Pauline Kael

A good Hollywood film to her was one that told a tight story, etc. But, thank gawd, the genius of the system was flexible enough to allow for films that did not rigidly adhere to those conventions. So even though they are undeniably Hollywood films and they do tell stories (sorta...not really...), you need to approach them from a different angle. And call me a snob, a cinephile (quelle horreur!), an anti-populist (ha!), etc., but it does help if you have some sort of affinity for the avant-garde (or at least, the insufferable art film...I'm perfectly cognizant of the fact that Man's Favorite Sport? can be just as difficult to slog through as L'avventura).

i don't see how you can think this and still dig sarris, who had NO IDEA about the avant-garde. but i think you're seeing things in hollywood movies that aren't really there. there wasn't that much space to depart from conventions. man's favourite sport is just a dull, uninspired movie by some guy a somewhere between twenty years and a quarter of a century past his best -- that's why it's a slog. and no i couldn't give you chapter and verse (long-ass time since i slogged through it) and no im not going to rewatch, there just isn't time.

think you're seeing things in hollywood movies that aren't really there.

so you retract your praise for The Fighter then

nope, not at all -- being cute, though, i'd rather overrate a current movie than a 60 y.o. movie

i think you're seeing things in hollywood movies that aren't really there.

Ha! That's sorta what Kael said about The King of Comedy. But man, you are the evidence queen to end all evidence queens.

man's favourite sport is just a dull, uninspired movie by some guy a somewhere between twenty years and a quarter of a century past his best

And the film he directed after that, Red Line 7000, is my vote for his greatest film. But I already knew we wouldn't be having tea.

You're right about Sarris, though. But if an affinity for the avant-garde isn't useful to appreciate Hatari! or, say, The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932), then how about a disdain for tight narratives, the three-act structure, logical character motivation, etc.?

i'd rather overrate a current movie than a 60 y.o. movie

bigot

but i think you're seeing things in hollywood movies that aren't really there. there wasn't that much space to depart from conventions.

sorry but this is total bullshit and way crazier than anything kael ever said, ever.

I love reading film criticism of the so-called Golden Age. Even more revelatory is criticism of the critics. Does anyone know if Kael ever argued with or even acknowledged the existence of these contemporary critics?:

Renata Adler
Judith Crist
Rex Reed
Richard Schickel

just seeing her shoot a look at Rex woulda been priceless

Adler wrote an infamous attack on Kael, though much later on (sometime in the '90s, maybe? I have it in one of Adler's books). Schickel wrote a defense of Sarris in one of his books, documenting his shift away from Kael towards Sarris; I just read that fairly recently. Crist and Reed were--how to put this benignly--more mainstream reviewers who weren't really in the Kael/Sarris/Kauffmann/Simon mix, although I know Simon ridiculed Reed on occasion. (I think the first film book I ever bought was a paperback collection of Judith Crist's reviews: The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl...it influenced me! And I think there may have been a character modelled after her in Stardust Memories.)

Among other gigs, Judith Crist had a column in TV Guide for years on whatever films were network-broadcast that week.

A little bit about the Adler/Kael dust-up (can't find the actual piece):

http://www.slate.com/id/1005863/

That was the hook of the Crist book--that these were all films that you could now see on TV, I guess something of a novelty when the book came out. Actually, I think the TV Guide logo was on the cover.

big silly xpost

And the film he directed after that, Red Line 7000, is my vote for his greatest film.

HOLY CATS! You just don't through out something like that without further commentary, Senor Bozelka! Top five Hawks movies, plz!

Mine, cuz I have little imagination:

1. HIS GIRL FRIDAY
2. I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE
3. ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS
4. CEILING ZERO
5. THE BIG SLEEP

through = throw

How odd is that mistake?

this is s.thing kent jones wrote the other day: "More importantly, who cares? There's such a mad obsession in film criticism with lists, rankings, how much "love" is shown for this underappreciated movie rather than that AFI-sanctioned classic. There is a vast amount of attention paid to what critics like and don't like, and precious little to what they write and what they think."

that's about right. so i mean, maybe 'red line' *is* hawks's best film, if you're able to offer a case for it.

