My Latest Pet Peeve

Another in a long line of my pet peeves, the phrase “open to/beyond criticism” has really started to tick me off. I’d first come across the term “beyond criticism” in the context of Oprah endorsing a book into her elite class of Oprah Book Club (does she have anything in her life whose title doesn't contain her name in it, that self-indulgent, narcissistic bitch?), and I didn’t give it much thought back then for reasons I can neither recall nor, if could recall, justify. But with the increasing frequency of this term in print – used often by critics and reviewers of literary, cultural, religious and political phenomena – my peeve detector has finally rung the alarm.

Since I came across this phrase exclusively in literary context, I’ll stick to what I know. Calling a book or some other work of literature as beyond criticism categorically submits that any opinion or point of view that opposes the established awesomeness of the work can be either discredited because the (insecure) majority who pushed it past the unsafe zone of criticism disagree with it, or restricted from being uttered altogether. Now, “open to criticism” can superficially come off as a critically superior term that, as it manifestly suggests, opens the book to criticism and allows novelty and variety of opinions to be expressed unlike the other phrase; but really, it is just an elastic extension of ‘beyond criticism’ that when let free returns back to the intolerant connotations of its base phrase, ‘beyond/above criticism.’ Being ‘open to criticism’ insinuates that it can also, at some time in the future and with sufficient consensus attained, reach the point of being ‘closed to criticism’ – just a fancy way of saying it is now beyond criticism. Well, fuck that! A phrase which fundamentally grants any work of art that privilege is illiberal and despicable in equal measure. At what point, may I ask, does a work go from being ‘open to criticism’ to ‘beyond criticism’? In my book, never. As long as I am alive, no book ever written is above or beyond or closed to criticism!

This pet peeve, however, as I mentioned earlier, is highly context-specific. I have no qualms with this phrase being used in a few other areas of human affairs, such as science. That earth goes around the sun and not the other way around is above and beyond criticism, and that evolution is true hasn’t been open to criticism for well over a century and a half now.

I want to go on about how blinkered we Indians are about other people’s outlook towards something that is different from our own and how closed we make our objects of praise to criticism. But that could, true to our Indian form, make this into a pissing contest and flame war, so I’ll conclude the pet peeve with my original intention of just expressing the peeve, and nothing more.

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Response to a response to my Bicycle Thieves review

So hello again, Alexander. At the outset, sorry for the delay. I'd been going through a rough patch for the past two months (you know, breakup and everything), but I'm done with the grieving stage and am back to form now. Except for a broken right hand middle finger that I broke today morning by stubbing it onto the door, but it shouldn't cause much discomfort in typing this out. I'll try and maintain brevity in this reply.

(For the uninitiated, the quoted parts are Alexander's reply to my previous post.)

Hi there, buddy! Remember me? I actually still check on your rants from time to time. I find it interesting that you write that many considered classics supposed contain: "symptoms of pretentiousness". So, am I right to assume that you dislike much of what is considered 'classic' pre-Kubrick era, because you find many of those films to contain "symptoms of pretentiousness" which takes away story? Or, do you simply mean, that it's just hard to find representative elements in just one film from one particular era, because of mentioned symptoms, which in terms makes it harder to get into, and therefore just not worth the effort?

I think I'm more inclined towards the latter. Cinema evolved over 100 years. Today's directors have a much larger database of "Do's and Don't's" that has in essence accumulated over those 100 years from hundreds of thousands of films, and that gives them an edge over the first half century's directors as to what works and what doesn't. Kubrick had a very significant influence on the following generation of filmmakers, and in my opinion, more so than any other director of the second half of 20th century. Following in Kubrick's footsteps, many filmmakers have mastered the art and craft of filmmaking, most famously including Steven Spielberg who admits it himself. But in my experience of watching films, I hardly come across many films in the pre-Kubrick era that can, in totality, stand up to the post-Kubrick era where such films began to rise in number. That said, however, I will be quick to admit that even with the apparent lack of totality of filmmaking craftmanship, without the pre-Kubrick films there wouldn't have been any influence and ground rules for Kubrick himself to make films and there is no way in hell he could've started everything from scratch all by himself.

