Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies,alt.cult-movies
Date: Fri,  6 Nov 1992 11:13:30 -0500 
From: Daniel Read <dr3u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Michael Mann, John Woo, Clint Eastwood
	<1992Nov6.113447.22786@athena.mit.edu>

I say:

>If you enjoy a piece of
>work why should you feel obliged to nominate it for Citizen Kane status?

ED says: 
  I don't.  And why do you feel obliged to regard Citizen Kane as having
  this status?  I think the main reason is simply because from day one
  everyone is told what a great film it is, and so much has been written
  about it, etc. that everyone just assumes it is great, and when they
  see it, they read the film as a classic, a great film, instead of
  coming to it with a clean slate.  There are people who are simply not
  impressed with Citizen Kane, just as there are people who are simply
  not impressed with A Better Tomorrow :-) <sorry, I just couldn't
  resist that comparison!>.  I think Pauline Kael might be one of the
  former (or is it 8 1/2 I'm thinking of?  Maybe both??)

Pauline Kael does not say that about Citizen Kane.  In fact, in her
essay raising Kane she calls it a "Masterpiece, albeit a shallow
masterpiece"  (I'm quoting from memory).

I cited Citizen Kane because it is the paradigmatic example of a "great
film", at least in North America and England.  It has attained that
status on the basis of a great deal of scholarly study, and
long-standing popular and critical esteem.  Even if I knew nothing about
Citizen Kane but that a large number of eminent critics regarded it as a
masterpiece, then that would be a good reason for me to regard it that
way (certainly not the BEST reason).  If you were a large number of
eminent critics then I might be swayed by your claim that A Better
Tomorrow is a masterpiece.  Absent that strong argument from
multiple-authorities, I want other kinds of evidence.

Remember we can find some people who believe that almost any piece of
trash is a masterpiece.  If you look at the monthly film ratings you
will see that some people give "10" ratings to films like "Revenge of
the Nerds" and "House".  Maybe their right, but I sure won't believe
them without a lot of argument.

You make the following comment :

>>You suggest that "A Better Tomorrow" is
>>a great film, yet give no reasons other than your belief that the
>>technique is innovative.

>Well, does it need any other reasons?  The story is good even if it's
>not particularly original.  We all know Shakespeare ripped off his
>plots, and Kurosawa stole from him, and Leone stole from *him*, and
>none of this prevents at least two of these three from inclusion into
>the canon (not much argument on Bill or Akira as far as I can tell).

First, it was your BELIEF which I objected to.  I am saying that you
must persuade me that the technique is innovative.

Second, I don't think innovative technique is enough to make a film (or
any piece of art) a masterpiece.  It is not the technology, but the way
it is used.  Now I don't have a good theory of aesthetics, but I will
suggest that technique and theme must be organically related in order to
create great art.  CITIZEN KANE's technique, for example, is intimately
related to one theme of the film -- the fact that the private worlds of
public figures can never be known.  (I think this is what makes Pauline
Kael call it shallow.  Interestingly, Borges called CK a "labyrinth
without a center"  -- and this tremendous insight was intended as a
CRITICISM).  If BRINGING UP BABY had been made like CITIZEN KANE it
wouldn't be a masterpiece (and vice versa).  

daniel read



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