another maniacal Armond White review, this time "Fahrenheit 9/11"

He really should have replaced "guilt" with "anger".

Tarantino, Kathleen Turner and Jerry Schatzberg encourages audiences to think or behave politically. American cinema in the Tarantino years has pandered to violence, racism, greed and self-satisfaction. It's not impossible that the torturers at Abu Ghraib—including even Saddam Hussein's own precedent-setting torturers—were inspired by the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs. QT made sadism hip and sent it 'round the world. Now we're stuck in the middle of a global crisis for which neither he, nor Michael Moore, have an answer.

Tarantino's production company is named after a Godard film but I'll be damned if I can find any Godard in what he does.

It's infotainment!

He's more of a Melville fan by way of Woo. But really, it's all in the snazzy suits.

Bungled that of course, should read: his weakness is his lack of objectivity, which if he is a documentarist, should be his focus.

This is all brought up on that other Moore thread.

What do you lefties think about Godard's quote, "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image. He doesn't know what he's doing." Agree/Somewhat Agree/Disagree?

I think that's probably a fair point. Moore is working in a very different tradition than Godard. Considering he's such a corpulent man, it's interesting that his films don't tend to have a 'body' in the way Godard's do. I hear the editing in 'F9/11' is 'good', but I suspect the people saying that (I think it was some BBC critic covering Cannes) are not people who think Godard's Brechtian editing style is 'good'. It's like criticizing a newspaper op-ed column for not being James Joyce.

Why shouldn't subjectivity and point-of-view be the focus of a documentarist?

Because people are lazy and want to accept the 'truths' that other present for them :)

You may have to ask someone who thinks that it is his fault.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

oh no, please don't me bring poor Nanook back into another thread. He's tired.

Yours truly, Mister Obvious

If everyone agreed that Nanook was a documentary, pure and simple, then you're right. You could argue that people shouldn't/can't hold Moore to a different standard. But that view of Nanook isn't universal or even a majority.

hstencil, that was in reference to the "it needs to be objective" arguments. "Objectivity" is a lame bogeyman raised by the right to attack Moore, when objectivity is neither necessary nor preferable (documentary without a POV = boring/pointless).

Reference Library: Encyclopedia

Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Documentary film
An incredibly broad category of cinematic expression, traditionally, the only common characteristic to all documentary films is that they are meant to be non-fiction films. The French used the term to refer to any non-fiction film, including travelogues and instructional videos. The earliest "moving pictures" were by definition documentary. They were single shots, moments captured on film, whether of a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actualities." Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations: cameras could hold only very small amounts of film; many of the first films are a minute or less in length.
With Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty went on to film a number of heavily staged romantic films, usually showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then (for instance, in Nanook of the North Flaherty does not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but has them use a harpoon instead, putting themselves in considerable danger).

Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. In later years, attempts to steer the action in this way, without informing the audience, have come to be considered both unethical and contradictory to the nature of documentary film. On the other hand, both the story line and content of any documentary are imposed by the filmmaker.

Amazon.com description:

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential video
Robert J. Flaherty, who wrote, directed, produced, shot, and edited this landmark picture, will forever be remembered as the godfather of documentary filmmaking. While this landmark 1922 production, shot on the northeastern shore of Hudson Bay, isn't a true documentary by contemporary conventions, it remains the first great nonfiction film. With the help of Nanook and his friends and family, Flaherty undertook the mission of re-creating an Eskimo culture that no longer existed in a series of staged scenes. Nanook ice fishes, harpoons a walrus, catches a seal, traps, builds an igloo, and trades pelts at a trading post, all captured by Flaherty's inquisitive camera. Though he presents a "happy" culture bordering on primitive innocence (Nanook and his family were in reality quite westernized), his loving portrait is anything but condescending. Ultimately Flaherty shares his tremendous respect and awe for a culture that has learned to not just survive but thrive in such an inhospitable environment. On a purely visual level the film is a beautiful work of cinema, an understated drama in an austere, unblemished landscape of snow and ice. With unerring simplicity and directness, Flaherty re-creates the details and rhythms of a culture long gone and gives the world a glimpse.

review from Silent Film Sources:

Nanook of the North (1922)
R E V I E W 1922. 6 reels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Revillon Freres present NANOOK OF THE NORTH. A story of life and love in the actual arctic. Produced by Robert J. Flaherty F.R.G.S. Pathepicture.
Opening title: The mysterious Barren Lands- desolate, boulder-strewn, wind-swept- illimitable spaces which top the world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Produced for video by David Shepard. Nanook of the North was the first of Robert J. Flaherty's romantic depictions of man's dignified perseverance in combating a malevolent nature. Flaherty is often called "the father of the documentary", and he did make the first theatrical documentary feature with Nanook. But that fact does not do justice to the humanism and the technical brilliance that makes his best works -- Nanook, Man of Aran and Louisiana Story -- beautiful and enduring.

