' s Beloved (1998), "A journalist should not

60
argue for the withholding of information, but I'm against the release of box office

statistics. Oh, how I long for the good ol' days when cab drivers didn't ask me ifl

thought Waterworld (1995) would break even" (Maslin 14). Focusing attention on

neither form nor content makes it difficult for today's critics to write with any intellectual

verve.

One culprit of this shift towards discussing the non-artistic aspects of filmmaking

is the internet. While there are respectable outlets for critics to write online, such as

Salon and Slate, the internet continues to expand in ways not always beneficial for film

criticism. "Using the internet," writes Joe Saltzman, "everyone has become a critic, and

no one seems to care if anyone is qualified. Yell loud enough and you'll find an

audience" (59). Nothing is wrong with new writers experimenting with writing about the

movies and reviewing them, but if these writers are not writing for a respected website,

then they should be treated as such. "The media critics and their audiences," continues

Saltzman, "seem to know everything about the movie industry and very little about the

history and aesthetics of film. They are more concerned about industry gossip or box-

office potential than the merits of any given film" (59). Writing for a trade magazine

provides leeway to discuss industry news, but even as a critic for these trades, Variety

film critic Todd McCarthy recognizes that "too many critics are oriented toward box-

office views of film achievement" ("Film Criticism" 37). Even some of today's most

respected critics periodically sway into topics only important to entertainment industry

economics, sounding more like one of these trade journalists than a film critic.

Without question, the most grotesque abuse of film criticism can be found on the

internet, where the only qualification one needs to be a film critic is a website. Joe

61
Saltzman claims that there should be some prerequisites for calling oneself a film

reviewer:

"It would help ifhe or she had some knowledge of the history of cinema. An

understanding of film terminology and aesthetics would be nice. Honesty and

integrity would be welcome. Instead, there are either enthusiastic sycophants

offering valentines for everything Hollywood creates or snotty overachievers

trying to show how clever they are by using the picture for their diatribes" (59).

A press agent at Dream Works echoed this sentiment in pointing out that respected critics

have been "watered down by all those people calling themselves 'film critics' who are

really your aunt in Minnesota with an Internet site" (Shaw 1). It seems appropriate that

aside from the few professionals who write solely on the internet, the internet should be

used as a training ground for critics before they step into more noteworthy publications.

Instead, film distributors pillage the quotes from these critics as much as they do the

writing of respected critics, thus validating this pedestrian work.

With little aim and a lack of perspective, most internet critics do little else than

provide gossip prior to a movie's release, as is the case with Harry Knowles and his

wildly popular website Aintitcoolnews. It seems to be more important for sites like this to

inform readers about the end of an upcoming sci-fi thriller than to offer criticism of it.

Richard Schickel wrote of.Knowles' plot revealing secrets, "Once he's revealed them, he

doesn't know what else to do with them. We'll not talk criticism here because Knowles

deplores it" ("Film On Paper" 5). The crux of this problem is that movies make so much

money in mainstream American film that there exists a wide expanse between film critics

and the moviegoing masses. Today's critics owe their readers an intelligent explanation

62
as to why the latest action-packed sequel of a sequel is not on the same level of

masterpiece as F. W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927), but they are not delivering it.

The value of the film critic is in jeopardy with the number of movies and critics

both increasing in disconcerting numbers. During a forum on pop-art, film critic Elvis

Mitchell stated, "It's true that there are more critics today than ever before, but there still

aren't that many good ones, and there are also more films than ever to choose among"

(Carter 6). With more films, the concept of the quick sound-bite as the standard for film

criticism sadly almost makes sense.

The current zeitgeist in film has turned critics from trying to be the loudest

cheerleaders into ones who cannot even be heard. "What the studios and conglomerates

have done," Paul Schrader comments, "is to make a contract between the marketing

departments and the audiences and to somehow get the critic out of the influence

business" (Mitchell 8). Much of what passes for film criticism today would never be

published in criticism's heyday and especially not before then when fewer critics were

writing. The passion and romance of film criticism seems to be disappearing, and so

writes John Simon:

"The mystique of movies as a rebellious art - the most vital art of the day -

vanished, and with it fell the power critics had to move people and use

discussions of movies as a protest against the critical traditions of the past. The

transition of the movies into art has, ironically, meant the defeat of the forces that

fought hard to get them there. Ultimately, the prestige was in the fight rather than

the victory" ("Such Sweet Son-ow" 40).

