the cult of sincerity is an independent film about hipster culture and postmodernist irony set in williamsburg in brooklyn , new york .

it was released in its entirety on youtube on april 8 , 2008 , making it the first time that youtube had partnered with filmmakers for a film premiere .

the film was later released as a digital download , with some of the proceeds going to the charity fount of mercy .

the filmmakers collaborated with amie street , a digital music site for indie musicians , to help pay for the production .

the cult of sincerity

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here is a trailer for our film ,
the cult of sincerity .
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the cult of sincerity will also be available for portable download for a nominal fee of $ 3 . over half of the funds raised will be given to fount of mercy , a charity that raises money for children in africa .
that we should look to understand his moment in the dialectic of sincerity . [
the cult of sincerity is a video starring daniel pettrow , mercer boffey , and jenn dees . a new york hipster sets out on a a quest to create the most sincere t - shirt ever .
his sincerity is unavoidably contaminated from the beginning by the anticipation of the effect it will have upon the other .
made issues of sincerity , authenticity , and irony increasingly crucial as the century advanced .
laughs from underground from jerry lewis to an animated jesus , a look at some other cult obsessions among comedians .
an intellectual and off - beat comedy set in new york , the film ' s main character , joseph , starts a
cult of sincerity
to confront the perceived unhappiness , cynicism , and boredom of his generation .
the rocky horror picture show ( 1975 ) the granddaddy of cult films — one that encourages reenactments , rice - throwing , and cross - dressing .
tired of the bored , snobby , passionless mindset of the hipster generation ? well , so were filmmakers adam browne and brendan choisnet , so much so that they were inspired to create the cult of sincerity . don’t worry , there are no kool - aid drinkers or matching uniforms in this movie . instead , the cult of sincerity is a film that chronicles a twentysomething named joseph in his quest to stop being cynical and start giving back to the world around him .
, van alphen and bal argue that in a post - theory age
the issue of sincerity is no longer one of ' being ' sincere but of ' doing ' sincerity
( rs 16 ) . leonard is
doing
sincerity here , yet
, which i argue instantiates a new brand of sincerity in a formal and performative manner . my reading of
but wallace ' s overt preoccupation with irony alongside sincerity differentiates him from his forebear and marks his work as a further turn in the dialectic of sincerity . if for trilling , in other words , the key concept that opposed sincerity was authenticity , for wallace it was irony . this shift alters the theoretical foundations and cultural connotations of sincerity , and it is also what makes the novel
it is no coincidence that trilling and wallace both turned to the concept of sincerity to defend their versions of liberalism . for by the time
it is part of my argument that david foster wallace bridges these two positions , combining the cultivation of sincerity as a poetic value with an awareness of the materialistically determined construction of sincerity as a convention . although the sentiments expressed in
e unibus pluram ,
particularly the clarion call for sincerity at its conclusion , make wallace sound like a wannabe wordsworth , his literary fiction is equally close in spirit to byron in its ironic awareness of its own artificiality and inability to attain a pure sincerity . like trilling , wallace praises sincerity while recognizing its difficulty , yet wallace ' s notion of sincerity updates trilling ' s more nostalgic conception , making sincerity responsive to changes in media technology , to new theories of language , and to contemporary conceptions of truth .
the place where wallace ' s highly developed thinking on sincerity could find its most telling manifestation .
still , what makes this movie different from any other is the nature of its release . set to come out april 8 , you’ll be able to enjoy the cult of sincerity over and over again via youtube . this will be the first time ever that the video sharing site has teamed up with filmmakers to premier a film .
requires a concomitant rejection of an understanding of sincerity as the pure and uninfluenced emanation of the self . in place of this understanding is the embrace of a range of learned behaviors that connect one to one ' s community , and the adoption of a new set of values that can be held sincerely without that sincerity presuming the rejection of communal and institutional influence in order to maintain oneself as authentic and apart .
angela esterhammer ,
the scandal of sincerity : wordsworth , byron , landon ,
in romanticism , sincerity and authenticity , ed . milnes and sinanan , 101 - 19 ( 104 - 5 ) . [ ↩ ]
takes up the middle section of the article , and it is flanked on one side by an overview of the relationships between sincerity , irony and theory in the period before the publication of the novel , and on the other by an overview of wallace ' s influence on the fiction of his generational peers . the article concludes with a consideration of the political consequences of wallace ' s revival of sincerity , leading me back full circle to trilling and his mid - century liberal world .
who explore a set of urgent questions about the meaning of life and the task of the human .
quality , not quantity - a story of sincerity ᴴᴰ ┇ # thelittle ┇ by dr . mohannad hakeem ┇ tdr ┇
but the problem of arguing for belief , commitment , and sincerity under a model of language without prior subjects would nonetheless prove a tricky one . one way to put the problem ( a problem unanticipated in the work of trilling ) is as follows : can one maintain an ideal and practice of sincerity without a grounding notion of expressive subjectivity ?
david foster wallace was very much an artist in this mode , and the themes , forms and contradictions of his fiction mark a new turn in the dialectic of a culture and the dialectic of sincerity .
here , it appears , is an act of pure sincerity , trilling ' s
congruence between avowal and actual feeling
( sa 2 ) , the showing of one ' s inside on one ' s outside . sincerity exposes the self by asking for a response from the other
henri peyre , literature and sincerity ( new haven : yale university press , 1963 ) ; patricia m . ball ,
sincerity : the rise and fall of a critical term ,
modern language review 59 ( 1964 ) : 1 - 11 ; david perkins , wordsworth and the poetry of sincerity ( cambridge , ma : harvard university press , 1964 ) ; donald davie ,
on sincerity : from wordsworth to ginsburg ,
encounter ( oct 1968 ) : 61 - 65 , and
sincerity and poetry
( 1965 ) , in speaking of writing : selected hopwood lectures , ed . nicholas delbanco , ( ann arbor , mi : university of michigan press , 1990 ) : 209 - 17 ; herbert read , the cult of sincerity ( london : faber & faber , 1968 ) ; patricia meyer spacks ,
in search of sincerity ,
college english 29 ( 1968 ) : 591 - 602 ; leon guilhamet , the sincere ideal : studies in eigtheenth - century english literature ( montreal : mcgill - queen ' s university press , 1974 ) . [ ↩ ]
in the case of wallace , it is better to call his conception of sincerity paradoxical and dialectical all at once . this is a possibility trilling himself permitted to the artist in one of the most memorable passages in
that makes the notion suspect to the new anti - social temperament . trilling , drawing most directly on the critique of sincerity as bad faith found in the work of jean - paul sartre , puts the problem as follows :
the buddhafield was full of them . allen never says how he was first invited to live on a new age commune somewhere on the outskirts of california , but it’s immediately clear why the place appealed to him . founded on basic principles of clean living , paid work , and hours of voluntary pro bono service for fellow devotees ( and local quadriplegics ) , this unthreatening idyll was designed to seduce the dreamy and dispossessed . as one of the film’s talking heads remembers thinking at the time : “if this was a cult , at least it was a really good cult . ”
of course , gaddis and trilling were far from alone among intellectuals and writers of their time in drawing attention to the cultural importance of sincerity and authenticity in the postwar united states . the questions that gaddis was probing in
the dialectic of sincerity is an important topic in its own right , but it is also significant in offering a window onto broader cultural themes . the concern with sincerity that differently shapes both trilling ' s and wallace ' s work points to an overriding concern in both writers with the fragmentation of american social and institutional life in the last third of the twentieth century
in employing literature as the primary ground for his historical exploration of sincerity , trilling ' s study was likewise part of a stream of similar work in this period on both sides of the atlantic . beginning around 1963 , critics including patricia ball , donald davie , david perkins , henri peyre , herbert read , and patricia meyer spacks wrote on the connection between sincerity and literary aesthetics ; following the publication of
an intellectual and off - beat comedy set in new york , the films main character , joseph , starts a
cult of sincerity
to confront the perceived unhappiness , cynicism , and boredom of his generation . he wants to find something to believe in , something simple enough to put on a t - shirt . reminiscent of don quixote , joseph sets off to find the most genuine thing you could ever say to someone .
at the end of “emotional technologies , ” an essay about s & m that shifts between first - person and third - person narratives of her own life , kraus calls it “naïve” to assume that “speaking in the first person necessarily connotes any kind of truth , sincerity . ” kraus questions the sincerity of the first - person—the flip - side of her search for authentic feeling inside performance . s & m is performative , but kraus finds sincerity in it ; first - person _ feels _ more sincere but is no less a show .
