In The Critic as Artist, Oscar Wilde is trying to make the point that the critic is even more creative than the creator himself. Maybe this is out of an arrogant zeal that he possessed for his own profession but regardless there is wisdom to be heeded in his words.
Wilde points out that if you write beautifully enough there will be a scarcity of those who would disagree with it because to do so would be to deny the beauty that exists in your words. The mere fact that what is written is related to a subject that the reader is interested in appears like a cherry on top of an already decked out hot fudge Sunday of pleasant and poetic word combinations with hot fudge on top. He explains art as aesthetical, not a surprise given his background in aesthetic movement. He explains highest criticism to be dealing with art as impressive rather than expressive. This make perfect sense because as a writer your criticisms are really are your impression. The way the art is expressed does affect your impression, but ultimately it is not what your criticism should be about.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Pauline Kael
There as always been controversy over the criticisms that have been provided by Pauline Kael during her time as a weekly movie critic for The New Yorker. As a critic, Ms. Kael used movies to show “us the work of art in some new relation to our age”, as Oscar Wilde put it. Pauline herself stated “I was often accused of writing about everything but the movie.”
It is true that Pauline experimented with the boarders between movie critic and social critic, the boarders between what type of film should or shouldn’t be reviewed (Deep Throat); there are really few barriers in critical writing that Ms. Kael did not confront. An explorer in the field of movie critics, she had no particular movie preferences and could easily stomach and enjoy even lowbrow comedy.
But looking closely at her reviews and at her interview in Afterglow, where she describes some of the reasoning behind her work, there are a lot of movies that have done quite well that she has panned (American Beauty, Star Wars) and gone against the crowd, and then there are other films which seemed like they deserved less credit but received more.
It is complicated to keep track of what Ms. Kael’s taste is because it may revolve more around the social context that the movie is platformed on than the movie itself. Top Gun was seen as homoerotic instead of the classic, and Hiroshima Mon Amour, positively heralded throughout the media, was suggested by Ms. Kael to be the educated audience’s “wish fulfillment in the form of cheap and easy congratulation on their sensitivities and their liberalism,” but Barbra Streisand’s Funny Girl was given a “Bravo!” Perhaps an understanding of her opinion will always elude us.
It is evident that a great deal of actors, directors and movie-goers will not agree with her opinion and that is okay because the success of a critic is not measured by the degree of accuracy they have to the general public’s opinion or to the actual truth. Pauline Kael did a superb job of what Oscar Wilde calls “setting a mood.”
This, he explains, is what art is about and this is what Ms. Kael was great at. She would take a film, decide if she liked it or not, figure out the social context that it represented and then as Adler says “Then there began to be quirks, mannerism, in particular in certain compulsive and joyless naughtiness.”
Pauline Kael was daring, naughty, fun, pretentious, witty, and had a unique taste in movies perhaps only perfectly compatible with Francis Davis. Her vast reserves of knowledge about movies that are forgotten today, the movies of the sixties, seventies, eighties, may grant her some insight into films that escapes the rest of us. Ms. Kael had practically become a film Guru. It showed that she loved her medium and was happy to write about it with a creativity that spawned from her genuine criticism and did what a movie critic’s job is anyways. Ms. Kael entertained her readers, not matter what.
It is true that Pauline experimented with the boarders between movie critic and social critic, the boarders between what type of film should or shouldn’t be reviewed (Deep Throat); there are really few barriers in critical writing that Ms. Kael did not confront. An explorer in the field of movie critics, she had no particular movie preferences and could easily stomach and enjoy even lowbrow comedy.
But looking closely at her reviews and at her interview in Afterglow, where she describes some of the reasoning behind her work, there are a lot of movies that have done quite well that she has panned (American Beauty, Star Wars) and gone against the crowd, and then there are other films which seemed like they deserved less credit but received more.
It is complicated to keep track of what Ms. Kael’s taste is because it may revolve more around the social context that the movie is platformed on than the movie itself. Top Gun was seen as homoerotic instead of the classic, and Hiroshima Mon Amour, positively heralded throughout the media, was suggested by Ms. Kael to be the educated audience’s “wish fulfillment in the form of cheap and easy congratulation on their sensitivities and their liberalism,” but Barbra Streisand’s Funny Girl was given a “Bravo!” Perhaps an understanding of her opinion will always elude us.
It is evident that a great deal of actors, directors and movie-goers will not agree with her opinion and that is okay because the success of a critic is not measured by the degree of accuracy they have to the general public’s opinion or to the actual truth. Pauline Kael did a superb job of what Oscar Wilde calls “setting a mood.”
This, he explains, is what art is about and this is what Ms. Kael was great at. She would take a film, decide if she liked it or not, figure out the social context that it represented and then as Adler says “Then there began to be quirks, mannerism, in particular in certain compulsive and joyless naughtiness.”
Pauline Kael was daring, naughty, fun, pretentious, witty, and had a unique taste in movies perhaps only perfectly compatible with Francis Davis. Her vast reserves of knowledge about movies that are forgotten today, the movies of the sixties, seventies, eighties, may grant her some insight into films that escapes the rest of us. Ms. Kael had practically become a film Guru. It showed that she loved her medium and was happy to write about it with a creativity that spawned from her genuine criticism and did what a movie critic’s job is anyways. Ms. Kael entertained her readers, not matter what.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Afterglow
Afterglow gives a differing perspective into the mind of Pauline Kael, a movie critic who made waves in movie criticism throughout her career. A reader usually doesn’t have a whole lot of background information about the person whose critique they are reading, although it would seem pertinent to do so to see how much weight their opinion should be have. But movie critiques have intentions and styles that are not determined from movie to movie. Pauline Kael liked taking a movie and making cultural critique out of it that embodied not just the movie itself but the public’s response to the movie. It is easy in Afterglow for her so seem arrogant in her opinions because with every movie that she thinks to be unappreciated she acts as if the viewers are simply stepping on their own toes. Her writing itself is entertaining to read and provides for a practical viewpoint of the movie.
For Pauline Kael movies are becoming more and more popular for being aesthetically pleasing than actually being original and daring. This is probably because that is the style from which Pauling Kael lived her own life but it brings forward a good point. Should a movie be good because it is easily entertaining and good looking? Perhaps it’s a mute point because a movie doesn’t change at all whatever our opinions may be.
For Pauline Kael movies are becoming more and more popular for being aesthetically pleasing than actually being original and daring. This is probably because that is the style from which Pauling Kael lived her own life but it brings forward a good point. Should a movie be good because it is easily entertaining and good looking? Perhaps it’s a mute point because a movie doesn’t change at all whatever our opinions may be.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
"Once" Review
Once is an independent film, shot simplistically with digital technology that combines a healthy blend of comedy, romance and desperation—on a budget of $160,000 using musicians doubling as actors, to help the story along. Both the film’s stars are experienced musicians, Glen Hansard himself started busking when he was just thirteen and Marketa Irglova started playing music at the age of seven.
The story is about a chance encounter between an Irish guy, Glen Hansard, employed at his father’s hoover repair shop by day and busking by night, and Czech immigrant, Marketa Irglova, who takes odd jobs selling flowers in the street to earn money to care for her mother and daughter. Throughout the film, Hansard and Irglova remain unnamed, appearing finally as Guy and Girl in the credits. Both are interested in music and it is this shared passion that leads them together through a strange series of events, ultimately concluding with the creation of an album foreshadowed to be Guy’s big break as his pending move to London nears. These events are shadowed by the romance that grows between them but is held back by their lingering past relationships.
Built on a small budget the movie was filmed digitally and in a very simple style that meant that it was up to the actors to create the story. The perspective that the film gives acts firmly as a passive objective observer to the story at hand. In this way the events are allowed to tell the story without needing any fancy cinematography to accentuate. In one scene they enjoy dinner with some friends in which afterwards each person sings. The scene is very personal and exclusive. This is a style that produces an entertainingly intimate movie.
Most of the scenes take place in ordinary settings, like a bus or the street, and gives the movie a down to earth feeling. There are no real mega twists in the plotline nor is the script extravagant. Everything would seem rather basic and bland were it not for the music.
