Tim Grierson, writing at Deadspin, allows that he “likes” Beasts of the Southern Wild, further generously admitting that he’s impressed by the “boldness of its ambitions” and the “depth of its emotional pull.” That’s the good news. But Tim has some bad news too, which is that the movie exemplifies the five worst indie-film clichés EVER!
But does it really? I don’t know Mr. Grierson, and up until now I haven’t sampled his work much (thanks a pantload, Jeffrey Wells), but it’s clear he went to school and learned a little jargon and has a kit bag from which he can produce terminology to prove his point. Or has/can/does he? My general counter-argument to Mr. Grierson’s is that his agenda here and perhaps in general is to outsmart art, rather than to examine and describe it. And that, proceeding from there, he merely unpacks a bunch of received academic/critical ideas, throws them at Beasts, and figures they’ll stick, mainly because his terminology is kid-tested/mom-approved. This is my nice/fancy way of saying I think his theses are full of shit. Let’s look at them one at a time.
Grierson kicks off by accusing Beasts of “fetishizing ‘authenticity’.” If you know your Lacan and Zizek, and if you’ve read the occasionally feisty music critic lay out a lecture you on how, you know, Charlie Patton was actually a POP musician, you’ll recognize in this phrase a very big double no-no. Lucky for us, then, that when marshalling proof for this claim, he only refers to promotional materials about the making of the film, not with what’s actually on screen. “[P]eople lap up stories about how Zeitlin and his cast and crew essentially lived in the handmade world of their fictional Bathtub while making the movie,” Grierson sighs (I assume). “Knowing that the filmmaker personally pounded nails into wood doesn’t tell us a thing about how he did at making a movie.” Agreed. I don’t ever wonder if Godard got seasick while shooting Film socialisme myself. But, I’m sorry, you were saying Beasts of the Southern Wild fetishizes “authenticity.” Are you suggesting that its hype is inextricable from the movie itself? Because if you are, that’s a different argument. That you are also not making.
Next, Grierson says Beasts “Tries Way Too Hard To be Gritty”. Like a few of his other complaints, this definitely falls into the realm of the judgment call, although the extent to which one’s argument that a film is “trying to hard” is effective is of course relative to the number of pertinent examples one lays out in support of the assertion. Here Grierson does not do as well as he might. He cites “stale art-house moves” such as “shaky handheld” and…and…and…oh, “other self-conscious camera tricks.” Oh. Those. “Contrary to popular opinion”…UH-OH…“having the occasionally out-of-focus shot doesn’t automatically suggest ‘realness.’ ” Oooh, snap. OK, aside from the fact that the term “realness” has some Urban Dictionary cred and a vague peripheral connection to what some contemporary philosophers refer to as “the Real,” it’s a pretty vague term, and Grierson has little leg to stand on in assuming that it is the precise quality that Beast’s director Benh Zeitlin was after. For myself, one of the things that impressed me with respect to the visuals in Beasts was a certain deceptive quality; that the way certain shots were set up, handheld or not, giving the viewer the expectation of something relatively mundane happening in the frame, and then something rather unexpected and thrilling and literally dangerous taking place, as in the scene in which a trailer catches fire, which literally had me holding my breath. This elaborate effect was all the more startling for being approached in such a seemingly offhand way, and in retrospect gives one the impression that Zeitlin is a filmmaker in very tight control over his effects, and that the “accidents” that one might take the “occasional” out-of-focus shots for are not accidents, or any such like thing.
The really rich seam of pernicious bullshit is contained in Gierson’s assertion and argument with respect to supposed indie-film-cliché number three, “It Treats Poverty As Something Noble.” The ostensible nobility of poverty is a complex and vexed issue, as Saint Francis would no doubt tell you were he to appear on earth at this very moment. But after making this assertion, Grierson declines to go directly there. Rather, he just writes: ‘There have been eyebrows raised about the fact that Hushpuppy and Wink are black, while Zeitlin is white.” Grierson then cites Richard Brody, who makes a not entirely laughable proposition—whether the movie taps into “magical, mythical blackness” is certainly worth arguing about, but not so much if you preface it with an admonishment concerning the film’s “love for its characters,” oy—and…that’s it. Again, how convenient to have all these raised eyebrows at your disposal.
