Ever heard of David Lynch?

How about Jim Jarmusch?

Dare I mention Aki Kaurismaki?

Or Emir Kusturica?

You sound to me like a person who does not go to movies much,

and is now trying to justify that by saying there is nothing to see anyway.

Either that, or you are not able to value anything that hasn't received decades of critical acclaim.

Or maybe, your definition of 'dead' is not 'not being made',

but instead 'not being appreciated by a large percentage of moviegoers'? I don't agree with that either, because I doubt

that moviegoers that were forced to watch Bergman in his prime

went because they really appreciated. I think they just did not have the choice of say.. staying in and watching American Idol.

Oh.. and don't even think of putting Antonioni in the same category as Bergman.

Camille has moved from the realm of jaded pseudo academic to just plain embarrassing. What can top this:

“Did Mrs. John Edwards, playing phone tag, put her foot in her mouth by single-handedly rehabilitating Ann Coulter's reputation for seat-of-the-pants, high-testosterone counterpunching?”

After I read her equally embarrassing comments on film I stopped reading. I was turning red— not for Camille but for the editors that allowed that drivel to go to print.

I don't really have time to say very much, so I'm just going to mention the obvious: A lot of you people hate Camille Paglia because she's a liberal who doesn't endless and implausibly praise every aspect of liberalism, and in particular the Democratic Party & its candidates. A lot of the comments I read here on Salon are frankly embarassing in their doctrinaire DNC talking pointedness, so to speak (although its not quite the Stalinesque drivel one reads over at Daily Kos). While I intend to probably vote Democratic in 2008 myself (although if Hillarious gets the nomination, I'll be looking at 3rd party candidates), the willfully ignorant, ultra-partisan atmosphere I see around here tells me that things probably aren't going to improve much once Bush leaves office; we'll just be trading a Protestant gang of horrid, materialistic, yuppie thugs for an Atheist one.

Dr. Paglia makes a fascinating proposal (fleshed out in the Arion link to article) to make the study of world religions a pre-requisite in the public school systems, ideally to rehabilitate the quality of art in generations to come, informed by the complex system of signification in its primary works (Pentateuch, Bible, Koran, etc.) and in its modes of worship (e.g. hymns).

However, "if great art can be made out of love for religion as well as against it" (http://www.bu.edu/arion/Paglia.htm), a fatal flaw is revealed: I do not love religion, I love God. To survey religions without a beleif in what it ultimately signifies preaches atheism and reduces transcendance to fatalism.

For example, how easy it is for Paglia to recently claim that Mormans are Christians by reducing its status to historical contingency: one developed out of the other ("In the map of world religions, Mormonism is indisputably a subset of Christianity"). Yes, if you draw a map signifying historical timelines and sects, you can pencil in a line between the two just as you can between Judaism and Islam. Religion, you see, is a map. Geography. length by width=area. So I come away ignorant of the passion of the LDS, of what is love and transcendance in Mormanism, of what is unique in its expression. What are we teaching if we assume that it is all the same (pointing to the vastnes and sublimity of the universe), except for the particular area it covers? Atheism.

So for Paglia theological disputes are heresy wars where losers got burnt at the stake, yet another point of history: theology is violence. How would this affect budding artists? In depicting Christ crucified, if artists believe Jesus to be divine, they would have to struggle with a theological problem: His impassibility. How can the divine suffer? What kind of art would such a question evoke, as opposed to a banal depiction of suffering. If the artist does not believe, how is that question confronted?

The home and family is where such values are conveyed, and the private institutions that support them. Identity is formed in relationships, and for some this relationship transcends nature and history.

Camille I love your column, but I just can't agree that rock music has hit the skids. Granted, there's plenty of "me too" corporate acts out there in all genres, but your criticism and subsequent comparison to the 'stones just smacks of prototypical boomer-culture elitism. The music, cars, and movies of the 1960s were all "great", but to someone who was born in 1973 they've never been anything but old. To me they have always existed, and I'd even go so far as to call them the "establishment" that my and newer generations seem to have never been able to live up to.