63
Today's critics are virtually interchangeable, and as a result, they are not for the most part

respected as serious writers.

The standard picture today is geared for an adolescent audience, being that this

mall-going group has the highest percentage of return viewers. This is one of the

repercussions of the postmodern condition in cinema that took over at the end of the

1970s and is also a reflection of the relegation of movie critics. Corresponding to this

adolescent-based culture, the increase in vulgarity and silly, one-dimensional characters

relates back to the general attempt by storytellers and film studios to find a shared

consciousness in a pubescent mentality to maximize potential profits. Philip Lopate

notes, "With the triumph of popular culture over high culture, Americans, global

expmiers of the winner, pop culture, no longer feel the same longing for what the Old

World knows" (11 ). Tied in with this same thought, Michael Sragow stated about the

loss of respect for film critics, "I think it's less the fault of movie critics than it is tied in

with everything else that's happening in our culture. Which is away from literacy, away

from extended comment and into flash and the 15-second soundbite" (Mitchell 8).

Sragow' s comment connects back to the relationship between film criticism, television,

and the postmodern demand for immediate gratification. A head of marketing at a studio

explained, "A lot of our pictures are (aimed at ages) 12 to 21. That's the demographics.

And the kids aren't necessarily reading the newspapers. They're not looking at the

reviews" (Mitchell 8). Titanic (1997) made millions of dollars off young people

returning to see it at multiplexes around the country. If Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver

came out a week after Titanic, it probably would have sunk at the box office faster than

the actual ship did. Be11 Cardullo expounds on this point, "Fewer young people these

64
days are as passionate about reading as they used to be. I think the person who is

passionate about reading is passionate about films, and when the act of film going turns

you off reading, you also lose your interest in some extent in serious films. [ ... ] You

begin to associate serious films with laboriousness" (8). The rewarding feeling of

discovering a movie like Nashville has all but left the hearts of today's audiences. The

number of movies and the number of critics are both on the rise, but the yearning for

something new is pretty much vacant now and none of this is working favorably on film

criticism's behalf.

Film critics are struggling for the most part right now. A definitive crossroads

exists today as critics are corning to terms with the fact that the movie executives who are

the most equipped to predict what moviegoers want to see are more in control of today's

film culture than critics, or even filrnrnakers. Arriving on the scene in the immediate

post-SatTis and Kael upswing, Paul Schrader explains, "When I first got involved in

criticism, it was a very evangelical period - carry the message of Godard and all that.

There doesn't seem to be much of a gospel out there now" (Mitchell 8). The critics of the

1960s and 1970s did so much good for their field that they almost did film criticism a

disservice by turning themselves from mere journalists into mini-celebrities, and the

youth movement that drove this cinematic and critical revolution has disappeared.

Stanley Kauffmann recently revisited this topic of cinema's connection with the youth in

a follow-up essay to one he wrote in 1966 about the same subject comparing how today's

young people have a much different relationship with film. Kauffmann writes, "I think

that they feel a much weaker affinity with film, have little sense of 'ownership,' show

much greater ignorance of film history and much less awareness of what they have been

65
missing" (Distinguishing 204). What seems leftover from the renaissance period that is

important now is merely the recognition of being a film critic, and what the critics from

the heyday indirectly did was create a universe in which critics like Harry Knowles

thrive.

The current dilemma has proven that there is such a thing as too much junk film

writing. This is especially true when the qualification for calling one's self a film critic is

nothing more than having a pulse, as the internet and TV has proven. Some might blame

the surplus of films in circulation, while others might focus on advancements in media

technology being able to create too many opportunities for people to produce criticism.

Richard Schickel writes that it is respectable film criticism that separates "not just the

critic from the fan but useful film comment from swamp gas," and he goes on to state that

films "are worth thinking about analytically, in adult terms. Which is why people like

Harry Knowles make some of us crazy" ("Film on Paper" 5). Film critics began with a

desire to find meaning in films, bringing interpretations to the masses. Now, the

prevailing attitude is dismissive of film criticism. Paul Schrader notes, "Our entire

business is impoverished because we disregard their importance. You need that valuable

push from critics. They are part of the creative life cycle of the community. And the

studios are trying to devalue their currency, and they're succeeding- by buying them out

and turning them into stars" (Mitchell 8).