Fact is, there should not be a single eyebrow raised, and for the record, I just got off the phone with a film-savvy friend who was very taken with Beasts and didn’t have a single idea as to the ethnicity of its director. Years ago, Anthony Burgess made some cranky noises at the forces of what is incorrectly termed “political correctness” and asserted that as an artist, he had every right to imagine himself into the world and voice of a homosexual, which he was not, or of a black man, which he was not. (He did exactly that in the novels Earthly Powers and M/F, respectively, if I’m not mistaken.) To deny the artist his or her imaginative prerogative on the grounds that the artist is not the thing that he or she is imagining is a form of aesthetic totalitarianism, pure and simple, and if that’s the way Grierson wants things that’s fine but he should at least be honest about it. But where were we? Oh, the “poverty as something noble” bit. Again, it’s a judgment call. I think the residents of the movie’s “Bathtub” who refuse to clear out are a bunch of loony drunks, myself. Yes, the film sets them apart as unique, and depicts the forces that come to clear them out in a way that’s almost as sinister as the Orwellian campaign van in Altman’s Nashville. But with respect to nobility, or a desirable way to live, I don’t see how Beasts is actively selling that. Yes, its subjectivity deals with how its protagonist Hushpuppy perceives/survive the insanity and physical calamity around her, and the things within that matrix she’s become attached to, but that’s hardly the same thing as validating/valorizing a way of life. Again, the baggage here is not the film’s but the perfectly insipid counterintuitive don’t-love-me-I’m-really-not-THAT-kind-of-liberal non-response Grierson’s so invested in erecting.
Bringing us to four, “It Confuses Simple Characters For Memorable Ones.” I wonder, had Grierson been on the set of the film, and then in the editing room, at what point he could have said to Zeitlin, “Hey, wait a minute, you’re making a mistake…” But again, Grierson doesn’t make the argument. Instead, he says that the young girl who plays Hushpuppy is “undeniably captivating” but that the “filmmakers don’t really give her a character to play.” Huh? It’s pretty clear she’s a resourceful resilient very young person in an impossible situation, and she’s certainly mythologized at least a bit, I can’t deny that, but you know, she does also have a kind of quest, that being a reconnection with an absent and herself somewhat mythologized mother. But that’s not enough “character” I guess. Further evidence that Grierson’s assembling a straw man comes when he bitches that her “banal voiceover musings” are “treated as cockeyed wisdom.” Well, they are in voice-over, so they clearly have some significance to them. Does the film make a church out of them? No. The girl is five goddamn years old. The viewer is meant to weigh the pronouncements against the fact that they’re coming out of a five year old. Finally, Grierson lays the hammer down and damningly compares Hushpuppy to Forrest Gump, clearly one of the least memorable characters in all cinema, indie or studio, Nyah. Nyah. Nyah. (I’m not even going to get into the assertion that by putting a five-year-old in the lead role Zeitlin was self-consciously “critic-proofing” the movie. No more adorable children in movies, indie filmmakers; that’s CHEATING.)
God, I’m exhausted.
Fortunately, we are up to cliché five, which I believe Orson Welles would characterize as “Impossible! Meaningless!,” and it is that the film “Touches On Real-Life Events Without Saying Anything About Them.” I know I’ve bored the tits off of most of you with my reiteration of Nabokov’s “or still worse, ‘What is the guy trying to say?’ ” So I don’t need to get into that again. I’m not a big fan of “allegory” myself, but I don’t argue that it ought not exist. Grierson’s assertion that Beasts “tries to have it both ways” with respect to Hurricane Katrina is, one more time, more to do with the baggage he wants to load the film down with than anything that actually occurs when the film itself is onscreen.
It occurs to me that I went through a whole lot of trouble here when the sheer shittiness of Grierson’s project here is handily epitomized by the way he uses the phrase “Sundance darling” in his headline.
Finally, I am more in sympathy with David Edelstein’s review of the movie. And if you consider Edelstein to be precisely the “type” of critic who would be suspicious of a movie coming in on Beast’s wheels of promotion, well, that’s kind of my point.
UPDATE: On his Twitter feed, a critic friend notes: “So I guess the new rule is: ‘Privileged’ people shouldn’t make art about themselves (Girls) or anyone else (Beasts).” Hmm, pretty much. Although I suspect there may be an exception codicil for Louis C.K.. (No disrespect to Mr. C.K., who is indeed great.)
Edelstein’s BEASTS review is one of the best things he’s written. Tough, fair, attentive to technique as well as story, lyrical but not sappy, and definitely not trying to outsmart the filmmaker or detach from the movie’s emotions.
Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf. So I guess it is pointless to bitch about what they make films about, since they are the only ones who get to make films anyway.
Dan Sallitt or Joe Swanberg, you wanna take this one?
Maybe the guy just didn’t like the movie as much as you did? Having not seen it (and also having no familiarity with Grierson’s other writings), nothing in that article strikes me as so unreasonable as to merit being ripped a new asshole. Edelstein makes a lot of the same points, albeit more eloquently. I guess I’m just not seeing what got you so fired up about this.
Your exceptions to the rule do not invalidate the rule, Glenn. And why is it so snarky to point out the obvious? Go visit any major film school sometime, Glenn. Those kids aren’t there on scholarship. I’m not saying rich kids make bad movies, or that their movies don’t deserve to be taken seriously. I’m just saying.
Grierson writes at Deadsping, trust me Josh, he can take it. His article was a generic rant forced onto a movie that might not deserve it.
I knew a number of kids on scholarship (and not) at my famous public Cali film school. And whether or how much they paid for tuition had less than nothing to do with the quality of their work or how far they’ve gotten with it after school. Dana Olsen’s line of argument is as false as it is boring. Unless you’re in such abject war zone poverty that the very possibility of filmmaking couldn’t even occur to you, then you’ve got as much of a shot to make it as anyone else.
I guess I admire the fiery dedication, but the time taken for the dissection here seems kind of ill-spent. Why attach yourself so vehemently to something you’ve already dismissed?
I’d much rather see you take on, say, that review in Mubi, because then you wouldn’t have to go out of your way to tell us you really really don’t respect the writer you’re writing about.
Eh? I thought the whole point of Glenn’s post wasn’t curt dismissal but to give highly specific reasons for not respecting the writer in question? There’s nothing personal at all in his takedown – unless you take movies, clear thinking, good arguments and lucid writing personally. Well, okay then, nothing ad hominem.
Oh, didn’t mean to imply that it’s personal. But I also don’t think Glenn thinks very much of the writer in question–which is fine, but, well, a dialogue between (or response between, or whatever) two experienced critics who respect one another would be much more illuminating than a one-sided takedown from an experienced critic of someone who writes reviews for a site that generally focuses on professional sports.
And take it how you will, what’s clear with this post to me is that Glenn really, really doesn’t take this guy seriously.
As Tim’s colleague at Grierson & Leitch – which runs on both Deadspin and Gawker – I’ll let him speak for himself as to his piece. (As I suspect he might.) I will say, however, to John M, that I don’t quite understand why where a piece runs has anything to do with its quality. Surely, everybody here is a fan of Glenn’s – Grierson and I have been loyal readers for decades – but no one would ever dismiss his work by simply saying, “Well, this is someone who writes reviews for a site that generally focuses on ads for Sensa and desperate attempts to get people to use Bing.” Grierson’s the VP of LAFCA, one of the primary critics for Screen International and someone who has written seriously about film for more than a decade. Frankly, he’s slumming at Deadspin, and I say that as the person who both adores Deadspin and founded the place.
Thanks for writing this.
Fair enough. I regret the implication.
Though, one does tend to focus in on a work differently depending on where it is run–ultimately this is the fault of the reader (in this case, me), but it’s an understandable tendency. Run a great movie review in National Geographic, and part of me will wonder if it’s somehow primarily being written for fans of exotic locations and photography, and therefore not a “real” work of film criticism. This is probably just a just-live-with-it hazard of online cross-publishing, but it’s still jarring to me.
I should also mention that, while I disagree with various points, I liked the piece more than Glenn. Beasts–which I haven’t seen–does sound like, in no small part, a work of social excavation. And Grierson takes those elements on in a more direct fashion than many others have.
It’s too late to apologize for what often comes across as a borderline withheld-vituperation tone, and I wouldn’t anyway because it was intentional, however…I don’t want my irritation with Tim Grierson’s piece to translate as a dislike of Grierson, with whom I’m not acquainted, or for anyone to think that I’m trying to school him, or scold him. What i object to in his piece is stuff that he is hardly the only person guilty of (I use that term advisedly) and his piece getting the attention it got from me has a lot to do with the fact that, well, I happened to SEE it. The review by Mr. Vishnevetsky is a different kettle of fish. I would say it’s somewhat better, or at least more originally argued than Grierson’s. Rather than clichés, Vishnevetsky goes for cherry-picking in the style that I sometimes seem to see my friend Richard Brody doing; having decided that “Beasts” is unclean, he condemns it for doing things he finds at least tolerable if not laudable in other films. This is compounded by dog-whistling to the amen corner at Cinema Scope, and the claque there seems positively giddy at the prospect of finding an American independent film they can piss on, the better to exemplify their principles. “A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms.”