this film really made me think and i ' m sure it will change my life for the better . at least i hope so . although i am not usually a fan of contemporary movies because so few of them are worthwhile ,
cult
is an exception . and , don ' t be turned off by the inclusion of the word
cult
in the title . this is in no way a wierd or creepy film . it makes serious points in a very entertaining way . it is worth your time . g - cool
the first wave of
sincerity studies
in the 1960s and 1970s focused on wordsworth and recognized him , against an eighteenth - century background , as the first poet to cultivate sincerity as a poetic value . a recent , second wave , which is much more likely to adopt byron as its model , interprets sincerity as a code or convention , thereby historicizing romanticism as a movement defined by its materialistically determined construction of its own values . 24
in a review - essay that serves as an important addendum to sincerity and authenticity , peter berger places trilling ' s ideas in a wider sociological context , and in doing so comments directly on the institutional meaning of the shift to authenticity :
the transition from sincerity to authenticity is the ideational correlate of the modernization of institutions . the progressive sharpening of the tension between self and society implied by the transition points directly to a progressive crisis in the institutions of modernity .
peter l . berger ,
' sincerity ' and ' authenticity ' in modern society ,
the public interest 31 ( 1973 ) : 81 - 90 ( 84 - 85 ) . this helps us to see why wallace ' s reconstruction of sincerity is simultaneously a renewal of institutional life , and why one depends upon the other . [ ↩ ]
( 1961 ) . sociologists such as david riesman , c . wright mills , erving goffman and william whyte explored notions of sincerity , authenticity , and performance in theorizing the lives of the increasingly bureaucratized middle class of the mid - century era .
van alphen and bal ,
introduction
to the rhetoric of sincerity , 1 - 16 ( 16 ) . hereafter cited as parenthetically in the text as rs . [ ↩ ]
in support of trilling ' s claim about the emergence of a moral discourse of sincerity in the sixteenth century , see john martin ,
inventing sincerity , refashioning prudence : the discovery of the individual in renaissance europe ,
american historical review 102 ( 1997 ) : 1304 - 42 ; and jane taylor ,
' why do you tear me from myself ? ' : torture , truth , and the arts of the counter - reformation ,
in the rhetoric of sincerity , ed . ernst van alphen , mieke bal and carel smith ( stanford , ca : stanford university press , 2009 ) , 19 - 43 . [ ↩ ]
in some respects , “ holy hell ” is unlike any other movie ever made . its access , its span , and the sheer eccentricity of its chief subject seem to place it in the rarefied territory of inimitable one - offs like “grey gardens” or “titicut follies . ” and yet , the extremely conventional means by which allen and his collaborators have distilled this footage into a coherent 100 - minute narrative underscores the strange contradiction at the heart of this seemingly singular film : every cult is different , but every cult is the same . allen’s story is so wild that you can’t believe it actually happened . so why does it feel so familiar ?
the faculty of ' taste ' has re - established itself at the centre of the experience of art
( sa 98 ) . [
. at the outset of the book , based on his charles eliot norton lectures at harvard , trilling defines sincerity as
a congruence between avowal and actual feeling
and traces its emergence in
the moral life of europe
to the early modern period .
of ensuring truth to others . trilling goes on to claim that this consequentialist conception of sincerity would become
a salient , perhaps a definitive , characteristic of western culture for some four hundred years
( sa 6 ) .
lionel trilling , sincerity and authenticity ( oxford : oxford university press , 1972 ) , 2 . hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as sa . [ ↩ ]
but the cultural turn away from sincerity and toward authenticity that trilling describes can be understood in retrospect as a last - ditch attempt to react in the world of private relations to a public tide that could not be stemmed . by the time
adam kelly is a lecturer in american literature at the university of york , uk . he is the author of american fiction in transition : observer - hero narrative , the 1990s , and postmodernism ( bloomsbury , 2013 ) and is currently at work on a book about the aesthetics and politics of sincerity in contemporary american fiction .
the room has even infiltrated the halls of cinematic academia . ”it is one of the most important films of the past decade , ” says ross morin , an assistant professor of film studies at st . cloud state university in minnesota . ”it exposes the fabricated nature of hollywood . the room is the citizen kane of bad movies . ”
madeleine ' s hopes , reminiscent of the early illusions of many a young heroine of nineteenth - century fiction , but also recalling , in the presumed opposition between sincerity and strategy , the complexities of infinite jest , are soon dashed when leonard responds
with a look not of love but of annoyance
( mp 65 ) . as early as the next page , however , the couple have made up spectacularly , and madeleine again acts impulsively during a moment of high passion :
was published in 1996 , the awareness was complete , for wallace and his generation of writers , that the fight to preserve personal authenticity had proven impossible , so much did advertising and consumerism proliferate in the daily private lives of americans . what remains possible , in wallace ' s fiction , is the reconstruction of new forms of sincerity , with the artwork as a model of interpersonal connection , and what he called
the democratic spirit
as a goal of political life .
meanwhile , the cult of the room grows . increasingly , the laemmle sunset 5 shows the movie on two screens , due to demand . fans have begun to re - create scenes and post them on youtube . wiseau is mulling the possibility of turning the film into a broadway musical and would like to dub it in french and spanish for a possible european theatrical release . he also , ambitiously , wants to screen the room at the staples center , which has a seating capacity of 20 , 000 . ”we live in america . so everything is possible ! ” he says .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
but by the twentieth century it had gone into sharp decline , superseded by the ideal of authenticity , which conceives truth to the self as an end and not simply as a means . the goal of authenticity is self - examination rather than other - directed communication ; authenticity is therefore not about playing a role , and it is precisely the public orientation underlying sincerity
the sound of music ( 1965 ) the l . a . hills are alive with the sound of you - know - what at the hollywood bowl’s sing - along .
the aristocrats for years , comedians have amused themselves seeing who can tell the filthiest version of this joke , which was commemorated in the 2005 doc of the same name .
but all of this positive energy has to orbit around something , or someone , and this particular cult of personality centers on a vaguely foreign spiritual guru who evinces all the sincerity of a monorail salesman . named michel , but more frequently referred to as “the teacher , ” this guy doesn’t look like the gatekeeper to enlightenment so much as he does the steroidal lovechild of bronson pinchot and joan rivers . hairless , rippled , and often seen wearing nothing besides a spandex speedo and a pair of ray - ban sunglasses , michel radiates positive energy as he leads his blissed out flock through guided meditations or bastardized hindu rituals . “wherever you are is where happiness is , ” he tells them , the thinly disguised subtext being that his followers won’t find happiness anywhere else . it isn’t long before the ranks of buddhafield members begin to swell as noticeably as the bulge in michel’s bathing suit .
. of one particular sentence , martin writes ,
in the first part , in his stress on ' a concord and harmony of the heart and the tongue , ' calvin ' s ideas were consonant with those of medieval writers . but the second part of the passage , in its emphasis on the ideal of speech as ' a lively image of the inward affection , ' presents a profoundly new ideal , rooted in the new renaissance emphasis on the expressive subjectivity of the individual
( 1332 ) . [
constitutes , at least in some significant moments , a more sophisticated attempt to merge the conventions of realism with some of the complex concerns with sincerity articulated in wallace ' s fiction . in order to show this , i will focus on a five - page segment of the novel ( 65 - 69 ) : this segment concludes the opening movement narrated from the point of view of madeleine hanna ( the novel ' s isabel archer ) , and then switches to narrating the consciousness of its other main viewpoint character , mitchell grammaticus ( its caspar goodwood ) . madeleine ' s love affair with leonard is entering its first moment of crisis , and as she feels leonard pull away from her emotionally she acts out of desperation , calling in unexpectedly on him late one night in his biology lab .
madeleine had the crazy hope ,
the narrator tells us ,
that this expression of weakness might in fact be strength . it was a brilliant strategy because it lacked all strategy . it involved no games , only sincerity . seeing such sincerity , how could leonard fail to respond ?
is that the world outside institutions is inhospitable to the contemporary individual . responding to the question of what makes the aa program different to institutional brainwashing , don gately thinks to himself that
the program might be more like deprogramming than actual washing , considering the psychic job the disease ' s spider has done on all of them
( ij 369 ) . a minor character , bruce green , agrees :
if boston aa is a cult that like brainwashes you , he guesses he ' d got himself to the point where his brain needed a good brisk washing
( ij 562 ) .
