--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Fred Camper <f@f...> wrote:
> hotlove666 wrote:
>
> .... But why are you interested in finding out how specific auteurs
are generally evaluated today? If I understood the question better I
might have a more useful answer....
>
> So I can write something like, "Even in serious histories of
Hollywood
> film, Minnelli is taken more as an entertainer than as a real
auteur,
> and his musicals are given more attention than his melodramas" --
if


The question is, Fred, what are the "serious histories of
Hollywood film"? I can assure you that most people who consider
Minnelli an auteur have as much respect (or more) for his melodramas
as for his musicals. See for example Steven Harvey's 1989 Minnelli
book. Are you interested in the opinion of critics who do not
consider him an auteur, but just an 'entertainer" whatever that
means?
JPC

> it's true, of course. Certainly the essay in the Roud book would
support
> this, and JPC's essay supports it partially.

I don't think I ever suggested that I thought M's musicals were more
important or better than his melodramas. I'm just somewhat ambivalent
about the melodramas just as I am sometimes about Sirk's no matter
how much I admire them (it's actually some of the auteurist praise
for them that bothers me, not the films themselves). Moreover in the
case of Minnelli I think the distinction between genres is of minor
importance, because his comedies and musicals tend to be downbeat and
melancholy and the dramas upbeat which blurs the differences.
JPC


I know some people take the
> melodramas seriously and think they're great, and I wouldn't be
> surprised if that was the consensus among this enlightened group
(if
> it's not, it ought to be), but in terms of US publications at least
most
> of what I've looked at so far in the way of books doesn't seem to
give
> the melodramas their proper due.

Again I would suggest Harvey. JPC
>
> This is not a huge issue -- I'm just looking for a way to introduce
my
> view, if I can reasonably claim that it's not the mainstream one in
> terms of the established literature. And since this is for a
possible
> Reader piece, I'm only really concerned with what American critics
> think.. Then I can follow something like the above with something
like,
> "But actually, in the subtle camera movements and complex
relationships
> between areas of color in 'Some Came Running' and 'Home From the
Hil'"
> can be found the profoundest commentary on bourgeois American life
this
> side of Douglas Sirk...".
>
> - Fred