Even though the independent film movement has grown significantly since the

late 1980s, film criticism has not been able to grow with it. "Films made outside the

commercial framework," explains contemporary film critic David Sterritt, "are granted

little or no space, on the theory that everyday readers aren't interested in them. This

66
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: Readers aren't interested in alternative movies, so

papers don't review them, so readers aren't interested in them" (13). What seems to be

the case is that criticism has become nothing more than marketing and finding an

insightful review about a little-known film iike Sideways that makes one want to see the

movie or, better yet, have a better understanding of the picture, will soon be part of the

past. Evidence shows that criticism is undoubtedly polluted with marketing so much so

that "periodicals may think nothing of anchoring a page with publicity shots from a new

Hollywood release," writes David Sterritt, "thus providing free promotion for a

commercial product and allowing coverage to be dictated by graphic appeal (and studio

publicity machines) rather than critical judgment" (13). On a similar tangent, Schrader

argues that the corporate-owned entertainment industry actually fuels itself through

criticism, "It's Paramount that :finances Entertainment Tonight and Disney that :finances

Siskel and Ebert. So they must see that as an adjunct of publicity. (These programs) are

not there to make audiences think and want better films. They're there to make audiences

interested in what's coming out on Friday" (Mitchell 8).

Contemporary critics seem to twist-and-tum themselves in any way possible in

order to deem a worthless film worthy of attention. It is difficult to imagine James Agee

praising any number of films that receive the praise they do today. Agee' s attitude,

adopted by many of his successors, was one that "if a film was rated high by the

mainstream press in ways that suggested a special stupidity," writes Stephan Talty, "he

wouldn't see it or trudged in with a doomed feeling. Agee was interested in

transformation, and, instinctively, he felt that films happily digested by the culture were

probably poisoning it" (64). Neve1theless, the best critics are not necessarily those who

67
are hardest to please. The best critics are able to dig further into a film than others.

Edward Murray explains, "They see deeper into it - see the art that is there, and also what

that art means in the context of this picture, of other pictures by the same artist, and of the

human condition. Film criticism can scarcely do more" (231 ). Great critics write

reviews from a place inside themselves that is part fortuneteller, not because he or she

can predict box-office results but because in a good film review is the ability to come to

terms with a piece of art without the luxury of any hindsight.

In order for criticism to advance, a critic almost needs to fall out-of-touch with

new generations because they are so immersed in the happenings of their own specific

time. Crowther's fortune-telling skills had worn out with Bonnie and Clyde, and the

same basically happened with Kael two decades later. Unfortunately, many of today's

critics know little more than what has been taught to them by the deficient lessons of the

MTV legion. With this being the case, they cannot fall out of touch, or be in-touch for

that matter, because there is no definitive center in a postmodern culture with which

anyone can connect. The best and worst of today's criticism comes from this perspective,

the best being that "film critics no longer are inclined to choose between form and

content," Philip Lopate explains, "everything is political, everything is aesthetics" (xii).

The worse of today's criticism ignores historical perspective all together, turning its back

on the work of previous critics and film as a whole.

There is a romantic nature in the type of passion for film that drove the film critics

of the 1960s and 1970s to reach the heights they did. Evidence of the current situation

doing the same only reveals that the amount of critical film writing is in indirect

proportion to the respect it is receiving. The small amount of writing among the highest

68
level of criticism today is still worthy of its place in film history, but the larger amount of

amateurish writing celebrated by film marketers is taking its toll on the profession. Film

reviews are falling into the depths of being a marketing scam, and what is remaining is

not the art that evolved from the early writing of Vachel Lindsay. The devolution of film

criticism has come at the hands of a culture bent on excess and a shying away from

intellectual thought. Today's prevailing anti-intellectual attitude has bled into film

criticism, and while it would be nice to silence the unworthy voices in writing movie

reviews, a more realistic reaction would be to merely filter the thoughtless from the

thoughtful.

Movies led the youth when Bonnie and Clyde gave American critics the

opportunity to rally around a film of their own, one they could hold-up against any

European art film. Critics were the barometers during that period. During the making of

Nashville in the mid-1970s, the studio wanted director Robert Altman to cut come crucial

scenes. He battled them with the help of Pauline Kael, and as the legend has it, she

controversially reviewed the picture based on a rough-cut at the request of Altman, thus

beating the film's release date and other reviews by months. Kael has reportedly denied

seeing the film so early, but her review did come out much before the film's release date

and other reviews by months. "It was a typical Kael move," writes Peter Biskind about

the situation, "calculated to prevent Paramount from recutting the movie and to goad the

studio into putting some marketing muscle behind it" (270). Following her advice, the

studios gave Altman the artistic freedom to release the movie as he wanted. Needless to

say, the scenes stayed in the film.