Someone else we haven't mentioned: Parker Tyler. Simon ridiculed him, too. Simon ridiculed everybody.

parker tyler is a soft target... belongs to another age, really, before all this auteur horseshit came along. a more interesting read than most.

There was clearly some homophobia in Simon's attacks on Tyler and Reed, although: 1) again, he ridiculed everybody, and 2) pretty much everybody thought Reed was a joke.

I have an autographed first edition of Judith Crist's The Private Eye, the Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl. It reads, "to a fellow movie-lover... and antique lover" because the book was already old when she signed it.

The Crist book has year-end Top Ten lists for 1963 to 1967, plus little justifications for each inclusion. I find this quite handy for getting a picture of what was out there & what films impressed a smart but non-contentious critic at the time.

HOLY CATS! You just don't through out something like that without further commentary, Senor Bozelka! Top five Hawks movies, plz!

Well, this isn't the thread for it and my defense won't convince Miss Mayne (nor will anyone else's). But... It's a cliché for incorrigible auteurists like yours truly to fawn over an auteur's last (or near last) film and that's where I'm coming from with my love for Red Line 7000. The final films are a measure of how much room exists in their worldviews. So I see Red Line 7000 as an attempt to test how well Hawks' ideal of professionalism holds up in the face of a burgeoning feminism, e.g., The Feminine Mystique had been recently published. The film asks: can professionalism remain an ideal for the Hawksian hero when women are now competing for jobs and business ownership and money? This is much different from the occasional woman who became one of the guys by joining the team, say, in Only Angels Have Wings. Because in Red Line 7000, women are now the Hawksian heroes. And they're creating groups of professionals that are all women. So what happens when the male Hawksian hero encounters this, perhaps even looking at some very real material inequities? James Caan's character doesn't take it too well, for one. It's a film full of extremely intense conflicts almost from the very beginning, conflicts that force you back over Hawks' oeuvre to gauge the parameters of his worldview (which means you get to watch more movies!). And something similar occurs with Ford's 7 Women but with downright apocalyptic results. I can't think of an artist who dismantled his/her worldview so corrosively, so absolutely as Ford did with 7 Women. A non-cinephile friend sat in dumbfounded silence at the end of it and later wound up losing his cool with two putative cinephiles for not showing enough interest in tracking it down (!).

Other great things about Red Line 7000: its Pop Art tour of the American South; its art film-like formal rhyming patterns; and crummy racing footage (which some say Hawks didn't even film) bound to piss off boys who see this film only because they're race car enthusiasts

Top Five Hawks
1. Red Line 7000
2. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
3. Rio Bravo
4. Hatari!
5. The Big Sky

Top One Hawks:
1. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Well put.

Well, this isn't the thread for it and my defense won't convince Miss Mayne (nor will anyone else's).

Yeah - I slapped my head after I posted that; all in good fun, of course, but a silly post that probably deserved another place.

1 his girl friday
2 scarface
3 the big sleep
4 bringing up baby
5 twentieth century or to have and have not

i don't think i quite get the mystical auteurist appreciation of hawks (dave kehr: 'money business ranks with the best works of the american cinema') but he certainly made more great films than any other classic hollywood guy.

I know this isn't a Hawks thread--or wasn't, anyway--but doesn't Red River rank for anybody? I put it right there with The Big Sleep.

I was about to say, Red River's my #1.

I like Red River a lot, but I don't know how one compares it directly w/ His Girl Friday or The Big Sleep except in the most subjective "well, it makes me happier" way.

btw Kael called RR "a magnificent horse opera" AND wrote "a lot of it is just terrible."

I think she hated the "aw, shucks, let's make up and be friends" resolution. I'm just comparing it to His Girl Friday and The Big Sleep to the extent that they're all Hawks films--not quite sure what you mean.

Yeah I mean, I wouldn't argue that it's better than Friday or any of the other heavy hitters, it's just the one I'm fondest of.

Well Red River's brilliant, but Hawks made alot of brilliant movies, y'know?

