The Frame

American Movie Critics: Alexander Bakshy

On November 11, 2014

[Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs.]

We made it to the sound era! Barely. Alexander Bakshy was the first film critic for The Nation, and he was known even in his lifetime for his prescience – this piece proves that, as he stands up for the future of sound cinema in 1929, when most critics and film writers were wringing their hands that this gimmick called sound was destroying cinema as they knew it. And well, they weren’t wrong – silent cinema was made obsolete incredibly quickly, but Bakshy is bullish on the evolution, absolutely sure that sound cinema would find its footing and move cinema into a new and better era.

But if naysayers about sound cinema were wrong and Bakshy was right, what can we extrapolate about the way critics treat new technology (say, for example…3D) in our own day? Ryan and I grapple with a lot here under Bakshy’s inspiration.

JANDY HARDESTY:
You mentioned to me on Twitter after reading the Alexander Bakshy piece that it’s a perfect companion to the Mencken piece we read a few weeks ago. At that point, I hadn’t read it yet, but you were absolutely right! Where Mencken was hung up on the “idiotic and irritating technic” of editing, Bakshy welcomes the technical innovation of sound, even though he seems to acknowledge that not much had been done with it yet by 1929 (which was true). Mencken was stuck in the theatrical past, while Bakshy has a prophetic stance toward the possibilities of the future.

Interestingly, just from reading the little intro in the book, I was prepared for Bakshy to be another skeptic – a quote from his final review in 1933 is cited, where he calls the general output of Hollywood an “incessant flow of bilge.” I wish we had that full review anthologized here as well, because in this piece about the Talkies, he seems quite definitely, if cautiously, confident in the future of cinema.

American Movie Critics: H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

By Jandy

On October 21, 2014

In American Movie Critics, Film

[Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs.]

We’re coming to the end of the silent era, and we cap it off with one of the most tantalizing and intriguing essays we’ve come across so far, about a film that both Ryan and I have seen – Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Jeanne d’Arc. Sometimes critics declare films to be masterpieces, and time doesn’t bear them out, or they dismiss films that are later revived as classics. Here we have a fascinating case of a critic (Hilda Doolittle, who was primarily a poet who published under her initials H.D.) who declares Jeanne d’Arc to be a masterpiece, and yet her review is an encapsulation of the emotional turmoil the film put her through, and her simultaneous appreciation of and resistance to the film. Her poetic side comes through in her turns of phrase throughout, but also in her sensibility – she values her troubled subjective experience of the film over a firm judgement of its objective quality. Ryan confessed during our conversation that he read the piece twice; I think I’ve read it four or five times now, partially to refamiliarize myself with it while writing, but also because I find it simply the most amazing thing we’ve read in the anthology so far. I would write criticism like this if I had the talent. As it is, I’m eternally grateful to Phillip Lopate for including it in this anthology so I knew to read it.

RYAN McNEIL:
When we discussed Carl Sandburg, you mentioned the way enthusiasm shone through in his writing. So today we have another poet, and again we’re met with another burst of enthusiasm. Do you think there’s something to be said about artists commenting and critiquing on other art forms? I don’t imagine it would always be as effusive as what Sandburg wrote before or what Hilda Doolittle writes here…but is there perhaps a creative spark that an artist latches on to that a journalist – or even an appreciator of the medium – wouldn’t?

JANDY HARDESTY:
There’s definitely something more expressionistic about both Sandburg’s and H.D.’s pieces in the anthology. I don’t think this piece on The Passion of Jeanne d’Arc is strictly speaking a review in the same sense of the weekly consumer reviews that Sandburg was writing, but they both have a commitment to the subjective, to the experiential, and to a certain turn of phrase that set them apart from many of their more prosaic contemporaries.

RYAN:
I was also amazed to see her begin her piece by planting such a positive flag in the ground:

The Passion and Death of a Saint is a film that caused me more unrest, more spiritual forebodings, more intellectual rackings, more emotional torment than any I have yet seen. [39]

Now to be fair, Doolittle was being affected by what remains a benchmark in the medium…so we can hardly question how deeply she was affected. However, what caught me about this opening statement is how boldly it comes out swinging in the affirmative. It’s rare that this happens – why is that?

American Movie Critics: H.L. Mencken

By Jandy

On October 8, 2014

In American Movie Critics, Film

Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs.

Thus far on our journey through the American Movie Critics anthology, we’ve read poets and playwrights, psychologists and literary critics, weekly reviewers and moonlighters, but by and large all of the pieces we’ve read have been enthusiastic about the movies. With influential essayist H.L. Mencken, we hit our first outright cynic. Based on my quick Wikipedia skim, it sounds like Mencken was generally a skeptic, with a lively writing style and a quick wit, though he usually took government and religion as his targets rather than cinema. You might think this would have us in for a tough read this week, but nothing could be further from the truth, as Ryan and I found a lot to talk about in this one.

JANDY HARDESTY:
After a bunch of largely enthusiastic pieces, we at last come to a real cinema skeptic in H.L. Mencken. I’ve obviously heard of Mencken in connection with his non-film writing, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him before, so I have no preconception of his work at all.

We talked in another one of these posts about humility in criticism, and whether a critic should allow for other viewpoints in reviews – here Mencken clearly isn’t doing that, and while it may make his opinion ultimately less persuasive (since we’re likely to disagree with him from our vantage point), I think it makes the article, as a piece of writing, rather stronger. Agree with him or not, there’s no question what he thinks, and I appreciate that he owns it.

RYAN McNEIL:
In reading Mencken’s piece, I was immediately envisioning a man who is a curmudgeon. If he were around today, I wager he’d pose that rock & roll died after 1977. The funny thing is that his take on technology sounded so darned familiar. It’s amazing to think that this piece is from the 1920’s because I swear I’ve read pieces that seem to paraphrase these very thoughts, but written this century.

JANDY:
Mencken’s writing style is highly acerbic and confrontational, and I think his conclusions are wrong, but I found this first truly negative piece in the anthology to be very entertaining. He basically argues that editing is ruining movies, as it breaks up scenes into confusing parts and interrupts actors so they have no time to truly act, but merely posture and react. (Keep in mind he’s complaining about shots lasting no longer than six or seven seconds – today’s average shot length in Hollywood is somewhere around 3-4 seconds). Do you think Mencken’s concerns have any ongoing merit, any corrective for American cinema, or is he just wrong-headed here?

The Night Circus on Stories, Pt 2

By Jandy

On October 4, 2014

In Commonplace

“It is important,” the man in the grey suit interrupts. “Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they never can predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that.” He takes another sip of his wine. “There are many kinds of magic, after all.”

– Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

The Night Circus on Stories, Pt 1

By Jandy

On October 4, 2014

In Commonplace

“Stories have changed, my dear boy,” the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. “There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story? Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act? Though perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with his prey.”

– Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus