I just revisited Dave Kehr's blog item on "The New World." I was annoyed to see that not only is Kehr ducking my challenge to write separate pieces analyzing Malick's filmmaking and let readers decide who makes the more convincing case, he's misrepresenting my criticism by saying, in essence, that I'm a moonstruck child, I am not really writing about what's onscreen (patently false; if anything, I am often accused of favoring form over content), that I have no aesthetic basis for liking "The New World" and that I would see the error of of my ways if I possessed his lofty detachment. (If you're not up to speed on the exchange, click here.) Dave has once again declined the challenge (I guess he's too exhausted from shuttling back and forth to the planet Vulcan), so this back-and-forth is done.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Challenge declined
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Dave Kehr says: "The affective fallacy has been pretty much banned from academic literary criticism since the 1950s..."
I know film criticism is considered a profession, but once a dude starts speaking as a guardian of the critical establishment--whatever that is-- it's time to go out for some air.
I'm still only in like with "The New World," but it is throwing film scribblers into certain camps. One of them, represented by Kehr, might be called the Scientists.
I would agree with the idea of Kehr as scientist if he had bothered to analyze the filmmaking, even to the degree that you and I have in our back-and-forth on comments boards of this blog. But he hasn't. He's pretending to be a scientist who's weighed the evidence and come to a purely rational conclusion (bullshit!) but he won't show us his research. Why do you think that is? Could it be because on this movie, he has no research to show?
I really don't get that thing Kehr said about throwing up pieces of film and letting them come down like in I Ching. Are directors not allowed to discover things in the editing room? The second time I saw TNW, it seemed about as haphazard as a Kubrick film. Maybe Malick found some of the movie in the editing room, but the point is he found it. Maybe he's confusing something concerning the nature inserts, which I wrote about elsewhere. Nature doesn't exactly take direction. You have to stand around and wait for it.
Apologies in advance for the "decline of western film criticism" rant to follow:
"...as opposed to summarizing the plot and characters, making a couple of snide remarks and calling it a day."
Matt, you have galactic bingo.
I've read your reviews since 1996 in the NYP and can count on several fingers the number of reviewers that consistently rise above this level of "criticism" (off the top of my head I'd namecheck the folks at the Onion AV Club & and John Boonstra for the Hartford Advocate, though I haven't read Boonstra since college).
I think a strength in any reviewer worth his salt is one's experiences.
Like your experiences as a filmmaker. I work freelance film/television and bring similar elements to any movie. And I'm a screenwriter so have a narrative bent/jones and specific ideas of what is good storytelling or bad, probably more than the casual "civilian" moviegoer.
Bringing these things to the table is like sitting on Boo Radley's porch. Getting new perspectives that have the possibility to enhance your own viewpoint or clarify (or challenge) your own convictions can't be all bad, can it?
These "biases" don't have to poison one's reviews. To me they only enhance enjoyment (or abject dislike) of anything, even within the same movie. Or CD, or book, or painting.
Kehr and a huge chunk of working critics parrot out reviews like Mad Libs. It's less film criticism and more celebrity junket journalism. It's easy, it's lazy, it's corpulent, it's settling, it's effing mediocre.
At worst KehrBots are pimping for drop quotes in newspaper ads for Big Momma's House 2 like a Saturday Night Live performer trying too hard for the next zeitgeisty catchphrase.
Jason Robards playing Dash Hammett in Julia (one of his two back to back Oscars) had a terrific line when reviewing Lillian Hellman's work: "It's worse than bad. It's half-good."
Kehr's demurring your challenge instead of wanting to discover he may have more to learn, or that he could possibly reserve the right to change his mind in the interest of a coherent and excellent debate, just illustrates his apathetic sinking into mediocrity. And the art of criticism in general is worse for it.
I think Kehr was being unfair. He obviously didn't read your posts on this blog.
I hate masturabatory fanboy reviews myself (okay, call it "affective fallacy" if you will) but your pieces are definitely far from that. I specially liked the one where you describe the use of "contrapuntal narration" in the film because when I had seen the film it was this that irked me the most. I have been planning to see it again ever since I read that post.