I don't buy it for a second, though. Just as you enjoyed your art movies, Rolling Stones, and possibly even a brand new '69 Camaro, I've had Pearl Jam, Pulp Fiction, and my 1995 Z28. I was able to savor the excitement, dine on their newness, and say that I was there. And it may not make sense to you or others of your generation, but maybe it shouldn't. Just as your parents and their ilk didn't understand?

I guess I'll also have the opportunity to look down upon future generations for the vapidness of their culture. I can tell them that it's dull, homogenous, and that they don't get it. Maybe I'd be the one who isn't getting it, though? Is that what would make me say such things?

so what does this gasbag have to report this month. First Mzzz Paglia starts by comparing the efforts of candidates to win their party's nomination for president to a "corrida". The one with the biggest cojones gets "to run the government". I guess Hillary will have to grow some testicles. If this is the criterion for being president, then no wonder her "cleavage" arouses so much indignation! And worse still she has a "sagging cleavage". My, my, my. Not only is she a woman (gosh) but she's a (gasp!) mature woman. Only young, nubile, females with supermodel looks and silicone breasts are tolerated it seems in a misogynist society--which explains why Elizabeth Edwards is treated with such contempt (that, and her being a Democrat.) Those (like Guiliani's wife) who are not so mature yet are "vamps", "gold diggers". Paglia isn't any more flattering as she submerges them under their husbands' name, as if both women had no identity of their own; or had no right to exist. Paglia will also tell you she's a feminist (she's a comedian that one). That she repeats such crap in her piece only shows how much she endorses this stuff. As usual she blows a kiss to Ann Coulter, just in case anyone mistakes her for a Democrat; or a Liberal.

Moving on to Iraq.

Nope. Paglia hasn't a clue on this issue either.

The war on Iraq and the occupation can't be explained without also understanding how US policies are now based on the priorities of capital. The decision to attack Iraq (in violation of the UN)had nothing to do with keeping us safe from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It was attacked to protect the interests of the most privileged and wealthy elites. Their motive from the start was profit--via the theft of another country's resources, which is why the USA is busy trying to shore up its geopolitical dominance in the Middle East where most of the goodies(oil)are. America has begun to resemble Latin American dictatorships and its landowners in the way it defends corporate greed and follows a corporate agenda, which is anti-democratic to say the least. Typically, though, Paglia blames the Iraqis for what's going on in Iraq and not America's imperialism. It's the Baghdad government's fault, those pesky ethnic groups in Iraq--they're to blame. If it wasn't for them all would be hunky dory! Not noticing that it's America's wish for hegemony that's the problem, it's no surprise then that she chides Democrats for not being able to "get their act together on the cardinal issue of geopolitics"; that is, for not being rabid imperialists. And she calls Bush and Cheney "thick-headed"!(Honey, you're no Einstein either).

On to film. Nah, no genius here either.

Art movies aren't dead, Camille. Your brain is. Certainly there have been films produced "over the past 35 years" that are "equal" to the "virtuosity" of Bergman.

Todd Hayne's "Safe", for instance. The camera seems far away, removed, distant, as if to convey just how disconnected Carol (the housewife allergic to the twentieth century played by Juliane Moore)is from her life. Many shots are still. The pans are extremely slow. And Julianne Moore as Carol is always shuffling along and speaking in a low murmur--effects which capture Carol's retreat from the world, her lack of self esteem, and the way the world effaces her.

Michael Haneke's films offer brilliant observations about the alienating features of urban life today--in "The Seventh Continent", for example. He uses close ups and slow inter-cutting devices to force the viewer to consider the banality of the family's every day life; their rote behaviour as they perform routine activities so we come to understand how they might feel entrapped; might want to commit suicide.

Both films pose complex philosophical questions; both study the psychology of their subjects without offering answers. One doesn't have to be 'religious' to look at life seriously. Some of the most dumbest and shallowest of people believe in God; being a believer doesn't ipso facto make you profound or confer nobility on you. So get of your high horse, Cammy.