imdb:

Nanook of the North (1922)
Directed by
Robert J. Flaherty

Writing credits
Robert J. Flaherty

Genre: Documentary (more)

Tagline: A story of life and love in the actual Arctic. (more)

Plot Summary: Documents one year in the life of Nanook, an Eskimo (Inuit) and his family. Describes the trading, hunting... (more)

Shall I go on? Googling gets old.

x-post

An IMDB entry for it says documentary - OK, IMDB also lists Häxan as a doc. Is Häxan a documentary? An Amazon review, a dictionary reference that includes the line "In later years, attempts to steer the action in this way, without informing the audience, have come to be considered both unethical and contradictory to the nature of documentary film."

None of these show a consensus of opinion on Nanook that lets you use it and its methods as a standard. (Because that consensus does not exist.)

To be honest I never thought much of him as a writer, he was never very good at specifics of cinema and his opinions were dishonest and based upon the reactions of others. For example hence his championing of the unknown, not distributed Hurt Locker curdling into distaste as soon as it started getting positive notices from everyone else.

Big Tech enslavement

God is there somebody particularly stupid about America reactionary thinking more than the usual

Yeah and he’s collapsed partially because he’s way too concerned about making sure he leaves space for anti-trans/anti-female/anti-sexual assault victims/etc in his non-reviews

There’s an interesting parallel(or direct linkage) with how collapsed American movement conservatism is, too.

he's collapsed so badly as a writer

This ... or else he doesn't have editors who are willing to help him out anymore. There's always that possibility too.

It’s my own fault for clicking on this thread but, much like Kanye, I just wish an air conditioner would fall on his head so I didn’t have to hear about him anymore

It’s not even like the niche relevance he at one time had is there anymore. He just exists so dicks can say “look, we got one on our side who’s Black AND gay!” He’s the platonic ideal of a token and we’d all be better off if we stopped paying attention to him.

otm

I posted an excerpt from his EO review in the Polish film thread. A+ mania, in which a Polish donkey is uncovered as a co-conspirator in the "the Biden age."

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/12/eo-a-fable-of-the-great-reset/

"Enjoy the rock ’n’ roll and beware the derangement syndrome." I love this line. I don't know what it means, but I intend to use it, maybe on anyone I see listening to music.

would spoonerize

Armond gets in some more "Better Thans..." under the guise of reviewing Truffaut deep cut Blus

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/02/the-truffaut-touch-and-touchstones/

I really don't want to give him clicks.

Why did Spielberg abandon Indiana Jones? Not directing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny — Spielberg was busy ruining West Side Story and fabricating The Fabelmans, instead — makes for the sorriest news of parental neglect since millionaire influence-peddler Hunter Biden got his child support reduced.

https://i.imgur.com/3M7wYy1.gif

he goes after Spielberg like a scorned psychotic ex-lover. talk about a guy whose criticism says everything about him and nil about his subjects...

A fine new entry

Perfect, Robert Davi. A portrait of strength. https://t.co/G5vAwRKGXE

— Armond White (@3xchair) August 25, 2023

So many miniature American tragedies playing out in real time as they fall for that dude, and Armond would be another one if he wasn't already kind of a dickhead.

Tagging catturd2 and, instead, settling for Arm0nd is just one of those moments that make life worth living

Maybe he can compile a special Better-Than list for famous mug shots.

Unfollowed him on Twitter, finally

The teens in TikTok clips who pitifully bounce and sing along with the film’s pre-recorded concert are the flip side of those nerds and sociopaths who lined up for The Dark Knight Rises ...

OK, sure.

... in Aurora, Colo.

oh.

dude is deeply unwell, just an actually mentally ill man ineptly weaponized by the right wing

Sharing his "better than" list ONLY because it's now become the most sane thing he does any given year, frankly. (Or closest to sane, anyway.)

John Wick 4 > Oppenheimer

Chad Stahelski climaxed the Keanu Reeves cult franchise with the year’s most visually, kinetically thrilling filmcraft. Movement is the perfect antidote to Christopher Nolan’s no-fun talkathon. Stahelski’s execution of dazzling choreographed combat extended silent-era and movie-musical slapstick — confronting mankind’s capacity for self-defense killing as a sublime moral act. He made antipathetic video-game artifice feel cathartic, unlike a nihilistic pseudo-history. Nolan, as ever, twists national defense into wearying social complexity. Hail the action genre gone nuclear, not pompous.