I am mostly asking because of this line: "but it’s hard to find much of what is good about cinema in a single film in many films before the 1960s." So, let's get right to the 1960's and forward. Because, I'd say Kubrick's produced some pretentious works, by your logic, if I am to understand you correctly. '2001: A Space Odyssey', is to me, the very same thing I'd interpret you to describe as "pseudoartistic babble". Same goes for, 'Eyes Wide Shut', and 'The Shinning'. Movies that tells a story that really doesn't seem to make sense to me in a conventional way.

The Shining was not meant to be an artistic film. Because of Barry Lyndon's commercial failure (even though artistically it was highly acclaimed and still is one of the "basic references" for period filmmaking), Kubrick's disappointment led him to want to make a film for a larger audience with more entertainment value than artistic, and still having his own creative identity as an experimental filmmaker, at the same time avoiding the conventional way of telling a horror story. Eyes Wide Shut succeeds on many levels for me while failing at many as well. Kubrick tried to capture the tone of A Clockwork Orange into this film with long pauses within and between dialogues, but it just didn't work like it did for ACO. The dream-like tone he intended for the film did not come across as very dream-like but just laborious to watch. It did, however, succeed on its occult imagery - the kind of impeccable craft that makes Kubrick films what they are.

Or perhaps you don't like all Kubrick films? Please correct me if I'm assuming too much.

I don't, mate. In fact, I don't even like to the same degree all the Kubrick films that I do like, and even in the ones I like, with the exception of 2001 which in my opinion is pitch perfect, there are parts I think were not directed to his true potential, especially in his last two films. And Lolita is my least favorite of his work, so much so that I refuse to believe he even directed the film. Assuming they hired some ghost director and used Kubrick's name for branding purposes gives me solace :D

Don't get me wrong, I love those movies. But isn't '2001: A Space Odyssey', something you'd imagine Fellini could've done? Initially, I got that '2001...' is all about telling a story through pictures. But, there is no initial plot, and no depth to any of the characters. There is really nothing at stake. It's highly original for its time, because it breaks away from conventional storytelling. The point of '2001...' to me was the beginning and end of life, and the infinity of the universe. Humans played a smaller part, because the movie's main point to me is how insignificant we really are in the whole of the universe. '2001...' isn't supposed to have an epic assemble of characters with a quest, because the bigger whole is the journey.

To answer your first question, no, I don't think Fellini or any other director could've done 2001, just as I don't think Kubrick could've done 8-1/2. Every director has his own directorial signatures, some which are perhaps unknown even to him, and it is usually that which gives a film the feel that it has. Replacing directors and expecting to get the same feel out of a film would be ridiculous.

I can go on and on about the depth of 2001, but I'll limit it to the points you raise. Even to this day, a large majority of those who have seen 2001 over the span of 40 years think the only commendable thing about the film was its groundbreaking use of visual effects. While that is true, it is only the cult following that the film has generated over 40 years that can truly appreciate the depth of its scope and meaning and how well it incorporates Friedrich Nietzsche's ubermensch philosophy into an unconventional story without losing the essence of the philosophy and maintaining the artistic as well as dramatic merit of the film's own story. It's funny you should say that humans play a small part in the film, because the entire film is about nothing other than humans, the evolution of humans from apes to the quintessential ubermensch (which is referred to in the film as Star Man - the giant black monolith), and the relationship between humans and the universe. There is not a moment - not one tiny fraction of a second - in the film in which humans are not discussed, although not through words but through the subtlety of non-verbal storytelling. HAL is shown to have more human characteristics than Dave Bowman, and Dave is shown to have more mechanical characteristics than HAL - a reference to the futuristic transformation of man into ubermensch.

There are clues all over the film about the meaning of the film, and with each clue discovered, a new layer is uncovered, opening the flood gates to a whole range of possible interpretations. For example, the symphony that is used in the beginning, the end, and when the ape discovers the use of the tool, is Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, which is a direct reference to Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra - the foundation of the ubermensch philosophy on which the film is based. (You really need to be familiar at least with the gist of that philosophy to get a grasp over the meaning of the film). Or, in the very title of the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the clue to Homer's Odyssey is referenced, which has a great many similarities in major plot points of the story, the most obvious one being Dave Bowman killing HAL with just a screw driver, as the protagonist of Odyssey kills the antagonist with just a bow. The film has as many interpretations as there are people who watch it, which adequately accomplishes Kubrick's aim who, on finishing the film and before its release, said:

