By Charles Taylor
The New Yorker used to be in the habit of sending someone to screenings along with their movie critics for the purposes of fact checking. Anthony Lane's latest piece of cocktail chat—it's Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces he's discussing between sips of his martini this week—suggests that tough times at Condé Nast may have led to an abandonment of the practice. How else to account for the falsification in Lane's review?
Here's Lane:
"[Penélope] Cruz is certainly more worshipped than ever by [Almodóvar's] camera, and you have to laugh when, fresh from intercourse, with mussed hair, she stares at the bathroom mirror, as bare as a baby, and declares, "I look awful." If you say so, dear."
What Lane doesn't bother to tell you is that, just before saying that line, Cruz's character has vomited. The reason? The older industrialist who's keeping her has forced her to go away with him for a weekend and, as she puts it a few scenes later, stayed on top of her the whole time. It's a powerful moment of sexual disgust. Right after the scene Lane describes, Cruz returns to the bedroom and Almodóvar shows us the old satyr lying in bed, so wizened and satiated that Cruz, and we, mistake him for dead. The image is meant to repel us. In the world of Pedro Almodóvar, a world steeped in the allure of movies and the glamor of stars, the idea of Penélope Cruz being touched by this rapacious old jackal is a violation.
Lane, though, determined to preen on the surface, can only treat it as if this moment were a ridiculous sop to a star's vanity. But here he lets slip some of the contempt his dry little bon mots usually conceal. The terribly, terribly witty young man becomes George Sanders putting up with Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve. The condescension of his "dear," written in the tone you use to address a foolish child or a vain, airheaded starlet, combined with his falsification of the moment, adds up to an old story: the voice men use to dismiss women as frivolous, empty-headed narcissists.
Lane has already suckered enough people—many of them who ought to know better—into thinking he's what a critic should be. In fact, he's as redolent of the shallowness of movie culture right now as the blockbusters that the people who coo over Lane would never condescend to see. ("Anthony, meet G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I have a hunch you two will get along famously.") That few people seem willing to demand more from criticism is part of why our craft is in freefall. But what accuracy The New Yorker still demands from its writers, that's another question.
Charles Taylor is a New York-based writer and critic. Click here to read our 2006 interview with him (by Jeremiah Kipp).
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18 comments:
Okay, I'm glad it's not just me -- I've been reading The New Yorker for, geez, 13 years now, and more than once I've thought "did Anthony Lane and I see the same movie?" Not in the sense of we had fundamentally different reactions to what was on the screen, but that what he said was on the screen wasn't what was actually up there.
Over time you find the reviewers you can trust, not necessarily agree with but know that you're getting a clear idea of what the movie is about so that you can make your own call whether to see it -- Roger Ebert is just about the best of them -- and those who take with them such an axe to grind that you can't make any informed decision about the movie at all. I'd put Lane in the latter category.
LOVE IT.
First, glad to have discovered this blog.
Second, despite his witty and often entertaining writing, Anthony Lane has occasionally struck me as being the John Simon of film criticism: indulging in mean-spiritedness for its own sake.
As emotionally invested as I am in cinema, I'm somehow able to forgive a good writer who may be able to turn a good phrase even if he lacks the proper education (for lack of a better word) in film history.
What I can't forgive is a writer who callously disregards the truth to come up with his clever "dry little bon mots." It reeks of intellectual laziness. And the catty Lane is an example of someone who is better suited for a gossip page than film criticism or even movie reviewing.
I like Anthony Lane. More movies --- more cultural works generally -- should be treated dismissively, lightly, arrogantly -- all the things that artists complain about in critics in any event, rather than the reverence that so many print critics affect, lest someone accuse them of being envious, thwarted dry skins of ambition (as someone always does anyway; one would think critics would get over it).
Also, Charles, the opinions of a critic who condemned The Thin Red Line and praised Gigli are not necessarily worthier than those of a critic who is fun to read, even if he does not follow Salon's standard practice of casting accusations of sexism and racism with abandon.
I don't know if it's brave or foolish or jerky to post a crit of a fellow critic, but I agree with what you're saying. Back when Lane worked with Terrance Rafferty it was clear the Rafferty was the serious, engaged critic (who was also funny) while Lane was the silly socialite more interested in himself than talking about movies. It seems like he was cleaning up his act last year for a while with his take on tarrantino's latest film, but I guess that was all he could muster.
