Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died at age 91 in Holland. David Lynch has been a long time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation and counted himself a student of...
I snapped today when I read Jonathan Rosenbaum's reply to Kent Jones' piece on Rosenbaum's famed Bergman article. Rosenbaum starts with: "Given the kindness of...
Actually, Andrew Sarris is a big admirer of David Thomson. I don't think there is any standard auteurist line on Thomson's work. Also, auteurism should not be...
The problem is that Thomson's brand of anti-intellectualism (which is really just a variation on Pauline Kael's) has become incredibly popular and influential,...
I may be wrong, but "Film Comment" struck me as being very anti-Thomsonian. The recent uncalled for comparison of Thomson and Rosenbaum is only one of possible...
I wasn't going to get involved for obvious reasons (and please let's not take this too far), but Michael Oleszczyk is dead-on about Kael. She adored Welles....
... "...The much-maligned Raising Kane was an attempt also to put the film in the context of Mankiewicz's work and the raffish thirties newspaper-movie genre....
"Raising Kane" was an attempt to destroy the artistic reputation of Orson Welles - at that time the most outstanding American artist in three different media:...
I do appreciate the anecdote, which I didn't know, but come on: it wasn't exactly like Welles was the most popular director with the producers circa. 1971...
Let's look at this from a different perspective. Like most auteurists, I believe that progress in film studies comes either from writing single-artist studies,...
... Kael was a hedonist who believed in surprise and delight--subjective as they are--as valid criteria for judgment. The problem was that Kael's hedonism was...
My absolute last post on the subject... I don't care what comes after: "Raising Kane" runs counter to the thinking at the heart of "a film by," and I would be...
... It's just that he has become a poster boy for a certain way of looking at films (or, to be more precise, a way of not looking at films). ... her ... such ...
... "I do appreciate the anecdote, which I didn't know, but come on: it wasn't exactly like Welles was the most popular director with the producers circa. 1971...
... film ... joined ... and ... a ... artistic," ... the ... stole, ... lot of ... that ... single ... appreciate ... Such an essay would be admirable, but the...
... and ... Really? I've never heard that before. Heller, of course, ... I guess that a Welles film of CATCH 22 would have been somewhat redundant, since...
... and ... Really? I've never heard that before. Heller, of course, ... I guess that a Welles film of CATCH-22 would have been somewhat redundant, since...
... 22, ... Yes, the most inventive shot is one where Welles as the general is having a conference with the colonels played by Richard Benjamin and Martin...
... After such a quiet time, it is refreshing to see " A Film By.." again engaged in such a passionate debate. I'd like to support Brad's arguments here and...
... I haven't read the Film Comment pieces in question (are either of them online anywhere?), but even if Jones's remark seems to come out of the blue, it...
... To bring this argument full circle back to Thomson, allow me to cite not his book Rosebud (which is even more poorly researched and personally hostile...
Welles' problems hardly began or ended with Pauline Kael. In "This is Orson Welles", Welles complained that his Shakespeare films got no support from US...
I said I wouldn't respond to the attacks on Kael, and I don't intend to after this (really). But the level of ignorance here is just astounding. Here is one of...
I saw "Henry IV" Parts I and II on stage at Stratford, England, during my one visit to Britain. I saw "The Merry Wives of Windsor" on stage at Stratford,...
A civilized response! We shall talk Shakespeare in some other forum (I, too, saw The War of the Roses), but I apologize and doff my cap to you. Edelstein ... ...
I also have a Ph.D in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If anyone on the list wants confirmation, I can arrange for the ...
While I agree with your arguments against anti-intellectualism and critics like Kael, the comments on the nobility of auteurists and the evils of the...
To David Edelstein: Apology accepted. To Marc Raymond: I was not trying to attack any one individual person. But there is a real problem concerning today's USA...
... (Queen, ... Though I certainly agree with the general point you're making, the specific examples offered here are somewhat puzzling to me. Surely there are...