late - night showings of cult films such as the rocky horror picture show and the big lebowski are known for their rowdy and strange behavior too . but people who go to see rocky horror and lebowski think those films are good . tonight’s movie , an obscure , five - year - old drama called the room , holds a different place in the hearts of those present at west hollywood’s laemmle sunset 5 . ”it’s absolutely terrible , ” says chris bonk , a talent - agency assistant who has seen the film more than 15 times . ”the script is not the best . the acting is certainly not the best . the music is horrible . ”
spent 22 years making his first feature , but he didn’t have any idea he was working on it until it was nearly in the can . a failed film student who was indoctrinated into a bizarre cult and served as its de facto cameraman for the two decades that followed , allen emerged from the grip of his sociopathic guru with enough washed - out digital footage of pseudo - spiritual groupthink to cut together a shot - for - shot documentary remake of “the master . ” what he ultimately made from it is far less interesting .
it is this final claim , that the protagonist ' s consciousness and the realist framing blunt any experimental side to the novel , which i want to press upon here . if on the level of the plot it certainly seems plausible to read the collapse of leonard bankhead as an allegory for the dismissal of wallace ' s literary project , on the level of the novel ' s language
oxford university press is a department of the university of oxford . it furthers the university ' s objective of excellence in research , scholarship , and education by publishing worldwide
( new york : faber & faber , 2013 ) . in his epilogue , rodgers dates the end of the age of fracture
will allen circa 1985 was pretty much the ideal target for a cult . a flower child who was born a generation too late , allen came of age during the rise of the yuppies , and was forced to retreat to the far margins of society in order to find likeminded people . iced out of his family environment by a homophobic mother and left adrift after graduating from film school with no promise of a showbiz career , he’s the kind of guy who believes that there simply has to be a higher purpose for his life . narrating the home video footage that opens the film , allen blankly intones things like “i’ve always wanted to know why i’m here” and “i went to my great - grandmother’s open casket when i was four , and became fascinated by the concept of life and death . ”
these epithets recall in turn trilling ' s own remarks on the unlikelihood of any revival of sincerity in the culture he observed around him :
the word itself has lost most of its former high dignity . when we hear it , we are conscious of an anachronism which touches it with quaintness . if we speak it , we are likely to do so with either discomfort or irony
( sa 6 ) .
the day the clown cried in the ’90s , comedian patton oswalt held readings of this infamously terrible holocaust drama , until one of the producers sent a cease - and - desist order .
this is one of the central questions framed throughout the writing of david foster wallace , a major late - century inheritor of this postmodern age of irony and theory . wallace , who attended amherst college and the university of arizona in the early - to - mid 1980s , a period when theory was at its zenith of influence in the us academy , argued as early as his first published essay for the relevance of continental philosophy and literary theory
society requires of us that we present ourselves as being sincere , and the most efficacious way of satisfying this demand is to see to it that we really are sincere , that we actually are what we want our community to know we are . in short , we play the role of being ourselves , we sincerely act the part of the sincere person , with the result that a judgement may be passed upon our sincerity that it is not authentic . ( sa 10 - 11 )
sincerity became for wallace , as it had been for trilling , one name for a new , or renewed , literary and cultural practice . and while wallace never mentions trilling ' s name in his published work , his awareness of
in the recognitions , this is , essentially , esmé ' s judgment on otto ' s declaration of love : he may indeed be as sincere as he says he is , but his sincerity is not authentic , and is no replacement for the honesty with oneself that authenticity names . authenticity suggests , in trilling ' s summary ,
a more strenuous moral experience than ' sincerity ' does , a more exigent conception of the self and of what being true to it consists in , a wider reference to the universe and man ' s place in it , and a less acceptant and genial view of the social circumstances of life
( sa 11 ) . and gaddis ' s novel could not be less genial in its treatment of mid - century american society and those who inhabit it , making constant analogies between forgeries in the art world and the forgery of the self that is everywhere prevalent in the world of social relations as gaddis sees it .
that he viewed as being under threat by the authenticity - obsessed radical movements of the 1960s .
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leslie jamison is the author of “ the gin closet , ” “ the empathy exams , ” and “ the recovering : intoxication and its aftermath . ”
all these novelists found the roots of their critique in kafka , and that critique was taken up independently in the work of althusser and foucault , before going on to characterize large swathes of literary theory , most notably the new historicism . but the negative representation of the institution across this body of work has recently received a corrective , with a significant strand of contemporary thinking acknowledging the power of interpellation by institutions while attempting to give a more balanced and even positive account of institutional life . perhaps the most prominent example of this trend in american literary studies is mark mcgurl ' s
no longer was it possible to confront the self head - on in the old ways , without recognition of the way this confrontation is mediated not only by language and genre , but also by institution and community . this downplaying of individualism in favor of community and institutionality makes it far from irrelevant , then , that wallace ' s art does not produce a religio - anarchist politics in line with dostoevsky ' s . wallace associated anarchism with the ironic attitude of the postmodernist generation , and instead defended a form of democratic liberalism in line with his commitment to a new and complex form of sincerity .
was published in 1972 , the coherent public sphere that the concept of sincerity invokes and undergirds was under attack not only from the radical movements trilling inveighs against , but also from the bureaucratic and corporate culture that sociologists such as david riesman and c . wright mills describe in their work . what mills termed
a sacrifice of selfhood on a personality market
was already revealing itself , in the postwar context , as a great threat not only to liberalism but to the very structure of american democracy .
well , how does any cult happen ? power is power , and it always works the same way . the tools may change , but the process of twisting vulnerabilities into blind devotion is always the same . a figures tells his disciples that they are not simple creatures , and then he heels them into being his dogs . there’s no doubt that this was a soul - scorching experience for those who survived it , but on screen it plays like cults - by - numbers ( an impression that’s cemented by the film’s linear progression and chintzy score ) .
see in particular the closing chapter of sincerity and authenticity ,
the authentic unconscious .
for an important recent defense of trilling ' s liberal approach to literature against reflex radical positions , see amanda anderson ,
the liberal aesthetic ,
in theory after ' theory , ' ed . jane elliott and derek attridge ( london : routledge , 2011 ) , 249 - 61 . [ ↩ ]
this is not to say that for trilling the self is necessarily whole : he takes freud ' s conception of the unconscious very seriously as a challenge to the notion that the authentic self is autonomous and undivided . but one only has to compare the version of freud presented by trilling , wherein the truth of the self is primarily psychological , with the revisionist versions presented by lacan or derrida , who emphasize the role of language , to see the distance between trilling and theory . [ ↩ ]
and the words
i love you
spoken during passionate lovemaking represent the apotheosis of this appeal to the responsive other . hence the
sense of peril
that
edges
madeleine ' s hoarse voice . but leonard ' s response demonstrates that there is another kind of peril at stake here , one that cuts deeper by questioning whether madeleine can mean what she says at all , and whether the simplicity that madeleine assumes lies at the heart of sincerity in fact dissimulates a more basic complexity . rather than respond in kind , leonard stays silent and reaches for the book madeleine has in her bag . it is
but what makes infinite jest the novel it is , rather than simply a representational drama of contemporary ideas about sincerity , is that the reader is made to participate in this process too . the first recounting of aa meetings in the text is prefigured by an opening five - page section in the narrator ' s own voice , which begins as follows :
if , by the virtue of charity or the circumstances of desperation , you ever chance to spend a little time around a substance - recovery halfway facility like enfield ma ' s state - funded ennet house , you will acquire many exotic new facts
( ij 200 ) . among these facts are the following :
( new york : columbia university press , 1957 ) , and joseph frank ' s series of biographies on dostoevsky , passim . on the first title page of his copy of
on the inside of the second flyleaf in dostoevsky : the miraculous years , 1865 - 1871 , the fourth volume of joseph frank ' s biography of the russian writer ( princeton , nj : princeton university press , 1995 ) , wallace writes :
sincerity & authenticity / or ' authenticity & sincerity ' / lionel trilling .
the reference comes in a list marked
classic dost
( presumably classic criticism on dostoevsky ) , alongside references to fellow new york intellectuals irving howe and philip rahv . of these figures , only rahv is mentioned in the main text of frank ' s book , which suggests either that wallace had already read the works he names by trilling , howe and rahv , or that his research for his village voice review of the frank biographies ( a review reprinted as
joseph frank ' s dostoevsky
in david foster wallace , consider the lobster [ london : abacus , 2005 ] , 255 - 74 ) led him to these names and texts . for more on wallace ' s relationship to dostoevsky , see section v below . [ ↩ ]
as we shall see , however , by the mid - 1970s the landscape had changed . theory had arrived in the us academy , and literary scholars began making themselves busy deconstructing the humanist conceptions of the self and literary expression that underlay the work of virtually all the mid - century critics , sociologists and writers i have just named .