Kind of near the bottom of the top tier of Hawks movies, I'd say.

The "who's got the nicer gun?" scene between Clift and John Ireland is just totally outrageous.

It's kind of like the textbook bit of "classic hollywood subtext" that's mentioned in every documentary.

kind of appreciate kjb's advocacy, but otoh you need to be interested in hawks's whole oeuvre to buy in. im not sure i go to major artists for a 'worldview' (but as you know i don't think hawks is a major artist), and my question was really about the film more than the plot

Other great things about Red Line 7000: its Pop Art tour of the American South; its art film-like formal rhyming patterns; and crummy racing footage (which some say Hawks didn't even film) bound to piss off boys who see this film only because they're race car enthusiasts

i mean the first half of this might interest me. the second half really doesn't -- reminds me of the 'deliberately bad' back projection shots cahiers critics would fawn over.

think 30s-40s hawks has the edge over anything later because it's faster, essentially

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IpEnsdXwFM

my question was really about the film more than the plot

?

Anyhoo, Fred Camper calls Red River the 4th greatest film of all-time. As much as I dig it, though, I've never quite gotten what he sees in it. Something about the film growing organically from the gestures of the actors.

well, you explained the plot (which makes it sound kind of like 'anchorman') but apart from the possible interest it has *as compared with other hawks films* im not sold that it's particularly distinguished as a film

but i haven't seen 'red line'

the idea that 'red river', which i have seen, is the fourth best film of all time is not one i can really entertain for a second

The story, you mean. Which is part of the film. And had R Baez not asked, I wouldn't have bothered. Come on - you know that detailing Red Line 7000's moderne editing patterns would have been wasted on you.

But fwiw Fred Camper is a rabid formalist (although he likes to deny this) so were he to waste his time defending any Hawks, he'd do so largely on those grounds.

Come on - you know that detailing Red Line 7000's moderne editing patterns would have been wasted on you.

not really, just think you're bluffing

i'd be interested to see a formalist cast for hawks, in a way

i mean shit, maybe it's a radical departure from everything he'd done before, but for 'moderne' in 1964 i'm going to need something pretty impressive, and you've already given away the race scenes as nothing much

My favorite Hawks:

Only Angels Have Wings
His Girl Friday
The Big Sleep
Bringing Out Baby

otm

I'm a little surprised OAHW hasn't been mentioned enough. Is it because Jean Arthur is so annoying?

i'm going to need something pretty impressive

And I'm going to need a sack of $$$ cuz your ass is trolling, sister. But nice try.

Soto, looooove Only Angels Have Wings but dude had tons of great films so something's gotta give.

Just for fun:

Top Five Ford (although I have a long way to go with him):

1. 7 Women
2. Wagon Master
3. The Long Gray Line
4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
5. How Green Was My Valley

And wth

Top Five Preminger:

1. Angel Face
2. Fallen Angel
3. Bunny Lake Is Missing
4. The Human Factor
5. Daisy Kenyon

Who else was Kael cranky about that we can get list queeny over?

I'd toss in Advise and Consent.

Other auteurist bete noires of Kael's: Hitchcock way at the top, Capra, probably Ray and Sirk (don't remember specific digs, she mostly just ignored them altogether), and--he was only a favorite of Sarris's many years later--Billy Wilder.

Walsh, too, I think. For some of these folks, though, there'd be at least one film she loved almost without reservation: Notorious, His Girl Friday, and Stagecoach come to mind, although I'd have to check the last two.

Walsh is dicey "auteur" territory. He's like Wellman or Hathaway -- I'd never discuss him in the same breath as Cukor or Hawks.

Not with Hawks, no, but in The American Cinema, Sarris had Walsh in the same second-tier category as Cukor. And I think Walsh gets mentioned in "Circles and Squares."

I thought we already condemned Sarris' taxonomies to the seventh circle of the square.

I'm lost. My only point is, I think Walsh is absolutely considered an auteur in the original sense--by Sarris, by the French, by all the first-generation auteurists. Every bit as much as Cukor.