I suppose Dave K. just wasn't feeling the film or the idea of going back over the screener to pinpoint his disappointment. Cool. He coulda said that, but tossing some condescending remarks over his shoulder probably just felt better.
A lot of critics I enjoy reading are downright clumsy when they attempt to contend with things like lenses, light, sound mixing, and editing choices within a scene (and connecting them to the filmmaker's intentions). And so they mostly avoid such business. "Scientists" like Hoberman, Rosenbaum and Kehr are better at describing art direction, performance and the literary/philosophical/historical values of a flick. They're academics, after all.
But it wastes Kehr's precious time to accuse Malick of drunk driving on the Avid without backing it up with some shot-by-shot. He can be dismissive of young Seitz all he wants, but Malick?
I'll freely admit to loving the first 20 minutes and hating hating hating the rest of The New World (have to find the e-mail I wrote to Jeremiah Kipp to remember exactly why, but it mostly had to do with thin characterization), but I have to agree that Kehr's response was perhaps understandable as an expression of exhaustion, but basically purest snobbery. And his appeal to "academic literary criticism" does less to bolster his reputation than remind one of why academic literary criticism has, since the 50s, become ever more obscure and self-involved---imagine "Axel's Castle" without a willingness to resort to the affective fallacy!
A couple of comments need to be addressed.
Dave Kehr is not a "scientist", nor does he represent the degenerate strand of American film culture that promotes celebrities and "Big Momma's House 2".
Dave Kehr is one of the good guys, an intelligent, articulate, passionate lover of movies.
"Kehr and a huge chunk of working critics parrot out reviews like Mad Libs."
This is ridiculous. Honestly, have you ever even read one of his reviews? His capsules for the Chicago Reader are invaluable, containing more thought, insight, and paths leading elsewhere, than most other full-length reviews. And if you don't read his DVD column for the NYTimes, then you should.
There is no such thing as a "KehrBot".
What's more, he has an extensive knowledge of the history of technique, that is, the technical side of filmmaking. He's done his research, and you, lumping Hoberman, Rosenbaum, and Kehr, three very different critics, into one single entity, have obviously not.
Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
FWIW, here's a Metafilter discussion of The New World, the critical reception, and The House Next Door.
Matt and all,
To be fair, which makes his blog kind of odd, to Dave Kehr seems hardly interested in the interaction and interactivity you want and which a blog community normally seeks. I don't recall him being in Slate's movie club, or any other back and forth "public" discussion vehicle.
I think he still is a worthwhile critic, but you are asking something that he hasn't been and isn't prepare to do.
At the same time, they way he runs his blog is also one reason that I hardly visit his site after initially being very enthusiastic about it.
And if I haven't said this already, which I'm sure I haven't, great site and writing, Matt, and all here.
The larger point is this: the point of criticism is not to compel agreement, but to provoke engagement. Argue with me. If I'm wrong, I'll say so in print. I just did it a couple of days ago in my "Sopranos" post, in a back-and-forth about an editing choice in the premiere. I didn't see what a couple of other people saw, they called me on it, and backed up the call with evidence and an explanation. Form and content are insperable; we all know that. Unfortunately, what Fox Mulder on "The X-Files" called the military-industrial-entertainment complex insists on the notion of criticism as consumer guide and hype machine, so it's difficult to address this subject with any substance unless you write for one of a handful of print outlets that permits such a thing. The only alternative is blogging, thus this website, which consists mainly of things that have no news hook or are too geeky, theoretical, personal or apropos-of-nothing to publish in the normal venues.
Malick's style drives a lot of people up the wall. I respect that. And I appreciate people like Steven Boone, who in a comments thread, proposed "2046" as an example of a poetic, somewhat free-associate narrative that he thought achieved things Malick only attempted. I feel like these sorts of discussions actually get us closer to the heart of what movies are, how they work and what they do to us.
Yeah, Kehr used to be good. But the Chicago Reader salad days were 20 years ago. And that's a lot of mileage. And people have writing streaks, or slumps. People get overextended. People move up and on and get complacent. And people can change their mind over time if they want to.
If he didn't have time to weigh in on these expanded issues, fantastic. If he didn't feel like revisiting what he felt was his expert criticism the first time around, terrific.