I admittedly didn’t read Glenn’s stuff above *too* closely as I try to not read reviews/reactions to movies I haven’t seen. BUT.…and I may be wrong, but I think Glenn’s issues with Grierson’s piece is that Grierson is responding to the fanfare, press materials and things he’s heard about the process rather than the film. In fact alot of his complaints about the film seem to be reactions to other peoples positive reactions.
Again, I may have skimmed too lightly, but many of these big talkin’ crits seem to want to make a name for themselves by being pundits or backlashers instead of actually reviewing the film and not the film reviews.
“Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf.”
Airtight, that.
Grierson is a Republican. He hates the poor and wants them dead.
Period.
And in swoops David Ehrenstein with his trademarked Voice of Reason.
You’re welcome.
DE is a valuable contribution to the dialogue, demonstrating that you can be acclaimed, widely-published, and still dumb as a rock.
“Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf. So I guess it is pointless to bitch about what they make films about, since they are the only ones who get to make films anyway.”
“Dan Sallitt or Joe Swanberg, you wanna take this one?”
I will if they don’t.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsjbKd-H4Y
“Again, the baggage here is not the film’s but the perfectly insipid counterintuitive don’t-love-me-I’m-really-not-THAT-kind-of-liberal non-response Grierson’s so invested in erecting.”
BINGO!
The worst thing that anyone can be is a liberal. IT’S THE LAW!
And fr the record I don’t find Louis CK funny in any way.
Looks like Deadspin should stick to being smartasses about sports, instead of being smartasses about films. Thanks for a great read, Glenn.
Tim Grierson has a response to Glenn up at his blog:
http://timgrierson.blogspot.com/
“And fr the record I don’t find Louis CK funny in any way.”
Another shocker from Smuggy McCheerless.
And while I think it’s ludicrous to state that independent film is solely a rich kids’ game–and doubly so to say that FILM SCHOOL, of all things, is only for rich kids–I would argue there’s an ever-sharpening distinction between making independent films and actually being able to make a living as an independent filmmaker. And there’s a growing convergence of financially stable independent filmmakers who just make films and people who grew up with certain financial privileges.
Heck, even Swanberg would agree with that.
It’s always been a little like that, but now that it’s gotten so much harder to find a real, money-paying audience, it’s a lot more like that.
Evidently antipathy to Louis CK is AGAINST THE LAW!
Pretty sure he’s not saying it’s against the law, dude.
How many people can make a living solely as an independent filmmaker? Very few. Does making commercials and music videos count against that, because in that case, even Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze aren’t earning a living strictly off their films? I’d wager that Todd Solondz “grew up with certain financial privileges” – unless you’re friends or family with the director, how exactly do you know their financial background? – but as far as I know, he’s making a living largely as a college teacher. He may have been making a living off his films in the days of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE & HAPPINESS, but times have changed.
Since my review of the film for Mubi got brought up in this discussion, I thought I’d chime in on the subject of “rich kids.”
Yeah, I make a parenthetical jab in the review at the fact that Zeitlin doesn’t share a class background with the characters. But the “class disconnect” between filmmaker and subject isn’t an issue. Rossellini was a rich kid. Renoir was a rich kid with a famous dad. Visconti (born a count!) was the ultimate rich kid. The class difference between Zeitlin – who I assume is one form of middle class or another – and his subject doesn’t come close to the difference between, say, Visconti and the characters of OSSESSIONE or ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS.
The issue isn’t with the privileged making films about the poor; most filmmakers are privileged, either by background (which gave them the connections / capital to get into movies in the first place) or by virtue of their profession, since filmmaking tends to pay fairly well. And anyway, making movies / books / TV shows / video games / whatehaveyou about people who aren’t like you is one of the joys of creating fiction, isn’t it?
