If you are at all interested in film criticism...

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If you are at all interested in film criticism...

POSTED: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 8:37 PM

Filed Under: Movies

'Then you need to read this NYT article about lion in winter film critic Andrew Sarris by Michael Powell. For hardcore film geeks, Sarris is a well known name. He, along with critics like Pauline Kael (swoon!), brought a new intellectuality to a medium that, in its American form, was seen solely as escapist. These critics (like John Simon and Manny Farber) also fucking hated each other and would battle it out in print like the good ol' nerds that they are.

Sarris, who did time at the Village Voice in its critical heyday and the Americanized Cahsiers du Cinema, was recently fired from his long held position at the NY Observer. For a young writer interested in film, this was one of those holy-shit moments. You just don't fire Andrew Sarris. That would be like firing dean of rock criticism Robert Christgau (oh wait'). I'm not even a "Sarrisite," as the article refers to them, who whole heartedly believes in the auteur theory ' "which holds that a great director speaks through his films no less than a novelist speaks through his books" ' because I think movies are too much of a collaborative process. But the idea that one of the greatest in his field could be considered expendable is depressing.

While a lot of film critics that followed Sarris' lead can be staid and boring, Sarris and co. were working in uncharted waters ' ascribing importance to fluffy American cinema. Plus, he's funny. As described in the Powell piece, Sarris and Simon had a war of of the words in the Pages of the Arts & Leisure section of the Times:

One Sunday in 1971 The New York Times devoted acreage in the Arts & Leisure section to a mano-a-mano between Mr. Simon and Mr. Sarris. Mr. Simon's pen came acid dipped, and his disdain for auteurism, which he believed devalued narrative, was fairly overwhelming. 'Perversity is certainly the most saving grace of Sarris's criticism,' he wrote, 'the humor being mostly unintentional.'

To which Mr. Sarris later rejoined, 'Simon is the greatest film critic of the 19th century.'

As I said before, I'm not a Sarrisite, but I do love Pauline Kael, the New Yorker film critic. (Sidestory: When I'm on planes/long bus rides, I have a penchant for lying to the people I'm sitting next to out of sheer boredom. The name I often give people: Pauline Kael). She essentially built her own cult of personality, wrote with daggers (lady could be a BITCH, albeit a hilarious one) and just loved the shit out of movies. If you like to read about film, get Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and I Lost it at the Movies and read some real film analysis that doesn't make you want to scoop your own eyes out with a spoon (aka, pretty much everything else I read in film school). Here's why she's awesome:

She wielded style like a stiletto. 'The auteur theory is an attempt by adult males to justify staying inside the small range of experience of their boyhood and adolescence, that period when masculinity looked so great and important,' she wrote of Mr. Sarris.

Ms. Kael's devotees note that she seldom attacked him after that, even as he fumed. But that is like knocking a fellow flat then puzzling at his foul mood.

When Mr. Sarris married Molly Haskell, a fellow critic, in 1969, they invited Ms. Kael, Mr. Sarris said. 'That's O.K.,' she replied. 'I'll go to Molly's next wedding.'

Harry Lime

Posted 2009-07-16 13:32:28

Yeah, Pauline Kael was a cunt all right, a control freak who was not simply content pontificating from the New Yorker, but used her influence to form packs of film critics to support her favorite filmmakers. Her manner of writing -- and reportedly being -- tended towards hysteria, and if she had had her way the majority of American films would have been consigned to the garbage heap and NOBODY would be writing about Hitchcock and Hawks.

Posted 2009-07-29 03:27:33

Oh, please, Harry. Pauline was the best - and she's so often misquoted and misrepresented. In the article cited here J. Hoberman claims that Kael was an auteurist after all because she loved "everything" by De Palma and Scorcese. Wrong! She loathed "Raging Bull" and dismissed "Untouchables" to name just two.

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