might be apt for describing the era of dostoevsky or the european romantics , these terms had become thorny and problematic for those born in the postmodern age .
alongside a wish to reconstitute social and communal bonds in the wake of that fragmentation .
indeed , the novelization of these wordsworthian sentiments means that they are protected by an ironic ( and byronic ) awareness of their fictional status . their potential triteness is thus simultaneously embraced and held at a distance . at the heart of a work of seemingly avant - garde fiction thus sits an unillusioned acknowledgement of formula , alongside a barely repressed hope or belief that such formula need not entirely negate the expression of something genuine and real . 34 this makes infinite jest truly a novel for our times . how else , for example , can we imagine squaring our weary cynicism regarding the mediated quality of political sound bite culture with our yearning for something sincere to be expressed by our leaders nonetheless ? how else can we negotiate between our knowledge that all mediated performance is artificial and our need to judge and make decisions regardless ? wallace ' s novel employs complexity and impurity in the service of his text ' s sincerity , paradoxically mobilizing the contaminations of the fictional to access the true .
by the late - century american writer david foster wallace . in what follows , i present trilling and wallace as exemplifying two moments in what i call the dialectic of sincerity ; i argue that by tracking the historical movement from one writer to the other we can observe a shift in the cultural meaning of this concept . while i take as my premise that trilling and wallace can be understood to share a tradition , the tradition of american literary and intellectual history , it is not a negligible fact that one was primarily a critic and the other a novelist . partly for this reason , i place at the center of my argument not wallace ' s widely read manifesto essay of 1993 ,
e unibus pluram : television and u . s . fiction ,
but his 1996 novel
the pilot episode of amazon ' s the marvelous mrs . maisel is now on youtube by chris compendio december 20 , 2017
the present essay was substantially completed while i was a postdoctoral fellow at harvard university . i would like to acknowledge the feedback offered by members of the harvard american literature colloquium , and the ideas and enthusiasm of the students in my seminar on david foster wallace and his generation . i am also grateful for postdoctoral funding received from the irish research council , and for the ransom center fellowship i received to undertake work at the wallace archives at the university of texas - austin .
( new york : new york review of books editions , 2008 ) , x , xi . this
liberation
of taste from politics is something trilling himself recognized in the same footnote of
by 1993 , when he published the highly influential
e unibus pluram ,
wallace had homed in on irony as the central problem of the age . now he argued that the political edge that irony had retained for an earlier set of american writers
parataxis is a strange literary form , born at the beginning of the middle ages … flashing back and sideways , holding back the outcome of events , these tellers fracture old familiar and heroic tales into contradictory , multiple perspectives . it becomes impossible to move the story forward without returning to the past , and so the past both predicates the future and withholds it .
,
she reads the following words :
the figure refers not to the declaration of love , to the avowal , but to the repeated utterance of the love cry . [ . . . ] once the first avowal has been made , ' i love you ' has no meaning whatever . . .
( mp 67 ) . this is a theory of language entirely other to the one that undergirds madeleine ' s ( and trilling ' s ) understanding of sincerity , and it implies that language can betray the self rather than enable its expression . language , in other words , is
not a tool but an environment ,
an environment within which , as wittgenstein puts it in a line wallace quotes in interview ,
i don ' t know my way about .
13 ( 1993 ) : 127 - 50 ( 148 ) . much has already been written on wallace ' s relationship to irony , but critics have tended to follow certain gestures wallace makes in
e unibus pluram
and in the interview with mccaffery which suggest that a writer can choose whether to make language a tool of irony or a tool of sincerity , as if the difference involved were simply one of intent . for instance , marshall boswell argues that in wallace ' s fiction ,
hip irony is itself ironized in such a way that the opposite of hip irony
speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings , if there is a god .
in one of the earliest and most thorough criticisms of the aa model as the ideal solution to addiction in infinite jest , mary holland offers an exemplum of this institutional critique in her psychoanalytic emphasis on the trope of narcissism . narcissism is made institutional in the aa program because the addict is asked
blindly to submit his or her will to the universal experience of the program . when the program asks its members to ' identify ' with each other , it is requiring them to empathize with this standard story that each member tells , with their own story , with themselves . in this way , the aa and na programs ultimately ask not that members reach out to empathize with strangers but that they recognize their own place in this infinitely repeating sameness , the recursivity of addiction .
holland ,
' the art ' s heart ' s purpose , '
233 . on holland ' s account , it is not so much that the self is prevented from locating an outside to the institution , but that the institution supports the notion that there is no outside to the self . as will be clear from my reading in this section , i view holland ' s emphasis on narcissism as serving to reinforce critically , via psychoanalysis , the very norms of expressive subjectivity that infinite jest questions in its revised account of what constitutes sincerity . [ ↩ ]
when kept separate , these two styles of irony each allow space for the notion of an expressive subject , whether a socratic subject who questions accepted conventions or a romantic subject that raises itself creatively above the finite everyday . when threaded together in the work of derrida and others , however , these styles of irony would seem to make a prior expressive subjectivity impossible . anxiety over the political dimensions of this position on language and subjectivity spurred critics of derrida ' s work in the 1980s and encouraged derrida himself to foreground questions of ethics and politics in his later texts .
tommy wiseau insists that he ”really doesn’t know” how the film fared at the box office on its initial release . however , one industry source states that the combined gross from the two - week run at two theaters — the laemmle fallbrook and fairfax — was just $ 1 , 900 . michael rousselet , a young screenwriter who seems to be patient zero of the film’s cult , says he first caught the movie at an ”absolutely empty” theater . ”it was like our own private mystery science theater , ” he says . ”i was calling friends during the end and saying , ‘you have to come to this movie . ’ we saw it four times in three days , and on the last day i had over 100 people there . ” soon , screenings of the room were thick with both laughter and cutlery . ”the spoon thing probably started during the fourth screening with my friends , ” says rousselet . ”i was like , why is there a spoon in the picture frame ? every time it came up , i’d scream ‘spoon ! ’ so we brought spoons . ”
an image in a government briefing book helped a state department official see “the forest for the trees” in the west bank—and then was shared with the president .
for an analysis of the marathe - steeply conversational strand of the novel in which this larger political shift is debated most directly , see adam kelly ,
development through dialogue : david foster wallace and the novel of ideas ,
studies in the novel 44 . 3 ( 2012 ) : 267 - 83 . [ ↩ ]
that wallace ' s new sincerity works in paradoxical , complex , and even contradictory ways can be said to increase rather than diminish his importance for our time . writing of trilling , louis menand notes that
his characteristic sentences turn in on themselves ; they can sometimes seem self - negating ,
but that
[ t ] he cast of the mind that produced these sentences is not paradoxical ; it is dialectical .
neither of these assumptions about selfhood and language would emerge unscathed from the age of theory ' s hegemony , nor could irony continue to be conceived in older , stable forms . in her astute study of the theory and history of irony , claire colebrook suggests that
[ i ] rony may well be tied up with the long history of western subjectivism : the idea that behind language , actions , difference and communication there is a ground or subject
this brings us back full circle , of course , to trilling . the final claim of the present article is that the politics that emerge from wallace ' s fiction might be said to embody a sophisticated dialectical reimagining of trilling ' s brand of liberalism , what anthony hutchison has referred to as trilling ' s commitment to
ideas in modulation .
stupid . just badly done . the ideas are good but every part of the execution made it worthless . hope someone takes the idea and completely rewrites the script with nuanced characters and hires some real actors otherwise it’s great
has been a source of debate in scholarship on his work , but most critics generally agree with blackmur ' s description of the politics as
non - social ,
those of a man
whose way of dealing with life rested on the fundamental belief that a true rebirth , a great conversion , can come only after a great sin .
r . p . blackmur ,
in the birdcage : notes on the possessed of dostoevsky ,
the actress and director both love the genre , but as they told indiewire , they also knew it needed to be retrofitted to tell the true story of catherine weldon and sitting bull .