69
 In contrast, a group of Los Angeles film critics rallied to director Terry Gilliam's

side to try and force the studio to release the director's version of Brazil (1985) in the

mid- l 980s instead of the studio's re-edited product. The Los Angeles Film Critics

Association gave the film its best picture award and even though the directors' cut was

eventually released, it did not do well at the box office. A long and storied conflict over

which cut should be used drew the attention of the critics, but as Jack Mathews' states in

his book about the incident, "With income from later video sales, TV syndication, and

laser disc releases, Universal's expenses and revenue came out about a draw. But who

won the battle" (The Battle ofBrazil 151)? Indeed, who did win the battle? The critics

worked to get Gilliam's choice of cut released, but the studio released their severely

shortened version on TV and their version can also be found on home video. Mathews'

after-the-fact interview with the main studio executive involved in the fight sheds some

light on the subject, "I think the group that looked the silliest was the L.A. film critics.

Nobody agreed with them. At least I can stand back and say the audience agreed with

me. Terry Gilliam can stand back and say his friends and film students and the L.A.

critics agreed with him. But who agreed with the L.A. film critics" (The Battle ofBrazil

153)? What the executive fails to mention is the eccentricity of this complex film and

how the proceeds it drew may not match its overall worth. Nonetheless, the lack of

respect shown the LA critics by the studio and the movie's eventual flop at the box office

was a sign of what was to come for film criticism.

Following the example set by the Cahiers group's love of popular American film,

the critics of the 1960s and 1970s often defended the 'trashier' movies ignored by the

critical elite. Unfortunately, this trash culture, designated mainly by its mass acceptance,

70
has taken over and consumed the film community. Near the time of her passing, Pauline

Kael reportedly remarked to a friend, "When we championed trash culture we had no

idea it would become the only culture" (Marcus 25). Paul Schrader expands on Kael's

thought, "That's exactly the point. She and her foot soldiers won the battle but lost the

war. Mass taste has become acceptable taste, box-office receipts the ultimate measure of

a film's worth" (Marcus 25). As a result of the 'dumbing down' of America, mind-

numbing movies have left audiences reluctant to venture beyond the ordinary.

An industry obsessed with box-office statistics reflects a culture obsessed with

being part of the winning team. From war to movies, Americans have shown throughout

history that they do not like to lose. Adve1tising a movie as 'the number-one movie of

the weekend' is not advertising it as the best available, it is merely an invitation to join

the winning party. Covering a symposium of film critics discussing their profession, film

critic David Sterritt noted that one of the critics related the current problems of film

criticism as "symptomatic of the postmodern age, when voices of authority are ever more

decentralized and cacophonous" (11 ). After all, why make the effort to read about a

movie you know nothing about when you can see the number-one comedy of the

previous weekend? This current situation is perfectly described by Richard Corliss,

"Movie criticism of the elevated sort, as practiced over the past half-century by James

Agee and Manny Farber, Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael [ ... ]is an endangered species.

Once it :flourished; soon it may perish, to be replaced by a consumer service that is no

brains and all thumbs" (15). There has been nearly a hundred years of film criticism, and

its purpose is still in question.

71
 Works Cited

Agee, James. Agee on Film. New York: McDowell Obolensky, 1950.

Asahina, Robert. "Talking Movies." New York Times 6 July 1980, late city final ed.:

Book Review 4.

Baudrillard, Jean. "The Ecstasy of Communication." The Anti Aesthetic. Ed. Hal

Foster. Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983.

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72
Corliss, Richard. "All Thumbs: Or, Is There a Future for Film Criticism?" Film

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73
Goldstein, Patrick. "TV Film critics Go for the Glitz, Roll Clip, Please." Los Angeles

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74
Mathews, Jack. The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam V. Universal Pictures in the Fight to

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April, 2002. Vol. 40. N 5. Page: 122-127.

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scrapbook." Film Comment September-October 1998. Vol 34. N 5. Page: 52-

59.