Rebel Moon > Killers of the Flower Moon

Zack Snyder, Stahelski’s only rival, knows what Godard knew: Myth is how we learn who we are. So Snyder remakes the childish Star Wars series into rousing adult moral lessons, whereas Martin Scorsese succumbs to America’s current self-loathing in his first political film (and first Western)— a bland epic superficially preoccupied with white supremacy. It shows Scorsese learned nothing from John Ford.

All of Us Strangers > Saltburn

Andrew Haigh’s pop-melodrama finds family-based emotion in the erotic awakening of lonely Brit Andrew Scott. Emerald Fennell’s phony analysis of England’s class system attacks the family unit through feminist/sexual transgression. A triumph commemorating Pet Shop Boys sophistication vs. a disaster that perverts a great Pet Shop Boys song.

The Taste of Things > Maestro

Tran Anh Hung’s exquisite re-creation of French culinary dedication practiced by Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel. It embarrasses the disingenuous dishonesty of Bradley Cooper’s autograph-hound pseudo-biography that toasts Leonard Bernstein’s political, sexual dissembling as modern virtue.

Winter Boy > May December

Christophe Honoré dares candid semi-autobiography in a coming-of-age story about Paul Kircher’s coming-of–personal responsibility. It bests another dishonest Todd Haynes academic thesis, this time indulging pedophilia as social defiance and artistic audacity.

Asteroid City > Past Lives

Wes Anderson’s sunny, stylized nostalgic adolescent outing recalls America’s natural diversity in the ’50s, back when we believed in social, scientific, and artistic potential. Celine Song’s sad-sack narcissism prefers a tribal, Buddhist excuse for immaturity and social disconnection.

Will-o’-the-Wisp > Barbie

João Pedro Rodrigues interrogates Western art, sex, and politics when Portuguese heir Mauro Costa protests his heritage by becoming a dancing firefighter. This is genuine cultural radicalism, surreal and funny. Unlike Greta Gerwig’s toy-feminism, a marketing coup that sold misandry and ineptitude alongside vapid white privilege — all the more biased in its supporting cast of diversity tokens.

Everything Went Fine > Passages

François Ozon’s broken-family drama in which Sophie Marceau accepts the weirdness of her father André Dussollier as like her own. But Ira Sachs equates queerness with generational selfishness. Healing vs. rupture.

Nobody’s Hero > American Fiction

Alain Guiraudie teases French liberalism when middle-class Jean-Charles Clichet harbors a Muslim terrorist and then falls in love with middle-aged hooker Noémie Lvovksy. Hypocrisy becomes farce whereas Cord Jefferson practices the same racial hypocrisy as the black pathology trend of American lit that he pretends to satirize. Deep vs. shallow.

Full River Red > Origin and Rustin

Zhang Yimou’s visually stunning ode to China’s warrior history is a movie to marvel at and heed. Ava DuVernay extolling Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s intellectual research into the global “root causes” of American racism is off-the-charts ludicrous. So is George Wolfe’s inadvertent civil-rights-era comedy Rustin. Strong, artful patriotism vs. Hollywood weakness.

Full Time > The Holdovers

Eric Gravel’s empathy with Laure Calamy’s stressed young mother seeking pride and self-sufficiency teaches something real and non-cliché about working-class identity to indie-movie smarty-pants Alexander Payne.

The Crime Is Mine > Poor Things

François Ozon’s delirious feminist farce captures the inanity of the #MeToo movement. His cinematic and theatrical artifice goes back through the history of sexual duplicity, while art fraud Yorgos Lanthimos defends feminist hypocrisy in his odious sexual horror comedy.

Thanksgiving > Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie

Eli Roth has made the first movie to evoke J6, not shying away from how national chaos was distorted and misunderstood by mainstream corporate media. Brash, hilarious Roth satirizes American self-destruction, leaving Nolan, Scorsese, and Gerwig with moral and ideological blood on their hands.

I agree more than I disagree!

All of Us Strangers > Saltburn

I'd say this is not a contrarian take but my Twitter and Letterboxd feeds disagree.

Certainly Nobody's Hero, Everything Went Fine, and Will-o’-the-Wisp deserve more mentions.

Wonder how the NRO crowd will dig the oral sex sequence in Will-o’-the-Wisp.

Almost fitting that they'll chase it down with the decapitations of Thanksgiving, really

Eli Roth has made the first movie to evoke J6, not shying away from how national chaos was distorted and misunderstood by mainstream corporate media.

if I hold up this sentence in front of a mirror will it make more sense or

the closer you were to get to understanding that, the more I'd worry about you

Pairing Asteroid City with Past Lives is so ridiculous, it's intriguing. It's also ridiculous.

(I won't even get into his valuation of their relative worth.)

A little disappointed he didn't have Sound of Freedom > Zone of Interest or Chicken Run II or something...

Super Mario Bros. > Occupied City

Lady Ballers > Orlando, My Political Biography