buy or rent on amazon urltoken . the tale of a new york hipster who sets out on a quest to create the most sincere t - shirt ever and in the process , jumpstart the lackluster generation to which he belongs . urltoken
wiseau followed up the room with 2004’s homeless in america , a loose but rather moving documentary about the plight of los angeles street dwellers . ”i wanted to show people that this exists , ” he says , with such sincerity that you want to hug him . ”because i myself did not know . my god ! ” wiseau is currently ”very , very busy” working on a number of future projects , including a sitcom called the neighbors , the pilot for which he has already shot . and his fame among comedians has started to pay dividends . wiseau recently filmed a sketch for the next season of tim and eric awesome show , great job ! ”he kind of took over the set , ” recalls star wareheim . ”he would yell , ‘rolling ! sound ! speed ! action ! ’ you could tell he had this feeling that he was a master of cinema . ”
lane and schoenbrun discuss how her interest in morgellons disease patients ( “the pain of others” ) and his exploration of the slenderman myth ( “a self - induced hallucination” ) led them to make archival films from youtubes .
many histories of the rise ( and fall ) of theory are now available . exemplary instances are nicholas birns , theory after theory : an intellectual history of literary theory from 1950 to the early 21st century ( new york : broadview press , 2010 ) ; and françois cusset , french theory : how foucault , derrida , deleuze , & co . transformed the intellectual life of the united states , trans . jeff fort ( minneapolis : university of minnesota press , 2008 ) . [ ↩ ]
on freedom ' s adherence to the liberal conventions of the realist novel and the problems this causes for its critique of overpopulation , see margaret hunt gram ,
freedom ' s limits : jonathan franzen , the realist novel , and the problem of growth .
american literary history 26 . 2 ( 2014 ) : 295 - 316 . on the corrections as a post - postmodern novel that deconstructs liberal selfhood , see stephen j . burn , jonathan franzen at the end of postmodernism ( london : continuum , 2008 ) , 88 - 128 . [ ↩ ]
( columbia , sc : university press of south carolina , 2003 ) , 17 . for mary holland , the question is likewise one of authorial intent , where the opponent is ambivalence and narcissistic addiction : don gately in
to the 2001 attacks on the world trade center . packer defines the unwinding in more generational terms :
if you were born around 1960 or afterward , you spent your adult life in the vertigo of this unwinding
( 3 ) . [
holding vulnerability “at some remove” in the face of those determined to read any act of self - disclosure as narcissistic or self - pitying . but as a reader , kraus makes me confront my own hunger for autobiographical access ; it makes me aware of how much i crave a sense of the true story beneath her written narratives , even as i respect the ways they refuse to deliver any kind of one - to - one correspondence between lived and constructed experience .
the mexican border , across the former soviet bloc . “summer of hate” starts at a desolate motel in baja ; large chunks of “aliens & anorexia” take place at the berlin film festival ; much of “torpor” involves journeying across romania in search of an orphan . in “i love dick , ” kraus describes the intense porousness of a schizophrenic mind—“the world gets creamy like a library”—and the world of her writing is creamy , too : her narratives bleed and echo , texts wink at one another across their separate spines . s & m scenes from “video green , ” her 2004 collection of essays about the l . a . art scene , pop up in her fictional narratives : ice cubes in wicker baskets , obediently downcast eyes . in “i love dick , ” she compliments dick on writing a book called “aliens & anorexia” : _ _ “that’s one of the most incredible things i’ve read in years . ”


eleanor 's secret ( original french title kérity , la maison des contes ) is a 2009 franco-italian animated feature film directed by dominique monféry .

it won the special distinction prize at the 2010 annecy international animated film festival .

the film was produced in separate versions with french and english soundtracks .

eleanor 's secret had a limited uk cinema showing and was released on dvd in 2011 by soda pictures .

it had no general release in the united states , but was made available for individual bookings .

it was later released direct-to-video on 12 august 2014 from cinedigm .

eleanor ' s secret

' eleanor ' s secret ' u . s . cast - behind the voice actors
there are no featured reviews for eleanor ' s secret ( le secret d ' eleonore ) at this time .
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our star - crossed lovers , fearing for eleanor ' s life , hatch a plan to get eleanor to safety . park borrows the family truck from his understanding parents and drives all night to eleanor ' s uncle ' s house , where she thinks she can stay .
families can talk about nat ' s struggle to read aloud in eleanor ' s secret . did you believe that nat would be able to overcome his fear of reading aloud ? how do you handle reading aloud ?
eleanor and park ' s romance reaches a crescendo of fireworks and violins , but they know it can ' t last . eleanor comes home from one heavenly night out with park and discovers that richie ' s found her out .
from academy award® - nominated director dominique monféry ( destino , disney s tarzan , hercules and the hunchback of notre dame ) comes a sumptuously animated movie . eleanor s secret is a beautifully designed , rollicking adventure in which a boy s newfound ability to read not only sets his imagination free , but saves the day !
eleanor and park are heartbroken , but they learn to cope . eleanor starts a new life living with her uncle , and though park writes her tons of letters , eleanor doesn ' t write back . finally , months later , eleanor sends park a mysterious postcard . maybe this isn ' t the end of their story ? we hope it isn ' t .
in paris , a cat who lives a secret life as a cat burglar ' s aide must come to the rescue of zoe , the little girl he lives with , after she falls into a gangster ' s clutches .
the canterville ghost at shakespeare & company , lenox , 637 - 3353 , urltoken . eleanor : her secret journey at berkshire theatre festival , stockbridge , 298 - 5576 , urltoken . both shows run through nov . 9 .
eleanor ' s dealing with a horrifying home life , mostly due to her abusive stepdad , richie . she starts to look forward to her bus rides with park and , to her total shock , park can ' t stop thinking about her either . eleanor starts reading park ' s comic books over his shoulder , and from there it ' s a slippery slope : music , mix tapes , hand - holding . sparks fly , but they have to keep things secret : richie would not be okay with this .
i was looking for a 3 year old eleanor ' s gift - this is perhaps a little old for her , so i will put it aside for later .
in lerman ' s portrait , eleanor ' s
secret journey
during this period is a voyage of personal discovery , from naivete to social consciousness . in life , she was doing social work in the new york slums when she first met fdr and introduced him to social and economic injustice . and unlike the fdr bios that depict eleanor as a stiff , aloof figure who drove him into the warmth of another woman ' s arms , lerman gives us a passionate woman whose intellect is guided by her feelings .
a young boy has to save the world’s fairy tale characters from oblivion in the charmingly drawn but otherwise scrappy toon “eleanor’s secret . ” while the script is geared to the lollipop crowd , nicely animated sequences , particularly an impressive nightmare segment in black - and - white , will appeal to all ages ; even better , parents will appreciate the pro - literacy message [ … ]
nat ' s beloved great - aunt eleanor has died and left the family her beach house . nat cherished listening to her read stories to him , so it ' s no surprise that her final gift to him is the house ' s locked library ,
eleanor ' s secret ,
filled with valuable first edition fairy tales and children ' s books . the family doesn ' t know their value , and , needing money to make repairs , they agree to sell the books for a pittance to a canny junk dealer expecting to make a killing on the resale . at the same time , the books ' characters explain to nat that he has been selected to be eleanor ' s successor as the new great reader , champion of the stories . the catch is that first he must read aloud the magic sentence that will keep them alive , a challenge since nat still can ' t read aloud .
eccentric aunt eleanor dies , leaving her ramshackle house to her family . she has willed two items to her favorite niece and nephew : bratty angelica gets a porcelain doll , while younger nat is given the key to a secret room in the house . in the room , nat discovers an enormous library but — and here’s the rub — he can’t yet read , even though he’s old enough to know how . angelica teases him mercilessly , and he considers auntie’s gift a severe letdown .
in eleanor : her secret journey , rhoda lerman has adapted her own 1979 novel—titled simply eleanor —as a one - woman play . it focuses on the early married life of eleanor roosevelt , before she was first lady and a world figure in her own right . in the years during and just after world war i , franklin delano roosevelt was assistant secretary of the navy , a stepping stone for his political ambitions . both were members of the new american aristocracy that was just as vain , ostentatious and inbred as its old world counterparts . ( eleanor was born a roosevelt ; her uncle was theodore roosevelt , and she and fdr were distant cousins . )
1 on the road to kerity 4 . 41 2 on the beach 1 . 45 3 the truck 2 . 08 4 nightmares & illusions 2 . 31 5 eleanor’s letter 2 . 48 6 introduction to mr . pickall 1 . 53 7 nathaniel : knight of kerity 1 . 36 8 the storm 0 . 45 9 the secret library 4 . 05 10 the gift of the little match - seller 0 . 48 11 let’s go ! 1 . 49 12 an unexpected rescue 3 . 34 13 pickall and the customer 0 . 56 14 the baby 0 . 37 15 a crab in the castle 2 . 13 16 eleanor’s piano 1 . 09 17 angelica’s kite 1 . 25 18 hanged on to the kite 3 . 07 19 stairs 0 . 33 20 fujara 2 . 19 21 angelica 0 . 55 22 the father 2 . 54 23 eleanor’s jewels 4 . 33 24 pickall 2 . 51
a young boy has to save the world’s fairy tale characters from oblivion in the charmingly drawn but otherwise scrappy toon “eleanor’s secret . ” while the script is geared to the lollipop crowd , nicely animated sequences , particularly an impressive nightmare segment in black - and - white , will appeal to all ages ; even better , parents will appreciate the pro - literacy message at the pic’s heart . despite a derivative adventure scenario stuck in the middle that generates little excitement , helmer dominique monfery’s film should be warmly received in france on mid - december release ; versions in other languages are likely to score big in ancillary .