I just think that he doesn't like being questioned in class in the case of The New World. I mean, the discussions aren't like a reductive and pointless "Tastes Great/Less Filling" flame war. They are thoughtful, they use big words, they are mostly arranged with passion and sources and research.
And I would have rather gotten more from him after all that than a "I'm too busy to trifle," or "have fun with that, fellas." But I understand that he's busy with his 1000 words every Tuesday for the NYT. And his blog.
"And Matt, thanks for bringing all your friends by. They were fun."
-- And I guess I could do less with of a condescending snark.
As for Hoberman & Rosenbaum, I didn't lump them in with Kehr, you did. The part of Kehr I was talking about was that he decided to "stop." He was done exercising, and kind of implying to me that there is no room for dissent, or for living, breathing continuous debate on interesting issues he doesn't everfeel like elaborating upon. Our loss.
And to clarify:
Anonymous (above) rightly objects to Tiffany's ""Kehr and a huge chunk of working critics parrot out reviews like Mad Libs." I admire and enjoy Kehr overall and have mined his work for quotes to back up my own arguments. The steam issuing from my ears is specifically related to the discussion of THE NEW WORLD and nothing else.
I don't if Kehr ducked your challenge or just resigned out of disinterest. Any time that a passionate defender of a film argues against a dismissive non-partisan, the former always wins. There are plenty of films that I'm not crazy about, such as Brokeback Mountain, and arguing against the film would just bore me to tears. I'm not sure if your defense of the film bothers Kehr so much as your passion about the film.
Tiffany said: "As for Hoberman & Rosenbaum, I didn't lump them in with Kehr, you did."
---Sorry, my bad - Someone else said this. So that person was wrong.
Tiffany said: "But I understand that he's busy with his 1000 words every Tuesday for the NYT. And his blog.
"And Matt, thanks for bringing all your friends by. They were fun."
-- And I guess I could do less with of a condescending snark."
---To be fair, you don't know the what else he might be working on / writing, what his familial obligations are, etc, etc. None of us do.
I think Kehr genuinely meant his comment above, and not in a condescending way.
He has stated plainly his intent with his blog - to publish his writing, that which he has no outlet to publish elsewhere, and to have the comments serve as unanswered letters to the editor. So, it isn't necessarily interactive with the host, and not the normal way blogs are utilized, but so what? He doesn't have to have a blog in the first place, but I would prefer he does because I find his take on films interesting.
I disagree with him on The New World, but I agree with Joel that maybe he isn't so excited about responding because the film holds no passion for him.
I am, however, puzzled over why a critic who defends Malick's earlier films would so (seemingly) easily disregard his latest. Though Kehr did re-watch the film (on video), so that says something.
Mr. Boone: once a dude starts speaking as a guardian of the critical establishment--whatever that is-- it's time to go out for some air.
Amen!
I've read Kehr for years and years and years, and he's one of those critics who constantly infuriates me. Even so, I do not think he's doing "Mad Libs" reviews. On occasion I've gained insight from Mr. Kehr, and I've learned a thing or two as well. I do not have to agree with a critic to see his or her perspective; sometimes that disagreement helps strengthen the defense of my argument.
I would have loved to have seen a good catfight between Matt and Dave, especially since, as readers of this blog know, I'm the only one here who is less then enamored of The New World. I know I would have learned something from Matt and Dave's New World throwdown.
"Scientist" my ass. Leave that title for people like me, real science degree holders! :)
joel says: Any time that a passionate defender of a film argues against a dismissive non-partisan, the former always wins.
I agree, Joel, which is why when Matt goes off on one of his eight gazillion extremely well-written, enjoyable yet disagreeing-with-moi splunkfests on Malick's worst movie, I pop in for my standard issue "It's pretty to look at, but far from enlightening, sorry to fart in church again" posts and then head for the shadows of this blog. My ho-hum response to The New World is not as passionately negative as Matt's love is positive, so it's really not worth arguing. Besides, I enjoy seeing how many times he can pray at this altar before Pocahantas' ghost speaks to him, preferably through Whoopi Goldberg or John Edward.