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75
 "Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962." Film Theory and Criticism. 4th

Edition. Ed. by Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen, and Leo Braudy. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1992.

Shaw, David. "Thumbs Up or Down on Movie Critics?" Los Angeles Times 20 March

1999, natl. ed.: Calendar 1.

Simon, John. Movies into Film. New York: Dell, 1971.

- - -. "Such Sweet Sorrow." National Review 17 September 2001. Vol 53. Page: 39-42.

Sklar, Robert. "The Good Ones Never Make Your Virtuous." New York Times 19

March 1989, natl. ed.: 7.

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1993 natl. ed.: Arts 11.

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28. N 3. Page: 9-12.

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and Schuster, 1978.

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June 2002. Vol 34_. Page 62.

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25. N 1. Page: 37-39.

76
 Appendix A

Leah Rozen, PEOPLE

DEVIL WEARS
PRADA
l;t~~~· .WflW.Ge'Yilweat~~'rle.COO\ t' . . '~'
""'°'"'"*"1~~

Los Angeles Times. 26 July 2006. Calendar section. Page 4.

77
SL
 Appendix C

elbc Nt\U !Jork limrs

On a Stroll in Angstville With Dots Disconnected
By Manohla Dargis October l, 2004

The high-wire comedy "I 'IHuckabecs'" captures liberal-left despair wilh astonishingly good humor:
it\ °Fahrenheit 9/J I" for' the screwball .set. Chockablock with strnnge bcdfcUows - Dustin Hoffman
and Lily Tomlin play a hot-and-heavy married couple, Jason Schwartzman gets Ills groove on with
Isabelle Huppert - the film is a snort-out-loud-funny muster dass of controlled chaos. In tllis topsy-
turvy world, where Yes is the 11ew corporate No and businesses sponsor environmental causes while
buildozing over Ranger Rick, a pair of existentialist detectives sift through clients' trash lo solve the rid-
dle of their malaise. Like the film's director. David 0. Russell, they gladly ri!>k foulil'.lhncss-to plunge
into the mutk of human existence.

The film, which opens na1ionwide today. hinges on one of these clients in mid-crhis, Mr.
Schwartzman fs Alben Markovski, a Sisyphean fig arc wi1h a flop of hair and his own giant rock. Tim
founder of an envfronmenlal advocacy group (the rock is the sole survivor of one of its campaigns).
Albert has recently agreed to join forces with Huckabces, a Wal-Mart-like corporation with the
newspeak motto of "one s1ore1 one world."

Bewitched by the synergistic soft-sell of the Huckabees execulive Brad Stand (Jude Law), who would
tag a bald eagle with the corporate logo if he could, Albert has just realized the downside to cmying up
with the Devil. Now, as Brad stakes a claim on Albert's reason for being, the activist dreams of hack-
ing his blond doppelganger to pieces, a fan1aw that Mr. Russell
obliges v.'ith some low-key digital trickery. Ljke the screwbal l king
Preston Sturges, Mr. Russell, whose previous features include
"Flirting With Disaster·· (the tille could serve a9 Mr. Russell's ftlrn-
makir\g maxim). crams the screen with character, gags and human-
ity. and here lays on all three with gusto.

ln addition to Albert. tlrad and Brad's girlfriend, the Huckabecs

spokcsmodel Dawn Campbell (Naomi WatL-;). the other crucial
player in what turns oul 10 be a very crowded lineup is Tommy (a
wonderful Mark Wahlberg), a frrefighter under the spell of a pto-
fes!'.tional nihilhit named Calerine Vauban °"1s. l Iuppcrt). The auihor of t11e ullimate self-help book f'If
Not Now"), Vauban insists that in the reality show known as life the key to survival is to S;urrcnder to
the void. Much like the Huckabees Corpejration, this French philosopher heeds an unnerving no-exit
dictum: "cruelty, manipulation, meaninglessness."