eleanor ' s secret is a beautiful movie , visually artistic and a cute story about a boy ( matt ) who struggles to read and his sister ( angelique ) that keeps reminding him about that . they go with their family to spend some days in the house by the beache of aunt eleanor ' s , who just passed away , and left the house to them . in this house there is a very special room that nobody had access before and matt is left in charge of whatever is inside . cute movie for the whole family but is not your tipical pixar , disney , movie .
with nat’s consent , mom and dad decide to sell the library to unscrupulous antiquarian mr . pickall so they can afford the house repairs . but when nat’s alone in the room , all the characters from the books come out of their volumes and start talking . aunt eleanor’s library consists of first editions of the world’s fairy tales , and unless nat can read a magic spell , the characters and the books themselves will disappear , leaving the world without stories .
what ' s on your mind ? get answers to top parenting questions here .
listening to his beautiful , melody - driven score for eleanor’s secret is a rich experience full of magic , mystery , adventure , excitement and a lot of fun . among many other standout qualities , this is a score that features a particularly strong and memorable main theme ! moviescore media releases the score on cd while digital distribution of the score is handled by the production company ( gaumon - alphanim ) .
i suppose the canterville ghost was intended as a jolly change of pace in halloween entertainment . well , the pace is plenty frenetic and it ' s unrelentingly jolly . but s & co ' s production is a pale ghost of the original .
it ' s a piece , with plenty of wildean wit at the expense of both brash americans and stuffy brits . irina brook ' s adaptation for shakespeare & company retains a semblance of wilde ' s plot , but strips away every bit of its wit , subtlety and charm . it ' s an extended riff on the original , improvised by the company but clearly bearing the mark of the director ' s heavy hand .
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misfit - high - schooler park spots bully - magnet eleanor on the morning bus and , to save her from certain torment , he grudgingly gives her a seat .
this charming celebration of the imagination is a visual and emotional gem . the delightful animation in eleanor ' s secret is quirky and reminiscent of the vivid drawings of the stinky cheese man illustrator lane smith . although an ogre , a wicked witch , and mildly perilous adventures may worry smaller children , the idea that fictional characters from different stories are all friends who band together to save themselves so that more kids may enjoy them is something most kids can happily root for .
common sense media ' s unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren ' t influenced by the product ' s creators or by any of our funders , affiliates , or partners .
parents need to know that eleanor ' s secret is a 2010 french animated family treat that will enchant kids with its reverence for fairy tales and emphasis on the importance of make - believe . the action begins after the death of a beloved aunt who read stories aloud . her absence means that characters from the world ' s great children ' s literature she loved so much face the possibility of disappearing . her young nephew nat , who struggles with reading aloud , is anointed
the great reader
by his aunt , charged with saving the stories . a wicked witch shrinks him to the size of his books ' illustrations , and , from that disadvantage , he must evade such terrors as a normal - sized toddler ' s grabby hands , a crab ' s pincers , and other magnified perils as he labors to save the fairy tales .
when natanael enters the secret room for the first time , he inserts the key in the keyhole , then swings the door open . however , as the door is swinging open in the next scene , the key disappears .
i struggled with reading at first , but when i finally hit my stride , i began to consume books voraciously . finally , i had discovered the magic of literature . i was happy to know that i could keep that magic alive for generations to come ! and now i have discovered eleanor ' s secret ! it took me back to that time of wonder , bringing the intensity of it all back to life for me . these children had an eleanor with a secret room filled with books . i had an aunt tessie , with a huge porch behind heavily curtained funeral doors in a magically old house . that porch was filled with books of every description , and when i was finally able to read , i was allowed to spend endless hours of discovery there . how i identified with the children of this amazing story ! if you have a love of reading and understand all that it can bring to life , please share this film with everyone you know . let ' s keep the magic alive !
i love reading and i love children ' s stories . the best of both in this film .
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hbo ' s new series sharp objects premieres july 8 and follows amy adams as camille . . .
i think this was recommended after we watched song of the sea . eleanor ' s secret isn ' t nearly as good though . the premise of the story isn ' t terrible , its more in the execution of the story . i generally like watching these sort of fairy tales with my kids , but i found myself very bored . its worth watching for children . but i will mention again that song of the sea , which my kids love , is a much better story and is executed beautifully .
she also vividly recreates the various people in eleanor ' s life : franklin ' s imperious mother , who refers to people beneath her by the acronym nokd ( not our kind , dear ) ; a philandering fdr , whose persistent affair with his social secretary almost wrecks the marriage ; her uncle ted , who advises her ,
make him president . that ' ll keep him home .
region : region 1 ( u . s . and canada only . read more about dvd formats . )
when natanael enters the secret room for the first time , he inserts the key in the keyhole , then swings the door open . however , as the door is swinging open in the next scene , the key disappears . see more »
aunt eleanor was kind and encouraging . a junk dealer trying to steal eleanor ' s collection of first edition books is a swindler . as the deadline for disappearing nears , the characters begin to fade into transparency , underscoring the urgency for nat to save the day . the white rabbit bravely fights off the crab so his friends can escape . nat shows courage in the face of peril . a child - eating ogre puts aside his normal appetites in favor of friendship . an annoying big sister turns out to be an ally .
this movie is awesome i am a seven year old and my sisters name is eleanor she loves it to and she is ten good by my name is georgia how do you like it good by again toodaloo .
still , the look of the film is imaginative , especially for nat’s nightmare in which he’s bombarded by cascading , anarchic letters and folded into the pages of books as he struggles to get free . orchestral score , complete with choir , is suitably uplifting .
in a series of vignettes , the author emphasizes eleanor ' s instinctive compassion—and in the process debunks the benevolent image of fdr . with her husband overseas , reviewing the troops in france and taking tea with royalty in britain , she volunteers at a servicemen ' s canteen , dancing with the doughboys and flirting with a handsome sergeant . after the war , she and a cocky , triumphant fdr tour the french battlefields , where she is moved by the plight of the plucky , desperate women surviving among the ruins .
in 1882 , a young russian aristocrat goes on an epic adventure to find out what happened to her grandfather and save her family ' s reputation .
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just because it ' s a story doesn ' t mean it ' s not real .
mankind can never live without dreams .
the world of imagination has more than just entertainment value . don ' t judge from the way things and people look , because the treasure is hidden inside .
irina brook apparently thinks a joke won ' t work unless it ' s sledgehammered home . here , as in the studio piece she produced at s & co last year , everything is played at top speed and high decibels . this is particularly ironic , considering that oscar wilde was the master of the throwaway quip .
animated children ' s feature about a boy who inherits a library of very special books . when his aunt eleanor dies , seven - year - old nathaniel is bequeathed the old lady ' s collection of classic children ' s books . not having learnt to read , nathaniel isn ' t very interested in the novels at first , but that all changes when the books ' characters come unexpectedly to life . asking for his protection , they tell him he must recite a magical passage in one of the books to prevent their disappearance and the stories being lost forever . learning that his parents wish to sell off the library to unscrupulous local dealer mr pickall , nathaniel soon finds himself magically transported into the characters ' realm , where he must brave many dangers to save his new found friends .
nice story and the animation , although rather spare , is charming in it ' s way . if you ' re used to disneyesque style animation ( which i am ) you will feel this lacks dimension and realism . . . but it has it ' s own appeal . my granddaughter and grandson , 7 and 8 love this movie .
the production ' s improvisational genesis is evident . it ' s in bits and pieces cobbled together from things that must have seemed hilarious in rehearsal , but aren ' t . they range from a gang of exotic magicians whose disappearing tricks backfire ( in one case , literally ) to a deliberately awful rendition of
achy breaky heart .
from academy award nominated director dominique monféry comes a sumptuously animated movie about a magic library where all the characters from classic children ' s books come alive . nat has fond memories of his eccentric aunt eleanor reading to him from her enormous collection of storybooks but is frustrated by his inability to read the books himself . so he is less than thrilled when he learns that his aunt has left him the keys to her attic library as a gift . however , just as nat ' s parents are selling the collection to a shady antiques dealer , nat discovers that the library is magical - the books are all original first editions of history ' s most popular fairy tales , and the famous characters come to life ! now with the help of alice in wonderland , the ogre , peter pan and others , he must find a way to get back the books and learn to read an ancient spell to keep the characters alive for future generations of children . ( c ) gkids
there ' s an added framing device . the old ghost ' s descendant , lord canterville , welcomes present - day tourists ( us , the audience ) into the drafty old manor house . he ' s interrupted by a family of americans of the loud , aggressively friendly variety , from , in case we didn ' t get it , texas . turns out they ' re related to the otis family that used to live here—in the 1940s , not 1880s . like his ghostly ancestor , milord is a bit of a hypnotist and magician , and he transports them back in time to reenact their forbears ' story .