Once is musical but it is not a musical. Musicals are characterized by an obvious replacement of music for normal communications and conversations. Although there is still communicative significance to the songs in the film, they are executed in a more personal music for the sake of music style, versus music for the sake of continuing the plotline.
John Carney and Hansard should be commended, directing and composing the movie and the music, respectively: both elements carrying equal weight in its success. Simplicity itself is its beauty and it is brought to life through its music, charged with the character’s emotions behind it. Its hard to place this film in any one category, not a musical, not a comedy, not really a romance and not totally tragic—it seems that it is just like life: a healthy blend of them all.
The story is about a chance encounter between an Irish guy, Glen Hansard, employed at his father’s hoover repair shop by day and busking by night, and Czech immigrant, Marketa Irglova, who takes odd jobs selling flowers in the street to earn money to care for her mother and daughter. Throughout the film, Hansard and Irglova remain unnamed, appearing finally as Guy and Girl in the credits. Both are interested in music and it is this shared passion that leads them together through a strange series of events, ultimately concluding with the creation of an album foreshadowed to be Guy’s big break as his pending move to London nears. These events are shadowed by the romance that grows between them but is held back by their lingering past relationships.
Built on a small budget the movie was filmed digitally and in a very simple style that meant that it was up to the actors to create the story. The perspective that the film gives acts firmly as a passive objective observer to the story at hand. In this way the events are allowed to tell the story without needing any fancy cinematography to accentuate. In one scene they enjoy dinner with some friends in which afterwards each person sings. The scene is very personal and exclusive. This is a style that produces an entertainingly intimate movie.
Most of the scenes take place in ordinary settings, like a bus or the street, and gives the movie a down to earth feeling. There are no real mega twists in the plotline nor is the script extravagant. Everything would seem rather basic and bland were it not for the music.
Once is musical but it is not a musical. Musicals are characterized by an obvious replacement of music for normal communications and conversations. Although there is still communicative significance to the songs in the film, they are executed in a more personal music for the sake of music style, versus music for the sake of continuing the plotline.
John Carney and Hansard should be commended, directing and composing the movie and the music, respectively: both elements carrying equal weight in its success. Simplicity itself is its beauty and it is brought to life through its music, charged with the character’s emotions behind it. Its hard to place this film in any one category, not a musical, not a comedy, not really a romance and not totally tragic—it seems that it is just like life: a healthy blend of them all.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Writer’s Strike
In a battle between any two forces the winner will always be the one that has the upper hand, of course. The writer’s strike however is in the midst of confusion. People are relatively up to date on how much money is being lost and whether or not the Oscars will take place as usual. But there has been an absence of discussion about which of the two has the upper hand.
While not completely certain, it is suspected that the
Steinem Review
What Gloria Steinem is talking about in her article is what we real people call a “non-issue” or rather an issue that really isn’t important at all. Instead it takes attention away from the issues that really that do matter.
Shouldn’t presidents be elected based on merit and not because of their gender? When voters cast their ballots letting gender factor into their decision it benefits
I think what really worries Steinem is simply that the race isn’t looking great for
ticket.
Zinsser Review
William Zinsser does a superb job of putting the importance of art today into context and provides an almost friction free guideline for both reviewing and criticizing. He doesn’t give absolute rules of dos and don’ts from some invisible writers manual. Instead he shares tips that are valuable and justifies them each with a proper explanation that gives him clarity. After sifting through the difference between the reviewer and the critic, he provides three principles that apply for both: enjoy the medium you are writing about, don’t give away too much of the plot and use specific detail.
To emphasize the validity of his guidance he shows examples of great pieces of writing that reflect the suggestions that he already made. The examples, from Virgil Thomson, a music critic from 1940-1954 for the New York Herald Tribune, John Leonard on Michener’s The Covenant, and Cynthia Ozick on the legacy of T.S. Eliot, are diverse enough to help display a broad spectrum of applicability for all of his advice. Zinsser concludes by going into depth with each example showing the reader why the excerpt qualifies as a good piece of writing. The article was very well constructed, providing clear context, advice and applicability for anyone who wishes to critique and review.
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