Fair points, anonymous. (One favor, though. If you come back, which I sincerely hope you will, pick a screenname next time, though, so I can distinguish you from all the other anonymi. Just click the bubble that says, "other.") I'm done venting. A new post will go up later tonight and I'll move on to the next thing.
PS--I just heard Whoopi Goldberg's voice reading Colin Farrell's narration. It's a whole different movie.
It's interesting that this convo follows your recent post about Cassavetes. After getting stun-gunned by the Cass masterpiece "Opening Night" last week, I'm still grinning at the man's audacity. "Opening Night" commits loving terrorism upon all the "pros" in the arts and showbiz. He sics a rabid Gena Rowlands on every creative person who shows up to work confident that they know what will happen that day, that second.
Cassavetes blogged all the time, with his mouth. Messy, personal engagement was how he got all those great movies. It's also how you get non-useless film commentary. At the end of "Opening Night" (a more suspenseful, thrilling, wondrous 3rd act than the one in Close Encounters), Rowlands' actress character risks the ultimate public humiliation to say something so true, it makes even her starchy enemies kick off their shoes.
In other words, guys like Kehr, unaccustomed to the crowd, might play the wall at this party, but the night is young.
Matt- I've been on a little bit of a hiatus, and so I'm only just catching up to all this Dave Kehr stuff. Here's what I just dropped in his comments column after he finally slammed the door:
"Dave, I think you just made Matt’s point even clearer than he did in his last post. I’m sorry to be getting to all this just as it seems to be shutting down, but I have to say that I don’t understand how you look at a movie and discount your emotional experience, which is created, in part, by the way a film is made. Your dismissive attitude toward the possibility of value in Malick’s film and its technique, not to mention those who value it, is puzzling and disturbing. This is film criticism? I feel like Frank just told Sammy to keep his trap shut."
I'm with Steven Boone: Kehr is a very good film critic, but he needs some fresh air. When I first started reading his blog I was hoping for something much more along ther lines of what The House Next Door has become-- a place to be welcomed, a place to discuss, to get your toes stepped on-- in other words, a simple excahnge of ideas. Dave Kehr can do what he wants with his own blog, obviously, but I find it interesting that I, and I'm sure many other readers, find that coming to your site is so much more rewarding, even when, and often mostly when we discover that our tastes don't always line up. It's the "why" behind the opinion that distinguishes a critic, not just their facility with clever arrangement of words. I find it disturbing that Kehr finds this particular discussion beneath him.
Dave Kehr is without a doubt one of the good guys (his DVD column in the NYT is the best film writing in that paper), but his responses to supporters of both TNW and Brokeback Mountain verged on (and, in the latter case, tipped over into) condescension. His argument basically boils down to "If you disagree with me, prove I'm wrong, and don't bring any emotions into it." But how can you talk about art without talking about emotions? How are you supposed to *prove* Malick's editing strategies work or don't work? You can certainly argue one side of the case or another, but it's not something that can objectively be proven.
As for whether or not the affective fallacy has been "banned from academic literary criticism," is it wrong to ask who gives a shit? Does anyone read academic literary criticism except liberal arts majors and ivory-tower types? I was subjected to four years worth of the stuff and it eventually drove me nuts -- it was like you could talk about anything with regard to a particular work except how you felt about it. If artists didn't want to create an emotional response, they wouldn't create narrative art. If all artists wanted to do was transmit ideas -- or, as formalists like Kehr would have it, abstract visual strategies -- then bundling them up in plot and character would be a pretty stupid thing to do, wouldn't it? It's the emotions, stupid. I'm very interested in how and why TNW (or anything good) moves me -- how it works. But if it doesn't work, if I'm not moved, no amount of lighting schemes and camera angles is going to make me care.
I think there's an important place for nuts and bolts in any kind of criticism; without it, you're just some Ain't-It tool with too many exclamation points in your quiver. But if criticism were just formal analysis that communicated no sense of enthusiasm or outrage, I'd stop reading it and writing it.
Incidentally, I would have posted some of these thoughts on Kehr's blog, but I missed the heat of the discussion, and it didn't seem like the place to get into it, really.