I would have thought the misogyny of his SEX IN THE CITY review would have been the straw that broke the camel's back and gotten him fired. Even NEWSWEEK called him out on it. No, the movie wasn't very good, but the review Lane filed proved hin to be an an ass.
I agree for the most part with your takedown of Lane, though I doubt he's as significant a figure as his detractors claim; I never hear him cited much even by the New Yorker readers I know. And I confess preferring him to Denby.
But was the fact-checker anecdote really the best opening just a few weeks after you
missed that Lionsgate's DVD release of The Dead was missing ten minutes of the film?
Adam: "[T]he opinions of a critic who condemned The Thin Red Line and praised Gigli are not necessarily worthier than those of a critic who is fun to read...."
As always, the question is the argument used to reach a conclusion, not the conclusion itself. I disagree mightily with Charles Taylor about
Malick (Gigli, not so much) but given his premises his conclusion seems earned. And I quite like his larger point about the populist urges of '70s cinema being abandoned.
I have to mirror Bruce, because I think this is important to note when we're assigning this and that to be Signs of the Times: No one but critics cares about Anthony Lane. I never hear anyone talk about him except for movie buffs and critics, and only then to say "look at this latest ridiculous thing he's said!"
Maybe he's a bellwether for.. I don't know, the internal battle for criticism's soul, but the public? They don't care. Likely don't know who he even is.
Let's not assign him more traction and credibility than he deserves.
I give Anthony Lane points for being one of the few critics out there to see through No Country For Old Men.
I never hear anyone talk about him except for movie buffs and critics, and only then to say "look at this latest ridiculous thing he's said!"
I don't often hear anybody talking about any living movie critic, except to mention how much the commenter hates Edelstein's/Stevens'/Denby's/Zacharek's/Scott's/etc.'s critical persona and produce, for reasons that are usually persuasive if not dispositive.
Wow, thank you for this article. When I read the movie section of a magazine like New Yorker, I expect an intelligent review, maybe even insightful criticism. Everything Lane rarely if ever delivers.
Maybe Lane should be writing in Shouts and Murmurs if all someone's looking for is an enjoyable read.
Thanks, Charley, for calling Lane on his BS. Lane seems to regard movies not as experiences to be appreciated on their own merits but as mere springboards for his witty pen. Denby is no better; each movie for him seems no more than another excuse to mourn the death of cinema. (Reading Lane and Denby's writing on books, it's clear that they both have much more respect for -- and engagement with -- literature than they do for film.) I don't understand why two critics who find so little joy and pleasure in filmgoing would make careers out of it, nor do I understand why the New Yorker would employ writers with so little regard for film as its film critics.
Gary, what you said!
I've been tired of Lane's arch, snarky reviews for a long time and was delighted to find this blog saying the same.
It's astonishing that the New Yorker would continue to employ two totally unreadable film critics - if it's not Lane's shallow preening, it's the flaccid moralizing of David Denby, the Joe Lieberman of film criticism.
Oddly enough, I like Lane's literary criticism, probably because he takes books seriously, as opposed to his glib, flippant attitude towards film.
Terrence Rafferty, I liked him. Where is he?
Agree with all the criticism here of Anthony Lane. But one thing I find is that I can usually trust him on those rare occasions that he likes something.
If and when Anthony Lane publishes a follow-up to Nobody's Perfekt, I'll be one of the first to pre-order a copy. The man is hilarious and doesn't mind entertaining while he writes--such a change of pace from 99% of the other reviewers/critics who are dropping like flies. Is he wrong sometimes and flippant? Yes and yes. But I have a lot of respect for the man who chose to review Sally Potter's Yes with his own poetic yet hilarious article. I so rarely laugh out loud anymore, but Lane hits my funny bone so consistently it hurts. If you can, try finding his assessment of "Cookbooks" (it's in his book) and check out what he has to say about Martha Stewart. Would love to see what he actually looks like rather than relying on his college photo, but the vanity expressed is perfectly in character. In short, Lane is having a great time as a writer and isn't ashamed to ask readers to ride along.
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