Letters to the Editor
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Art Critic Clichés R.I.P.
Yawn! Here we have yet another trite look at European film-making spurred on by the death of two (one arguably) great directors. Why is it surprising that Ms. Paglia feels so moved by the passing of D.W.M's that she has to write an essay ignoring many other, less venerated, yet equally worthy, film directors? Reading her essay is like trying to stay awake while reading a chapter in a film-making 101 textbook. As my head nods...yes, we can't deny the genius of Bergman, but doesn't his work seem influenced by Carl Theodor Dreyer and La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc? That glorious b/w cinematography and the excruciating close-ups of Maria Falconetti; certainly, anyone can see that in the long takes of Liv Ullman.
Then, I see Antonioni mentioned, and I jerk awake. The title "Blow Up" fittingly foreshadows the turgid, tiresome film that is chiefly style over substance. This art film must owe its reputation to Swinging London and the presence of toothpick sized models wrestling in the nude. I can't think of any other redeeming qualities. At least I can respond to Bergman on both a visual and visceral level; with the vapid film by Antonioni, I'm instead thinking, not metaphorically, of how I could be cleaning my closet.
Why is it Ms. Paglia overlooks other great film directors? Surely, we need to see and appreciate the low-budget Faustian sci-fi "Seconds" (1966), a rough gem of a film directed by John Frankenheimer. The French appreciated it; enough to nominate Mr. Frankenheimer for the Palme d'Or. Other cultures seem to embrace our own iconoclastic art films more than our own cultural "critics". I suspect Ms. Paglia's reliance on trite observation has much to do with a writing style that has never progressed beyond making sweeping generalizations. It's about creating a signature style, but it leaves a reader wondering if serious gaps exist in Ms. Paglia's knowledge of film. Whatever happened to a Camille Paglia who could write a nuanced comparison of Ingmar Bergman and Russ Meyer?
Sigh. I miss Pauline Kael; at least she watched film. With Ms. Paglia, there exists an acute case of resting on one's laurels. Pardon the cliché.
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Frustratingly simplistic
In general, I've tried to avoid Camille Paglia's increasingly confused cultural proclamations, because they just lead to double-edged frustration: You can see the obvious holes in her arguments, and you know that they're going to carry some measure of weight among the mediated cognoscenti that'll send you back to the article wondering what exactly you missed. And then you realize you didn't miss a thing. Perhaps if she went for depth of thought instead of breadth, her work wouldn't seem so breathlessly stream-of-consciousness and wouldn't have such glaring roadbumps.
So here are a few of the missteps that someone who proclaims herself to be part of our cultural braintrust should not have made. First sentence of the article -- “as the pack of eager candidates of both parties dutifully make their rounds and tread water like tar.” Grammar, Paglia, grammar -- what would Bloom say? The people don't tread water like tar because tar doesn't tread water. You need to add the article: 'and tread water like it's tar.' Proofread your work.
Second paragraph: None of the problems you mention here are really problems without a media to proclaim them problems. Christina Fernandez de Kirchner has a low neckline too, but the press doesn't seem nearly as worked up about it in Argentina. To blame Ann Lewis for calling out the silliness of the press is to miss the point entirely. That's the sartorial mistake – you're mistaking presentation for substance.
Fifth paragraph: You know about the crumbling infrastructure, so you were paying some attention; did you pay any attention to Barack Obama's proclamations on Pakistan? Is there any place in the world that's more of a generator for jihad than Waziristan? Obama is the first national democratic politician of any prominence to call that out. So please explain how he's missing the cardinal issue of geopolitics; from the standpoint of an interested observer, he's the first to actually call the source of the geyser the source of the geyser.
Sixth paragraph, as we shift non-sequitorially into film: This is the first place where you betray your barnacle grip on a lost 60's, and display one of the problems with the baby boom generation – you're grown ups still trying to live in your teen years. There have been no good artistic directors since the 60's – so what was Kubrick, chopped liver? How about David Lynch? Have you seen anything by Matthew Barney? You want a patient film – did you see Old Joy last year? Anything by Terrence Malick? Werner Herzog?
Tenth paragraph: I have to ask, if very few young people stayed to savor L'Avventura when you were young, how the hell would you know that fewer young people are savoring films, today? Could the advent of DVD's have something to do with that? How do you know there aren't hordes of young people who follow your artsy 60's clique in the privacy of their rooms?
Fourteenth paragraph: As for the simplistic rejection of religion in contemporary film, I'll just name two recent hits: The Da Vinci Code and Passion of the Christ. You talk of narrow mental worlds; how about narrow fields of vision? Did you miss those overtly religious blockbusters?
Paragraph seventeen-eighteen: Great googly moogly, do you only pay attention to white pop musicians? You mention Clarkson later, but really – if you had even part of the cultural perspective you proclaim, you'd know there is a whole vista of emerging (really, emerged) rhythm & blues artists who are every bit as authentic as any of your 60's dreamboats. Corey Harris, Otis Taylor, Kelly Joe Phelps, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Eric Bibb, Robert Randolph, Henry Butler, Keb Mo, Rollie Tussing...
All this with the occasional self-promotion (her book and her lecture on C-Span). If this is what counts as the cream of the baby boomer public intellectual crop, we'll probably just have to wait until this generation of publishers retires (I'm looking at you, Salon, you gave here the virtual space). The baby boomer generation is just too big, so they'll dominate markets and keep placing themselves narcissistically at the center of such cultural discussions. Life is still going on around them, they just haven't bothered to take notice. Like Paglia shows in this piece, if its not brassily splashed across tabloid headlines, they're just not paying attention.