The issue is with the film’s politics. The basic underlying ideas of its little magical realist universe range from offensive (though probably well-intentioned) to half-baked, and they suggest – at least to me – the work of someone who hasn’t really thought very hard about class because it’s not something that they’ve ever had to think about. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if the film’s characters’ lives weren’t entirely defined by their belonging to an underprivileged class, and if the central plot points – the storm, the levee, the evacuation – weren’t directly tied into as well.
Thanks for the considered response, I.V. From my perspective, the “closing off” of the Bathtub represented a definite choice on the part of Zeitlen and company, rather than a hedge based on insufficient consideration of class. That the deliberate side-stepping of overt class issues was a choice with respect to their NOT making a “realist” work, that they decided to “mythologize” rather than document, or, to use your term, work in a “magical realist” mode. This is a path fraught with real and virtual peril, and as I said in my own review of the picture, the chance that the result might emerge as an “ash heap of ‘we-care-a-lot’ clichés” filled me with dread. That the movie took me to a rather different place was pretty gratifying to me. And for me, what wound up being its crucial underlying “idea” was an askew quest story in a very unusual context. Whether it’s “too soon” to apply Hurricane Katrina to one’s mythmaking is something else again. For myself, I’m not going to extrapolate Zeitlin’s ideological assumptions or blind spots from what’s on screen, and I’m curious as to what you’d think the film might have achieved, or looked more like, had Zeitlen “thought through” the politics to your satisfaction. I imagine that Pedro Costa’s politics are impeccable, but that hasn’t stopped the two or three critics who object to his work from throwing “exploitation-of-the-poor” accusations at him.
As for “thinking about class,” yes, that’s all well and good, but I suppose there’s also the question of what context you do your thinking. As the son of working-class parents who through his created surplus value achieved something close to bourgeois status, and am currently maintaining it pretty much on a month-to-month basis, I can confidently state that I’d rather be thinking about class in college.
The only thing less relevant and more degenerate than film criticism is this reversion to critics criticizing other critics. Never mind the thing itself, your opinion of the thing obsesses me.
@ Mr. Muckle: The fact that you felt compelled to toodle over here and inform everyone of this says as much about your neurosis as it does about my practice. So everybody loses!
“This is Mr. Muckle’s TypePad Profile.
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FWIW, Mr. Muckle is undoubtedly trying to live up to his namesake, the cranky old blind man who wreaks havoc with his cane in W.C. Field’s grocery store in IT’S A GIFT.
Who the fuck calls film criticism, however incestuous, “degenerate” anyhow? Obergruppenführer Kunst von Kulturkampf?
The choice to mythologize the characters also has the effect of placing the movie in the history of films where the lives of black characters are stripped of their social context and presented as universal types. Add to this the invocation of the tragedy of Katrina (a tragedy which was intensified and worsened by social contexts), and the result is a film that can be experienced as problematic in terms of what it chooses to avoid. Zeitlin chose this avoidance – agreed – and we cannot infer anything about Zeitlin or his politics from this choice. But every viewer is going to respond to this choice in her own way. I think it is a safe bet to assume that Zeitlin would like the film to be understood as an “askew quest story” (though it is always dangerous to infer artistic intentions), but that does not mean the movie will be experienced that way.
I do not believe that pointing out the problematic positioning of the film (with regard to class and race) amounts to complaining that Zeitlin did not think the politics through to the extent a viewer wanted him to. Zeitlin thought things as far through as he cared to, and the movie should be received on the terms it offers – inclusionary as well as exclusionary. Viewer responses to those terms will then produce a range which includes Glenn feeling gratified and I.V. being offended. All a critic can do is record her response to the aesthetic experience she has.
“I do not believe that pointing out the problematic positioning of the film (with regard to class and race) amounts to complaining that Zeitlin did not think the politics through to the extent a viewer wanted him to.”
I am in very much agreement with this, for whatever that’s worth. Especially now that I’ve seen the movie.
Because, whatever you think of it, whether you think the “myth” of Beasts is a successful one, dramatically or philosophically, it IS a political myth. The parallels to Katrina are intended and thunderously clear and, in my opinion, woefully muddled (blowing up the levee, for example: an inversion of historical rumor, or just a sampling of the rumor for dramatic expediency?). Zeitlin clearly CONSIDERED the politics here–and I don’t think his intentions are malicious, I don’t think he’s a racist, I don’t think he’s totally ignorant of class, I DO think he really cares about these spirit-characters he’s created–but the FILM doesn’t take these very complex dynamics much beyond the doorway. And so we have a film that’s very, very confused. Conveniently confused, in a fashion that allowed Zeitlin to stuff into the narrative as many heart-wrenching moments of poignancy as can be imagined.