I didn't quite follow what was going on with the offensive comments over at Kehr's site, but henceforth reader dave will comment as Wagstaff. I've procrastinated the integration of my personalities. What started as a lazy, short term fix might lead to some longer term confusion. There's a lot of Daves in blogland, and I don't want to be mistaken for one that's acting nasty. As of now, my transformation, to quote Vader, "is complete."
Let the word go forth. Wagstaff, welcome to the House.
i've been staring at the comment box for too long..have to write something. New to this blog site..glad to be aboard.
i have yet to see TNW. Will see it this weekend before it finally leaves theaters here in NY.
just wanted to address this part of what anonymous wrote:
"I am, however, puzzled over why a critic who defends Malick's earlier films would so (seemingly) easily disregard his latest."
I read what David Kehr wrote..he thought Malick's first two films were better constructed than the later two pictures. Seemed to make sense to me.
I agree with Sam Adams that Kehr's "DVD column in the NYT is the best film writing in that paper."
It certainly is. Not that the competition for such a distinction is so very fierce over there.
Poor Kehr, the fuddy-duddy old ass! He must be terribly embittered after having played 4th or 5th banana at the NYT all these years to writers who are considerably less than his equal. Elvis Mitchell, anyone? Good Lord, what an *insult*!
And now Kehr fobs his buried anger at his blog, waving it like a hankie toward the morally indifferent universe. What a tragic end, a pitiable, tragic end.
(Was that condescending enough? Do I take the prize??)
(Hark! I have a date in the afterlife with Wendy Wasserstein.)
Kino: Thanks for posting. I must respectfully take issue, though, with what you just said. I understood Dave's opinions -- no clarity issue there -- but I wanted an explanation that never came.
I think Malick's last two pictures are exponential expansions on techniques he perfected in his first two. The main differences are the number of subplots and narrators, and a more passionate, less dry tone to the narration. It's the difference between a single family home and a hotel built by the same, very recognizable architect. I can understand why some people wouldn't warm to that, but I want more from a critic than thumbnail sketches, particularly when good or poor technique is supposedly the reason for a nay as opposed to a yay.
Alas, poor Yorick, in the condescension Olympics, you'd barely make the quarterfinals. I've read shit that would turn your hair pink. If it's already pink, my apologies.
And I can think of at least one glossy magazine and one major weekly paper in New York that would benefit mightily from giving Dave a regular berth, with legroom.
HE: Your breast on my breast,
Eh ? We could go,
With our nostrils full of air,
Into the cool light
Of the blue good morning that bathes you
In the wine of daylight ?...
When the whole shivering wood bleeds,
Dumb with love
From every branch green drops,
Pale buds,
You can feel in things unclosing
The quivering flesh :
You would bury in the lucerne
Your white gown,
Changing to rose-colour in the fresh air the blue tint which encircles
Your great black eyes,
In love with the country,
Scattering everywhere,
Like champagne bubbles,
Your crazy laughter :
Laughing at me, suddenly, drunkenly -
I should catch you
Like this - lovely hair, ah ! -
I should drink in
Your taste of raspberry and strawberry,
Oh flower-flesh !
Laughing at the fresh wind kissing you
Like a thief,
At the wild rose, teasing you
Pleasantly :
Laughing more than anything, oh madcap,
At your lover !...
Seventeen ! You'll be so happy !
Oh ! the big meadows
The wide loving countryside !
- Listen, come closer !...
- Your breast on my breast,
Mingling our voices,
Slowly we'd reach the stream,
Then the great woods !...
Then, like a little ghost,
Your heart fainting,
You'd tell me to carry you,
Your eyes half closed...
I'd carry your quivering body
Along the path :
The bird would sping out his andante :
Hard by the hazeltree...
I'd speak into your mouth ;
And go on, pressing
Your body like a little girl's I was putting to bed,
Drunk with the blood
That runs blue under your white skin
With its tints of rose :
And speaking to you in that frank tongue...
There !... - that you understand...
Our great woods would smell of sap,
And the sunlight
Would dust with fine gold their great
Green and bronze dream.
...................................................
In the evening ?... We'd take the white road
Which meanders,
Like a grazing herd,
All over the place
Oh the pleasant orchards with blue grass,
And twisted apple trees !
How you can smell a whole league
Off their strong perfume !