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this thread is now closed since this movie was released in the us in 2014 . whoever ' s in charge of thread deletion , please delete this thread since i couldn ' t find a way to .
michael hammond manages to salvage some dignity , and generate some laughs , with great comic timing and , when he ' s allowed it , understatement . he plays the present - day lord canterville , then becomes the put - upon ghost , wild - haired and increasingly wild - eyed as his attempts at haunting are repeatedly frustrated . he also dons an apron and nanny cap to double as the mansion ' s crotchety old housekeeper .
nathaniel , aged 7 , goes to spend the summer holidays in the seaside villa that belonged to his old aunt eleanor . nathaniel ' s parents inherited the villa and nathaniel also received a gift in his aunt ' s will : a whole library of old books . the inheritance doesn ' t much interest him until he discovers that the books are inhabited . . . captain hook , alice and even the wicked fairy live in these books , which are the originals of every fairy story ! better still , these tiny heroes of children ' s literature need nathaniel to protect them . all he has to do is to read the magic inscription in the library to keep them alive . but nathaniel still has problems with reading and before he can decipher the inscription the books are sold to a secondhand dealer . nathaniel , now shrunk by the wicked fairy to the size of the storybook heroes , surpasses himself to save his tiny friends and their stories , even to the point of facing up to an ogre , or battling with beach crabs that are now giant size !
i personally quite liked this show . however , i give it the rating based on the fact that i sat and watched it with my five children aged 7 , 6 , 4 , 3 , and 1 and all of them liked it . well , the 1 year old didn ' t say that , but since it ' s the first movie he ' s ever sat through entirely , i ' m taking that as a
like .
elizabeth norment ' s performance is enthralling . it ' s not an impersonation of this iconic figure . for one thing , the actress looks nothing like her subject , who stood nearly six feet and was , as she says ,
too thin , too tall , too tense , with twice as many teeth and three times as much energy as anyone else i knew .
norment captures the restless energy and intelligence , as well as the elite anglicized drawl and the patrician stance .
kid , a 15 - year - old hard laborer , steals a map that promises to reveal the location of the notorious pirate black mor ' s treasure . together with his crew - - macgregor , beanpole , taka and jim . . . see full summary »
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in a dusty , old attic nat discovers a magical library where famous storybook characters come to life . he makes friends with fairytale stars from alice’s adventures in wonderland , the jungle book , pinocchio , peter pan , jack and the beanstalk , puss in boots , tom thumb , little red riding hood , and more .
“kerity , la maison des contes”tm ©2009 gaumont - alphanim , la fabrique , lanterna magica . all rights reserved . original music “kerity , la maison des contes”tm ©2009 alphanim musique music publishing by alphanim musique . all rights reserved . art and design ©2014 cinedigm entertainment corp . all rights reserved . marketed and distributed in the u . s . by cinedigm entertainment .
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angered by both nat and her fellow characters , the wicked fairy shrinks nat to their size , by which point the library has been carted off to mr . pickall’s shop . with the help of alice in wonderland and the white rabbit , nat has to get back to the house and read the magic spell before the witching hour , when all the stories will disappear .
i love rebecca dautremer ' s drawings . it is especially the drawings that make this film worth watching . the story is fine too . it is about a boy who can ' t read , but whose aunt always read him stories . when the aunt dies , he inherits her library . then , the stories come to life and he has to fulfill a quest . if you want to see all those characters , like alice and the white rabbit , peter pan , sleeping beauty , giants and witches , in a style different from disney ' s , then i recommend you watch this movie . my kids loved it too . they watched it nothing short of three times and were unhappy that i had to bring it back to the video rental store .
a boy who has trouble reading inherits a valuable collection of first editions of famous children ' s books . he discovers the characters in the stories have come to life and need his help to complete a magic spell . before he can do so , the volumes are sold and he must try to get it back . animated fantasy , with the voices of jeanne moreau and paul bandey .
a storm shuts down the electricity and damages the roof as scary music plays . in what seems to be nat ' s unpleasant daydream , letters come flying out of books , knocking nat down . a wicked witch shrinks nat . he is tossed through pages of giant books as the world goes temporarily black and white . he and storybook characters are chased by toddlers , crabs , and swirling ocean water .
i enjoyed this film ' s artwork and my 7 - year - old daughter enjoyed it too . however , i found the main premise - that a 6 - year - old boy who isn ' t yet reading ought to be pressurized into doing so - quite troubling . the reality is that children have a very wide natural time range for learning to read , even wider than they have for learning to walk or talk . some children learn at 3 , some at 12 or 13 . the late readers catch up very quickly with early ones , and are none the worse for it . yet everyone in the film , including the parents , is worried about the boy not yet reading fluently . he ' s still so little ! i loved the references to imagination in the story , and i think it should have focused wholly on that instead .
the other actors are pretty much trapped in the overheated burlesque mode . michael f . toomey and dana harrison , both inventive comics in previous s & co roles , can do little more than mug and yell as ma and pa otis . alexandra lincoln and alyssa hughlett play the otis teenagers , one an annoying show - off , the other a quiet girl who sympathizes with the poor ghost , but neither of them are permitted any character dimension either .
i viewed this film with my 9 - yr old daughter as part of the 2012 dc filmfest . we both loved it for its heartwarming story and the outstanding animation . originally made in french , the version which we saw is entirely in english with no subtitles . through the generosity of aunt eleanor , nat is introduced to many of the characters of classic literature , such as alice ( of wonderland ) , the white rabbit , pinocchio , red riding hood , snow white , sleeping beauty , peter pan , and the little match girl . his vivid imagination makes up for being very slow to learn how to read , about which his older sister teases him without mercy . the setting on the beach allows the adventurers to encounter some creatures who add to the suspense as time is running out to save the day . we highly recommend this to be seen with your family .
opening on french theatres on december 16 , this animated feature film ( entitled kerity , la maison des contes in french ) tells the magical story about a b oy who inherits a large book collection and who experiences the adventure of his life when the fairy - tales on the pages come to life . the film’s wonderful score , written for full orchestra as well as solo guitar , piano and cimbalom , is written by christophe héral ( who is probably best known for his music for the video game beyond good and evil ) .
oscar wilde ' s short story the canterville ghost , written in 1887 , is a parody that turns the tables on the classic ghost story . sir simon de canterville , who died mysteriously in 1584 , just loves scaring the bejesus out of people . but when the otises , a thoroughly modern , no - nonsense american family , move into canterville chase , they ' ll have none of that . annoyed by his clanking chains and gory visitations , they play a series of practical jokes that send the poor ghoul into a quivering mass of translucent protoplasm .
natanaël , seven , still doesn ' t know how to read . his eccentric old aunt bequeaths her house to his parents and her book collection to the young boy . nat discovers that the books serve as a shelter for all the heroes found in children ' s literature . they are the original characters and are counting on him for protection . for if they leave the library , they will disappear along with their stories forever ! when his parents start selling off the books , nathanaël , who is shrunk by the evil witch carabosse , braves everything to save his tiny friends
natanaël , seven , still doesn ' t know how to read . his eccentric old aunt bequeaths her house to his parents and her book collection to the young boy . nat discovers that the books serve as a shelter for all the heroes found in children ' s literature . they are the original characters and are counting on him for protection . for if they leave the library , they will disappear along with their stories forever ! when his parents start selling off the books , nathanaël , who is shrunk by the evil witch carabosse , braves everything to save his tiny friends .