So, it certainly FEELS like something. As though he landed in New Orleans, really dug the vibe, really dug the people, and decided to capture that high feeling–which might work for a short piece, and is a noble endeavor. But 90 minutes of a vibe, complicated only by the kind of road bumps (missing mom, mean dad, symbolic angry cattle, faceless villains) you might find in something like SHREK? With almost no investigation beyond that? Like, here’s another example: we all might agree that, when a community of people gets drunk, day in and day out, it ain’t just because they’re living life to the fullest. Zeitlin probably considered that–but it got in the way of his triumphal myst-quest, so…onto the aurochs? In any case, it’s a left turn, a moment of reflection, that the film simply refuses to follow. Hushpuppy’s not the only one on a quest: Zeitlin is too. He’ll get our tears flowing or he’ll die trying.
The whole thing is sporadically moving because Zeitlin is good at, and relentlessly dedicated to, moving us. But you look back on the thing, you peel away the music and the fog machine and the artful junk and the airy voice-over, and it sort of crumbles. “We are all connected”–that’s the message of the movie, right? Or is it, “We must fight to be free”? Or, “Home is where the heart is”?
A sort of Pixar-spirited Katrina allegory with some very cool design and very annoying music.
John, et; all…Zeitlin is FROM New Orleans. That’s why I have a hard time agreeing with people like you and Ignatiy who say his politics seem misguided or mythologized to the point where they’re rendered moot. The dude was THERE for Katrina. Yeah, maybe we don’t all agree about the film but it seems really weird to say the guy is “wrong” when it’s his experience and maybe his way of processing it? Just feels shortsighted and derogatory to say “oh yeah, I KNOW you were there and lived through it and this is the point you want to make…andI know you have an aesthetic you use like in GLORY AT SEA, but that’s all bullshit.” Which, to me is what Ignatiy said in his review.
No, he’s from Westchester County, by way of Queens. He lives in New Orleans. He has lived there for some time since AFTER Katrina. I’m sure much of the cast lived through Katrina, but, as far as I know, he did not. I do not doubt his dedication to, or love for, that city. But the movie ain’t autobiography, and it ain’t his experience.
All of this is, I might add, totally beside the point. I don’t really care where he’s from–it doesn’t really matter, just as the fact that the dudes who made it worked real long and hard on it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it makes for nice press, but I didn’t pay $12 to watch a press packet.
Zeitlin is a New Yorker who moved to New Orleans in 2008. And I could care less about anyone thinking that somehow invalidates his movie, which I liked a lot.
Don, why does the fact that Zeitlin lived through Katrina means that he has made a film that touches on it intelligently and thoughtfully? That brings us back to the myth of authenticity Grierson brought up. Do you think a rapper who got shot 10 times necessarily has insight into street life?
I think John M. is right about the film’s flaws. BEASTS rubs the viewer’s nose in how environmentally conscious it is, but in the end, it’s both on-the-nose and substance-free about Katrina and climate change. If Zeitlin didn’t mean to invite the kind of readings Ignaity offered, why include images of ruined homes and glaciers breaking apart? He dabbles in politics, so it’s fair game to judge him on political grounds.
OK, I was wrong about Zeitlin living through Katrina. Don’s point about the film’s authenticity is even less valid now.
First off.…MY BAD! I could have SWORN he lived through Katrina. And I think that does matter a bit, even if he’s there now (and wasn’t then) and it has nothing to do with true “authenticity” inasmuch as it has to do with a real RESPONSE to what’s going on where he lives. You act like this is some kind of “he’s Jewish for the jokes” thing. I feel the film reflects an artistic look at how Zeitlin sees the world or at least how he wants to reflect it. Again, you don’t have to like it, that’s not my issue with these 2 reviews.
And yeah, I kind of do think a rapper who’s been shot or lived that life has insights; his/her OWN. Much as Grierson and Ignatiy seem to dislike BEASTS in part because Zeitlin isn’t “poor” I don’t think they’re in a place to use someones social status as a reason to take a film down a peg. I don’t require financial statements from anyone. It’s akin to gripes about “young, white filmmakers who don’t seem to have any black friends.” Should they get some so their movies feel more authentic to other people when it’s not their reality?