" I• Huckabees" is a comedy of dialectics, in which opposing dualities ~lug it out like wounded lo\'ers,
but it 's nothing if not deeply sincere. ~1.r. Russell and his co-writer, Jeff Baena, are clearly furion>. about
the slate of things (you name it) buti like Jon Stewart, they slide in the knife with a sm ile. The film's
Trojan horse strategy reaches its apotheosis in Tommy, a figure of both comedy and unexpected p~lhos.
After turning to the cx:istcnlialist detectives following Sept. 11. the firefighfer peers through the keyhole
opened by the c;.itastrophe and discovers a world of sorrows (child labor, melting icecaps, the wori.:s).
becoming a man who truly knows too much. Knowledge may be power, but as the history of the jXtst-
1968 left in this country suggest-., ii can also be ru\ excuse for fac1ionalism, impotence, despair

In time. Tommy and Alber! will either choose between nihili~m - and a Ftencl1 Vamp in ~ti!euos -
or the all-encompassing warmth of the "blanket thing;' a theory of interconnectedness espoused by one
of the detectives, Bernard (Mr. Hoffman). A man whose Bealle mop portend" badly for his cause,
Bernard uses an uctual blanket to explain his theory. with a soothing delivery thafs more Monte~sori
than Sorbonne. The s ight of Mr. Hoffman, who's in excellent fonn here, brandishing a blanket to
explain how every particle in the universe connects together is an image of incomparable goofme:..s in
a movie filled with irrcsisiible nonsense moments. But it's also a thing of beauty. Like the world. I.he
film can feel wildly out of control. but underlying the seemingly atomized parts is a field of a«'-xia-
tions, an irrefutable gestalt.

How the atorns and as~oc1atim1s add up, both in the world and especially in Mr. Russclrs ambitious,
heartfelt movie, finally matters fess than the realization of that connec1e<lness. That sense of a larger
world, 1hat there 3.Ic rooms upon rooms, bodies upon bodic:o,. on the other side of the keyhole. makes
Mr. Russell an ide.ilisl and a bit of a filmmaking rarity.

f'm not sure why, but American moviemakers have never seemed particular1y interested in the wider
world, which probably accounts for our abiding love affair with genre. Genre suits !he stories we like
to tell , or maybe it's just that the stories v.e like to tcH suit gent\!.. Unlike many of hi'\ contemporaries,
however, Mr. Russell uses genre as a wedge. a'i a way to loosen the fah1iliar cinematic time-space a>or-
dinates. with their prcdicrnblc rhytiuns and crushing homogeneity.

" l • Hucka,bees" will probably drive some audiences bonkers. Loud. messy, aggressively in youi face
and generally played for the back row in the thealer, the film doesn'l offer up solutions, tender <1.n) ·com-
fort or rejoice in the triumph of lhe human spirit All we can do, says ~1r. Russell, is keep pushing that
rock back uphill. That's kin<l of a hummer, but in its passion, energy and go-for-broke daring, in it<\ faith
in 1hc possibility o( human conne.ction (if not its probability). Mr. Russell's film provides it' own rea-
son for hope. It 's a mad lnad mad mad world, and for those who already feel cra7.y. who wakt! up and
read lhe monting paper with dread and wonder if we'll ever wake up from our nightmare, well. ha•-e l
got a movie for you.
~~Tbf~YQrtcT-'~""'~,...,,,·

From the director of "FLIRTING WIT

Dustin Isabelle Jude Jason

,.
HOFFMAN HUPPERT LAW SCHWART;

fOX ~M~HU~~ rt~W~ msw~m OWffi!Y tm~fMllll'~.@~lN!.~!JU~~

79
 Cos*
In David 0. Russell's weird but poignant world, style, substance, superstores
uvn.~6

and existential detectives collide.

Uy Carina Ch<Xano. Tunes Staff Writer October I, 2004
TilC love object i.n David 0. Russell's "1 rftean] Hockabees" - or 1he "heart" object, anyway - is a mighty chain
~~r\!~~~~:rt,~ t i~~ft i:.~-i~:t~tr:s:~~=~·.·~~~~~~~':M~~tr{j~~~~~~·1:;
11 0

of n tiny nonprofit environmental coalition and pc.sky flea on the-nape of the Hucka~ corpotation, is >Jaliant19" try.
inf! to save. Mostly through poetry, .

1:a~~;td~~~u ~~~~r~~~~g~1~~~ St!JQ::d~~~~ ~=!tl~i~j~~ib~·~eg~~~fjw~

5

lie face of Huckabees, 1~ dauJed Alben Jost his moorings. All it took was Brad plying him v.ilh anecdotes about Jet
SL:.iing with Dawn (Naomi Watts). a gyrating co~rate modcl-mfl:S<:Ol better known as Ms. Huckabces, who is also
Brad'!' girlfriend, for Albert to cave to an alliance. 'Alben's shame OOttoms our when he recalls himself happily accept-
mg an "I [Heart} Huckabccs" button. •

" Hockabees," billed as "an existential comedy," is an exuberant and oflen poignant ~ditatioo on what ii means to be
alive at a 1imc when life seents to be locked fn an ongoing gnldgc match with its dumb-but-attractive rival, lifestyle
it
- life i~ full of pain and contradiction, bu! lifestyle has all the shiny :tttessories, S<J LLSuaJJy wins.