"It's not a message that I ever intend to convey in words. 2001 is a nonverbal experience; out of two hours and 19 minutes of film, there are only a little less than 40 minutes of dialog. I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content. To convolute McLuhan, in 2001 the message is the medium. I intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to "explain" a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation. You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film -- and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level -- but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point. I think that if 2001 succeeds at all, it is in reaching a wide spectrum of people who would not often give a thought to man's destiny, his role in the cosmos and his relationship to higher forms of life. But even in the case of someone who is highly intelligent, certain ideas found in 2001 would, if presented as abstractions, fall rather lifelessly and be automatically assigned to pat intellectual categories; experienced in a moving visual and emotional context, however, they can resonate within the deepest fibers of one's being."

It is the last sentence, "experienced in a moving visual and emotional context, however, they can resonate within the deepest fibers of one's being," that truly rings with me and millions of others who can go beyond the superficial visual effects supremacy in their appreciation of the film.

But as far as technique goes, I'd apply that to any Fellini movie, as well.

Fellini's 8-1/2 does this really well, if you ask me. The intro scene in 8-1/2, tells me that the main character is kind of... well... fucked up. Kind of stressed out, as well. His celebrity status is giving him no room to breathe. His stressful everyday life is taking its toll, and he is getting middle-age burn out. Beneath this charming older gentleman, lies a hidden sorrow, which I believe is portrayed pretty well using flashbacks of his childhood, and goofy dreams, etc. And, it is a show. Why not make it a show?

8-1/2 does, perhaps, leave more to our own interpretation than '2001...', but I think it's unfair to label it "pseudoartistic babble". Point is: I think the way 8-1/2 was made is important to tell the story of this character, even if it does skip and trip.

And, I'm only bringing 8-1/2 up because you used it as an example. I like Fellini, but I am way more into Pier Paolo Pasolini & Bernardo Bertolucci movies. I also like all the goofy Giallo flicks directed by Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci.

But hey... that's me.

I know this is your blog, and you are free to form simple, to the point, personal opinions about anything. And, that the point of this post is the review of one particular film, and not your reflection on 'cinema' in general. Having said that, I do find it unfair to dismiss a film, or several films from an era, based solely on some of reasons you've stated.

As for Kurosawa movies... I love Kurosawa movies, but my comment is already too long.

Fellini was actually one of the six directors Kubrick cited as his biggest influence on making films (the other five being David Lean, Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica, François Truffaut, and Max Ophüls); and clearly, without 8-1/2, Kubrick wouldn't have had the inspiration and directions to make 2001. So perhaps I was a little too harsh in judging 8-1/2, and I apologize if I hurt your sentiments towards the film. It's just that I saw 8-1/2 during a time when I was very, umm, anti-sophisticated-artistic-talk in literary, stage or film work, and 8-1/2 does that a lot - with frequent talks about different so-called "movements" of cinematic expression, which I found very intellectually as well as artistically pretentious. I did like the surrealism of the opening sequence and I was hoping that what would follow would be along those lines, but I had my hopes up too high and the film went in a different direction altogether. Maybe, after another watch of 8-1/2, I might have a change in perspective, so I will look into it when I can.

By the way, a brief observation I made on 8-1/2 the first time around: Whenever a writer suffers from writer's block, he ends up writing the story about himself, about his own inability to compose the work. Fellini was going through writer's block back then and ended up making 8-1/2 about his mental state at that time (without, I hear, a definitive script). Charlie Kaufman did the same thing with Adaptation. They perhaps wouldn't even know that they are following this pattern, but they end up with a work that is full of themselves. William Gass, a novelist, made this observation very early on in his career and wrote The Tunnel, his magnus opus which took him 27 years to write, in which a Nazi Germany historian, while writing a piece of work called Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, suffers from writer's block and ends up writing it about himself and his own feelings.

Anyway, that's that. Since you mentioned a few directors, I do think Dario Argento, while certainly being one of the first directors to push the limits of gore allowed in cinema, is a highly overrated filmmaker. Maybe it was good when it was released, in that age, but Suspiria bored the daylights out of me. And even though I can appreciate Kurasowa's contributions to film directing, in the end, I find his films extremely tasteless and boring (yet original, I agree).

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