We'd get back to the village
When the sky was half dark ;
And there'd be a smell of milking
In the evening air ;
It would smell of the cowshed, full
Of warm manure,
Filled with the slow rythm of breathing,
And with great backs
Gleaming under some light or other ;
And, right down at the far end,
There'd be a cow dunging proudly
At every step...
- Grandmother's spectacles
And her long nose
Deep in her missal ; the jug of beer
Circled with pewter
Foaming among the big-bowled pipes
Gallantly smoking :
And the frightfull blubber lips
Which, still puffing,
Snatch ham from forks :
So much, and more :
The fire lighting up the bunks
And the cupboards.
The shining fat buttocks
Of the fat baby
On his hands and knees, who nuzzles into the cups,
His white snout
Tickled by a gently
Growling muzzle,
That licks all over the round face
Of the little darling...
(Black and haughty on her chair's edge,
A terrifying profile,
And old woman in front of the embers,
Spinning)
What sights we shall see, dearest,
In those hovels,
When the bright fire lights up
The grey window panes !...
- And then, small and nestling
Inside the cool
Dark lilacs : the hidden window
Laughing over there...
You'll come, you will come, I love you so !
It will be lovely.
You will come, won't you ? and even...
SHE : - And my office ?
--Arthur Rimbaud
Case closed.
Thank you for being alive, Joel.
I found New World a very visually striking film but one that was perhaps a bit too naive [or pure] for my taste.
Malick is great when he takes a conventional narrative and infuses it with his poetic visual skills; Badlands is his best film in my opinion.
But without that [slow] driving narrative [which I think Tarkovsky was brilliant at btw] The New World just seems a pretty picture, which is fine by me in general - but I understand the criticism.
That said I think if the sound were taken away The New World would be one of the best silent films ever made.
Dave Kehr's hesitance to commit to a lengthy exchange doesn't seem at all surprising to me. To a native of print journalism (and of relatively high modern critical sensibility), the often rabid conversational engagement of the blog environment (and the somewhat bizarre valorization of the eagerness to discuss as the standard of critical legitimacy) must leave one with the feeling, let us say, of being overcome by a legion of hungry rats. Some of the more hostile posts that showed up on his blog (now deleted) would suffice to give this metaphor life. His ironic withdrawal might best be read as an expression of congenial dismay rather than a towering condescension.
Well. now we're getting into the question of whether the role of the critic has changed thanks to the Internet, and whether critics who choose to blog (as opposed to confining their criticism to print and television, standoffish media that put a wall between the critic and the public) have to accept those changes when they decide to start a blog.
I don't have an answer to that question because I'm relatively new at this, and frankly, it never occured to me until this comments section got rolling.
Lovely poem, but it looks like there's some competition for my first name here. I could have never quoted a Rimbaud poem in its entirety.
Well, I suppose I could encourage you to quote a different poem, but the moment has passed. Joel Guy's Rimbaud drew first blood.
Someone at the IMDb forum said it most succinctly: Malick created a work of art so free that even boredom itself was allowed to wind it's way through the trees very near to us on our walks. At a certain point that boredom was even allowed the freedom to get close enough to whisper in our ear.
Of course, what boredom always whispers to us is, "There may be nothing here; not even your self."
That's the fear that scares people away from this film. Luckily for me, I was already someone prepared to give my complete trust to Malick.
Anyway, I think you are doing the right thing. "There is only this. All else is unreal."
Thanks, anon. There are weeks when I do feel like a raving lunatic wearing a sandwich board, so I appreciate the encouragment.
Sorry, Joel (the First). I didn't mean to steal your name, but my name is, in fact, Joel Guy.
Also, if it makes you feel better, I didn't quote that poem from heart.
But maybe you could memorize a Baudelaire?
hello, Matt. Whatever one makes of it-Wim Wenders agrees with you re: THE NEW WORLD.
Wenders told Jeffrey M Anderson (look at the last paragraph) that THE NEW WORLD was "the only film that really mattered in 2005".
Personally speaking I think this bit of endorsement (from a real major filmmaker) carries some weight.
Mark: Thanks for the link. I kind of figured Wenders would appreciate Malick's movie, but it's nice to know he's on the record saying so.
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