Dan Sallitt wrote:

> > And most academics seem to me far worse. There are genre "laws."
> There
> > are conventions that are being "defied." Etc., etc., etc. This is all
> > utter blarney, IMHO.
>
> If we stopped using all words that academics abuse, we'd have to talk in
> monosyllables.

So?
And who said "all words that academics use"?
How many words did I fault? Two? Three?
Now suddenly according to you I'm against all words that aren't
monsyllabic. If this is an example of polysyllbbic communication, we
should go back to monos.

>
>
> > Terms which essentially have no meaning
> > (like "genre") are not useful. That some people THINK they are useful
> > (outside of informal conversation, if there) suggests to me the degree
> > to which "theory" destroys and inhibits experience.
>
> I don't think we're talking theory here. Filmmakers know about genre
> and use it. When Mann starts THE NAKED SPUR with Stewart moving in on
> his prey, he knows that he doesn't have to explain why people are
> settling disputes with guns, or why people are in the middle of nowhere;
> when Stewart takes Ryan prisoner, he expects people to understand that
> Stewart is a law officer (which eventually proves false). He could have
> done all the same things outside of a set of genre expectations, but the
> scene would play differently, be more of a mystery, with lots of loose
> ends to tie up. Genre affords Mann the opportunity to start a story in
> the thick of the conflict, for his own artistic reasons, while swimming
> under the surface of accessible storytelling. You're missing out on an
> analytical tool if you ignore genre.


"Genre" does not exist. So you might as well be discussing diddles.

The events you describe above could equally begin a scifi film on
another planet, a gangster melodrama in NYC, a toga story in Troy, a
musical, etc. I guess you are referring not to a particular genre but
to any movie, right?

Do you have any evidence to suggest that THE NAKED SPUR is NOT
intelligible to someone who has never seen a "western" before?

>
>
> > So can you give me a short concise definition of "realism" à la
> > Auerbach, one which I can repeat the people on the street which they'll
> > all understand quickly?
>
> Auerbach's point is that the particulars of what feels realistic changes
> with context. Homer made readers feel he was rendering unvarnished
> reality because he did one thing differently than authors before him,
> and so on.

The street won't understand this. What does it mean "to feel
realistic"? How can you "render" "unvarnished reality"? And what is
"reality? And what is "varnish"?

Is a Beethoven piano sonata realistic? Is a given performance an
unvarnished reality?


>
>
> > And is this the same as "realism" in Méliès or Ford? Is Rossellini's
> > realism the same as De Sica's? Is there anyway to tell what you meant
> > when you spoke of realism in regard to Hawks? Is realism in cinema
> when
> > you have real things in front of the camera? or does it refer to the
> > sense that there is someone real looking through the camera? Is a film
> > about an historical event realistic if it convinces people or conveys
> > some truth, despite having the facts wrong?
> >
> > Is there not a better way to say what you mean than to use a word whose
> > meanings shift like desert sands, never to be defined ever, anywhere?
>
> You can get a definition out of the dictionary, and it won't satisfy
> you.

I don't expect satisfaction. Simply sentences I can understand. Maybe
I'm particularly stupid. But I do not understand. I have been thinking
about realism and reality all my life and with each passing year the
actual reality is that I recognize I understand much less than I thought
I did the year before. Perhaps you are young and have the advantage.

> What's the definition of art? Of religion? To pick just two
> words that you are not boycotting. Abstract nouns are generally used in
> a cloud of connotations.

Art is when the cloud dissipates.

>
>
> I stated expressly that I thought realism was usable only as a relative
> term, and yet you ask me if realism is the same in Hawks, Melies and
> Ford. You don't seem to be paying attention to me.

I admit I do not follow you. It's not that I'm not paying attention. I
don't understand what you mean when you write "realism was usable." I
don't understand what it is that is being used -- or for what.

>
>
> > Most people who talk about "westerns" have never heard of genre. Genre
> > is an academic invention. The concept didn't exist in French until
> > Anglo-Americans took over the word.
>
> Most people who die of diseases don't know the medical terms for them
> either. That doesn't mean that diseases are an invention of the medical
> profession.

Ah, so you too believe that "genre" is a Platonic Idea, and that only
the Ideas are really real? Is this what you mean by "realism"?

>
>
> > I have never found anyone who can define what a "western" is.
> > Everyone's denotation seems to be completely different. I've spent my
> > life going around pissing people off like Socrates trying to get
> them to
> > define western and in EVERY case it ends up with them growling
> > defiantly: "I can't put it into words. But I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!"
> This
> > is the state of academia.
>
> No, it's the state of life. I think the fact that everyone feels they
> know what a Western is should make you think twice. Maybe you're trying
> to make definitions do something that they're not meant to do. They
> don't determine the border conditions of a concept.

Concepts sans frontières!

If you admit we cannot define "western," then what meaningful definition
can we give to "genre"?
I can invent the cigarette genre -- movies in which people smoke
cigarettes -- and I can go on for pages about conventions in how to
hold, how to manipulate, how to blow, how John Wayne throws a cigarette
away, Bogart's snuff. I can write something just as intelligent as
what's been written about westerns. So what?

Imagine the possibilities of the genre of films containing the color red.

>
>
> > Sure. But people who are truly original don't become so simply by
> > perversion. There is a great difference between wearing a white hat
> > simply because everyone else wears a black hat; and wearing a white hat
> > because you like it and don't care what everyone else wears. That's my
> > point. Be yourself.
>
> So you feel that if I were right and Hawks were in fact reacting to
> genre, he would be a conformist and unoriginal? Some people would
> consider this a level of formal sophistication beyond most other
> filmmakers.

I never implied Hawks does not relate to other movies. I asked when he
would have heard the word genre for the first time.

>
>
> > To repeat: a sign stands for something other
> > than itself, poetry stands only for itself.
>
> I can't figure out how this branch of the conversation got started. I
> gather you are taking me for some postmodernist.

It's not a branch. It's an argument against genre criticism. Genre
criticism is based on signs; art is not. I thought this would appeal to
you.

>
>
> > Croce admits signs into prose, which he does not regard as language but
> > as a degeneration of language into a sign system. "Born as poetry,
> > language was afterwards twisted to serve as a sign."
> >
> > I suggest to you that this is quite inspiring and exciting to
> > investigate, to liberate people's minds from the shackles and chains of
> > academic slavery which, like the guys in Plato's cave, they don't even
> > know are binding them.
>
> You know, I do find this interesting, and would like to know more
> someday, at a calmer time. You're aware that this flies in the face of
> what almost everyone believes about language? That a word is the first
> example people usually give to illustrate the concept of what a sign is?
> I'd feel more comfortable if you acknowledged this discrepancy.

Croce is a discrepancy. He's wonderful.
If you want to know more, get hold of the Orsini book. It's well
written. If you want to know more about Croce as a historist, begin
with the chapter in R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History -- which shows
up in every used book store an Oxford paperback, a really great book!

>
>
>
> You know, when Robin Wood proposed SCARFACE as a comedy, he acknowledged
> that it wouldn't sound right at first hearing. I find it odd that you
> seem to assume that everyone understands that RED RIVER and THE BIG SKY
> are comedies.

They have happy endings. Everybody gets what they want.
Scarface doesn't get what he wants, but we do, don't we?
But I'd call Scarface a tragedy -- Tony has a tragic flaw, no?