Directed by 'Russell and tJ:o~sting a superb cast, the movie is undeniably weird, though it's hardly what you'd call
"experimentar.- My hunch 1s that whether you Jove ·it or reject it :ll Obtuse, incohe~nt or'~lf-involved will be a gcn-
Huckabees
cral1onal tbing . .. 1' assumes that we.Jive in tryingly bogus times, in which l"C'ality is eSsi'ly buried under lay-

ers of huckstcrism, and Uiat 1hinki~~~~ ;- ~~l!r ~ ;~~·TI~ ~o~~~~~ ::: ~~ ~~f:iki~o=~i
1
·oCOAST, Our ci;lflimkted rta)ity r«(Uires' going beyond the lin'lits of realisni. It's like early
Woody Allen, bu1 for-the semiotics generation.

') WITH THE The homey~yet-hip Hucl.:abees has been comJ>:ru:cd with Wal-~fart, bul it's a
dead ringer for th.at store~s graphicaily' wphisti('ated, impJS.Sibly self-aware archri-
L COMEDY val, Target. With irs pop sensibHity and its hip-tacuJar ads. Huckabees l.11QV.'S how
toIJattct tfie same ''uf>scalt" ~merican ps)'Chc tlW ooce rejecttd its type of re~iler
EARP' and can even 1 the movie sug&ests. divest J>CO,Plc of !heir core beliefs. A Hucks bees
execotive nails the phenomenon when. praismg Brad for sir!gle-handedl)' COhven-
~~~~u~~U:ti;:ct:3~~1C:~i:!~~~ee~W ~~~~:h:nhi~ir:; :1~:
Et~!bRf.

And tbai 's wh.at they wanf up in corporale." It's no accident lh<il if cal's
itself "the
e verything slate.'' Nt:tt oolydoes 11 seJJ to~ and mops and llags and bag.:;, it promises parrio1ic sentiment("Oh say, can
~:, 5;fu~~:~~ ;~ ~~~si~:!so~i'1~~t::~ 1IT:1.a1;~u~rdi~;~c;:ii~~·11fe5= ~~\~e~ ~e"ltf:: ~~~:
1

~ide the boundaries of Huckabees-S.'.lrlCtioned yaJues. So what's not to hcart1

Ail:~~~8:1~thciss~i~~f~~:P~!f.!~~~:il~~~~~:;~fie~~i~n~~e°(i)~:1~e.f!c1r,!,ga1:.!f~fy
~r;:~~~~~:r!~~tl=~~g~~ :·~i:;!!;~:!t~~~?tl; ~i~13fri~~~1!.lJ~c~~s~=c,~!
the key to something big..

Vivian and Bernard espouse :m Eastern philosophy of universal infcrcontteetedness, which Berna.rd likes to explain
by draping a blanket over his fi sts and movfr1g lhem around. 'This is me... tllld this is you, over here trus is Vivian, and
lhis is the Eiffel Tower! Paris! This is a war and tlti~ is a disease mxl this is an orgaSm and this is a h2JT1burger."

·So e vCJ)lhing is the same tvc:n 100tt&n it"s i:li'fte~nt." Alben conctUdes.
As if to prove that point as ~rfously ~ po!siblc, Brad hires the Jaffcs t6o and immcdfatcly start!i writing poems and
generalJy c.o--0pting Albert's mte£Ufs i1ad tastes.

lrn:re:isingly dissati:-fied v.itb the delcciives. Albert befriends their dient

Tommy Com (Mark Wahlberg). a fm:fight-
cr who cqU4lles petroleum use with murder. Tomm)' has discovertd the sultry Frencli nihilist and Bemal-d and Vivian
aposlaco, Cateri11e Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). who believes that the universe is meaningless and cruel. Toge:ther, the
three of lhem take a break from lrying lo !'nake·sense or it aJI. In ooeof lhe film_"'s funniest scenes, Vauhan has ·lbmmy
and Albert bash C3Ch other in ihe head with medicine b:llls to s1011lhinking. ··Don't call it 'the ball thing."' Vauban
pou1s. "Call it pure being."' .
Schwrutz.man and Law are pitch-perfect in their TOies as·dUCJing p6s1er boys for 3 trtltlSCCndcnt ex.istcnce Versus a

~-~~ ~i~~~it;bi~~Yof ~~~ti:i~ ~!frn!~~fif!~:~i~lnr?~ ~i!W'~ G~~~~e~~;i'r:Jdc:~i~~

11 1

1wilight years, and Jon Orion's beautiful , sad-fuMy score only understores the conoection. The performances are aU
~ trong, but Wahllx!rg. raw, vulnerable and tragicomic, is the movie 's revelatiOh.

As it happens, the 1all African man turrls out 10 be an orphaned Sudanese refugee whQ has be.Cn adopted by a whia:
suhurban ramiJy. "Sieve: · as he's been rechrislened by his conservative 01ristian parents. invites Tomm}' and Albert
over for dmncr, and the conversation $00n toms info an ideological brawl. Stevc 'g adoptive dad. an engmcer, think!
the Sudan could use some subutb.m sprawl, while Tommy blames the SUV sxu-l..cd in the driveway for Steve's refugee
slatus. Albert and Tommy leave in a buff. But befon: that happens. Sieve's sister 1ums to her mother in a minor panic.
·we don't have to ask ourselves those kinds of questions., do we. Mom't'
AIXI Mom has the easy answer: "No. honey.··

;~~c~i~~ i~!:~~.!~=~e.~~~~;;!~!~\1;hc~~ir:rti~~fi1~:,~: ~s1~~~~t a!G~~C:~

Yourself") .. m which 1he prota~onist 1i1erally tries 10 crawl b3ck into !he wornb by sleeping "'itb his mother; to
"flirting With Dis:mer.. (1996), Ill which the ~onisl is so ncurotieally unsure of who he is, he can '1 name his new-
~: t~ i~~h~~~ ::~~i1~ho~n;~:~~~J~ini=t~i~.~si:~~ fn~~crra'!;%?1Jf>~R~~' ~:1~:a"s~~
11 1

;~r~:~ci~~::di~~~~i:';:~%~u~~~t~1~~f·~s:~~~:_~~~~?~lirc°:~: ~~:J~~=
1

ble of mahipulaliun, cruelty and pain? As with any philosophe.r. he doesn't have the answer, but he shows t~at asking
1he question" can lift some of the dread of ex'isl~nce.

H DISASTER" and "THREE KINGS"

Lily Mark Naomi
ZMAN TOMLIN WAHLBERG WATTS

••.r•-..· -
( ee
lM f8~~U~IONS llB1'I lillC¥ABfIB', JllN BIH.\MAA LW&~B=MAl!l rullO~ffi
n DllfWlftt ftArtv\Jal C\IV\&J 11u .ftftfVTIUUln •. --a1~ n. NMIJ'lnJ """'n•n.u ~n1un n mlltArt•

80
Los Angeles Times . .22 October 2004. Calendar section. Page 17.

81
 Appendix D

"FUN AND VERY FUNNYI

Owen Wilson has to be one of the greatest comedic actors of
all time. Kate Hudson and Michael Douglas are outstanding."
LARRY KING

~Wilson Kate Hudson Matt Dillon Michael Douglas

You, Me and Dupree

=
1
•• I ••
UNl'lfl!SAl PEmIB Plfl!lll I ITTUBUl·PARfHT/AYIS·Om; rm11;., ! RUSSO B~O!HfR~ fl:~
llW!H WIIBON I.All HUDSON MAii OllllH "IO!l.Mf !.>a OUPRlf SUH RO~UI AMANDA Of!Mffi l.'il 'Al:llAll oo~~IAS "'illlffiOOHAPmo
WCH!U rnnnm SEAN PfRRONf AARON UPlAN -:scan SJUB[R MARY PARfHT owrn WllSOH "'ll MICHAU uS/fUR
"·"
1
/ 'i"..::l."=sl ~ _, !'!.'!:; '"'if AHJllONY!JH SSO ~Jl!!OCIBt!.LP~lUfff o-•:'.jm
www.youmeapddupree.com

Los Angeles Times. 26 July 2006. Calendar section. Page 2.

82