natanaël , seven , still doesn ' t know how to read . his eccentric old aunt bequeaths her house to his parents and her book collection to the young boy . nat discovers that the books serve as a shelter for all the heroes found in children ' s literature . they are the original characters and are counting on him for protection . for if they leave the library , they will disappear along with their stories forever ! when his parents start selling off the books , nathanaël , who is shrunk by the evil witch carabosse , braves everything to save his tiny friends . written by films distribution
80 minutes short french animated feature movie . the story of a six year old boy who involved in saving the tiny magical creatures . a similar kind of movie to ' le tableau ' . after all , this was the first movie to release . i have not seen a single european animation since last few months , so decided to go with it and i had a nice time . firstly , i thought it was a children ' s movie , yes it was and as a grown up i was not annoyed instead enjoyed it like a kid . a young boy called nat , for him reading is a complicated issue . he always gets teased by his elder sister . on one summer his family decides to relocating to their ancestral house in a small town . he and his sisters remembers their grandmother who tells children ' s stories during visits to see her . after her death , they come to know that she left some gifts for them . financially suffering his family decides to get rid of old things from the house . nat mistakenly discovers the tiny creatures who need his help to save their existence . so the boy ' s quest begins to do something for others . the beautiful adventures are portrayed in the remains . ' ' just because it was invented doesn ' t mean it isn ' t real ' ' technically , it sounds great . the animation was very good and the characters were so cute . the story was not bad , but a little crawl in the adventure section . as it was a short movie , you won ' t get any frustration . a short and lovely movie for family and kids . if ' the avengers ' is for adults , then this movie is for kids . all the famous characters from kids stories came together for this . sadly , everyone had less time to spare to show their existence in the movie , but i expected a lot more . all in all it is still a nice movie to have . if any parents reading my this review kindly show it to your kids as well . 7 . 5 / 10
but nat soon learns his fairytale friends are in danger , and the only way to save them is for nat to learn to read an ancient spell that will keep the characters alive for future generations of children .
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natanaël , seven , still doesn ' t know how to read . his eccentric old aunt bequeaths her house to his parents and her book collection to the young boy . nat discovers that the books serve as a . . . see full summary »
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in a dusty old attic nat discovers a magical library where famous storybook characters come to life . but nat soon learns that his fairytale friends are in danger and the only way to save them is for nat to learn to read an ancient spell .
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this is a great movie for reluctant movie watchers who like reading books and who are familiar with literary characters such as alice in wonderland , pinocchio , . . . continue reading
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heavily disappointing , eye - wateringly bad dialogue and generally fails to stay on its feet .
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region : region 2 ( this dvd may not be viewable outside europe . read more about dvd formats . )
really top notch kids animation from france which grown - ups can enjoy too . the story is great , well thought out ( i won ' t spoil it for you ) and the animation is absolutely fantastic . we run a community cinema and are giving serious thought to putting this on . . . much better than some of the french animation described as ' stunning ' . . . ' azur and azram ' anyone ? would wholeheartedly recommend this for kids of all ages up to teens
well what a fantastic story a hidden gem our grandchildren [ aged 4 and . . .
a charming animation , family - friendly , with a good and simple - but - not - too - simple storyline . suited our 4 . 5 and 8 year olds very well . will be especially popular with book - loving kids but might also inspire the less bookish . nothing too frightening . language clear and accessible . recommended !
bought for my granddaughter who is 7 after watching the song of the sea . lovely story & beautiful artwork .
this was a great film . loved the animation and fairy tale characters . a wonderfully illustrated tale .
beautiful graphics , enchanting story , packed full of adventure and mystery . a truly wonderful film .
i love this story ! the children loved it too . we bought an instant download and have watched it twice so far . sure to become a favourite . beautiful story and lovely characters .
snore . fast delivery though and dvd is in great condition . just boring .
this was a present for some children , so i have no idea what it was like . it came well wrapped and looked quite good .
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my kids ( ages 3 and 5 ) loved it . i ' m pretty particular about the quality of . . .
this was lovely ! my kids ( ages 3 and 5 ) loved it . i ' m pretty particular about the quality of animation , as well as subject matter and presentation - so many g films these days have much that still is not appropriate for a pre - schooler . however this movie was fit the bill . it was well - drawn , and lovely background ( the animation had that distinctly french look not unlike some of the more well - known french animated films ) . the themes were appropriate and the story line moved along without getting boring . all in all a very nice little film . i ' m surprised it hasn ' t gotten more attention .
i loved this movie . it is beautifully illustrated , and has a lovely message . i have loved books ever since i was quite a wee lass when my grandma would sit , in her rocking chair , with me upon her lap , and read me stories . when i learned to read , books always brought me into the world and lives of their characters , expanding my world . books really are magical .
my 7 y . o . loves this movie . she likes the story as well as the struggle the main character has with reading . even though reading comes easily to her , she is able to relate to the fears and anxieties that the character feels as well as the delight of meeting so many interesting and sometimes intimidating characters . my 3 y . o . loves the movie too but gets a bit afraid during certain sections of the movie . i highly recommend this movie . it has a great story , characters , and a good resolution .
really enjoyable story of child who was not confident enough to read aloud . i like this backstory of how important family members are to children and their role in encouraging . . .
this movie is awesome i am a seven year old and my sisters . . .
i 6 year old was intrigued by this movie . great way to iget kids to read
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this was such an enjoyable animated film , with a very a nice story and a pleasant visual style . even when the story could seem to be a bit simple at first sight , it actually has many wonderful qualities , that made it charming and captivating . i think that now more than ever is a good thing to teach the kids about the marvels of reading and imagination , and about the importance of the stories to be preserves by future generations . in that aspect , this movie did an incredible work , being much better done and more honest that many other movies with a similar message . it is also a very entertaining fantasy flick , with many interesting characters and a good balance of humor and adventure , not to mention the very pleasant visual style that this movie had , making it a nice and delightful animated film for the whole family with lots of heart . i highly recommend it .
readers will become immersed in this spectacular world , just as they might with a high - quality animated movie . ( ipad storybook app . 4 - 8 )
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a young boy has to save fairy tale characters from oblivion in the charmingly drawn toon .
with : voices : eliott berger , cressida bandey , mirabelle kirkland , paul bandey , jodi forrest , david gasman , sharon mann , hester wilcox , doug rand , matthew geczy , christine flowers . french version artistic direction , lionel bourguet . voices : jeanne moreau , pierre richard , lorant deutsch , liliane rovere , julie gayet , jason beck , denis podalydes , arthur dubois , stephane flamant , nathalie hugo , gauthier de fauconval , mathieu moreau , prunelle rulens . voices : federico bebi , emanuela ionica , gaetano varcasia , rachele paolelli , sonia scotti , mino caprio , lorenza biella , germana dominici , francesco de francesco , clara ruberti , joy saltarelli , george castiglia , dante biagioni .
dialogue contains little out of the ordinary beyond the clever central idea . a standard - issue adventure seg , in which nat and his friends race back to the house , is underwhelming and lacking in originality .
production : an haut & court ( in france ) release of a gaumont - alphanim , la fabrique ( france ) / lanterna magica ( italy ) production , with participation of canal plus , tf1 , tps star . ( international sales : films distribution , paris . ) produced by clement calvet . executive producers , calvet , christian davin , maria fares , roberto baratta , xavier julliot . directed by dominique monfery , based on a development directed by henri heidsick . screenplay , anik le ray , alexandre reverend . artistic direction , allan wenger . artistic direction , patrizia sorini .
crew : ( color / b & w ) ; editor , cedric chauveau ; music , christophe heral ; art directors , rebecca dautremer , richard despres , marco martis ; sound ( dolby srd ) , mauro lopez , adrien martre , fabien crousillac ; storyboards , monfery , remi chaye . reviewed at rome film festival ( alice in the city ) , oct . 22 , 2009 . running time : 76 min .
with : voices : eliott berger , cressida bandey , mirabelle kirkland , paul bandey , jodi forrest , david gasman , sharon mann , hester wilcox , doug rand , matthew geczy , christine flowers . french version artistic direction , lionel bourguet . voices : jeanne moreau , pierre richard , lorant deutsch , liliane rovere , julie gayet , jason beck , denis podalydes , arthur dubois , stephane flamant , nathalie hugo , gauthier de fauconval , mathieu moreau , prunelle rulens . voices : federico bebi , emanuela ionica , gaetano varcasia , rachele paolelli , sonia scotti , mino caprio , lorenza biella , germana dominici , francesco de francesco , clara ruberti , joy saltarelli , george castiglia , dante biagioni .
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