I also don’t think he was trying to make an “authentic myth” which was the aspersion cast on it in the Grierson piece. I have NO problem with people taking up issues or even not liking the film. I just felt Grierson and Ignatiy went a little too personal and I still feel both reviews smack of responses to critics/press rather than what was on the screen. As if they went in with a chip on their shoulder.
Also– this is all said respectfully.…not in an angry tone.
I’m not a fan of Grierson’s five-point manifesto against “indie-film” cliches. It’s way too broad, and as Glenn aptly indicates, it makes vague references to indie-film attributes that are somehow understood without explanation (“self-conscious” camera quirks, e.g.–whatever that means aside from “no tripod”). However, I think readers should take a closer look at Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s MUBI review of BOTSW, because while being equally damning, it takes time to investigate influences that buttress the “pretty poverty” arguments it makes. I am glad Ignatiy took the time to respond here, because I do think being lumped with Grierson unfairly and inaccurately suggests that they are using the same rhetoric. Glenn chose a very convenient and deserving target, and I’m glad he got on Grierson’s case for essentially using a film review in order to bitch about vague conventions that are rarely identified beyond nudges, sighs, winks, and terms that in themselves are cliché. But Ignatiy, as per usual, focuses his critique on this particular film, providing a context for his engagement with this particular film, and in the end, cogently justifying his exasperation with this particular film without resorting to bland position statements.
Grierson’s shoddy piece at least could have cited a few more pictures as examples of his five indie-film cliches – it was sheer laziness to pile on a single film (and not very convincingly) with all of them, as if some how critiquing Beasts were just shooting fish in a barrel, at least for those who’ve seen “enough” independent cinema to pick out these chronic flaws. The piece reads like a screed from a frustrated, aging film-school grad, who likely hasn’t been the subject of the acclaim Mr. Zeitlin has received for his film, and compensates for a lack of success (or ambition?) with a churlish, flimsy, “I’m really not a hater [yes i am]” takedown.
Honestly, Glenn, if you would spend even a fraction of the time you spend taking other critics to task simply analyzing films more closely and sharing the results, you’d be a must-read rather than a continual disappointment. You’re a brilliant guy. But this endless series of “SOMEBODY IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET” posts is not the most productive use of your knowledge and talents. The thing is, you know this–and you’ve said as much. But you keep getting…pulled…back…in, for which you only have yourself to blame.
Why don’t you pick a film or filmmaker that you really admire and have though about a lot, and set yourself a goal of writing a long, careful blog post–or hell, even a monograph–about it/him/her? I imagine the results would be much more interesting than this.
I know this sounds incredibly condescending. But I’m not saying anything you haven’t yourself said before. And do you really want to spend so much of your life taking these lesser critics to task, rather than doing something really critically productive?
I stopped checking into you blog regularly years ago because it had become (or remained) dominated by critical infighting. I’ll bow out again until someone lets me know that things have changed. I hope they do.
FWIW I had wish this movie were better but I found it to seem entirely too modish, calculated, and awkwardly staged–full of clichés about poor people being close to the earth and fun-loving and community-minded. And most of the “big” moments felt overemphatic and rhetorical, something _not_ helped by the insufferable Sufjan-style soundtrack (which alone would make the film a near-total loss for me). Despite the circumstances of its making, almost everything in this film felt familiar, received. It struck me as art conceived in the same well-meaning but uncomprehending spirit as a community art project that’s supposed to turn around a blighted-for-decades rust belt city. If that sounds suspiciously overdetermined, I promise you I didn’t know a thing about the filmmakers before I saw this. But was not surprised when I did read a bit about them.
I think Teo’s got a point there. Glenn’s got a lot of nerve writing about just any old thing he wants to write about on his own personal blog. Especially given the funds that people like Teo contribute the blog’s coffers. Glenn owes us all a little more than that.
Wait…
I didn’t say he owed me or any of his other readers anything, Mr. Remedial Reading Comprehension.
I argued that his criticism is more interesting when he’s analyzing a film than when he’s attacking a fellow critic. The former activity is IMO a better use of his talents. If he disagrees, well then he does. But he’s basically made the same point himself on this blog, several times. Then he just goes back to the same old same old.
the law
Some Came Running: Some new entries for the “Dictionary Of Received Critical Ideas”
lawyer
Some Came Running: Some new entries for the “Dictionary Of Received Critical Ideas”