Screenwriter for Hitchcock's `Rear Window' dies

Yahoo - AP ^ | 11/24/08

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Look I’m not trying to pick a fight here. We see things differently. Shakespeare, Mozart and Dickens would be Speilberg, Lucas and Geffen today. They were all about the money then, and would be today. They created a product the masses enjoyed, and had a rich wonderful life.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Well, not mozart. Dickens and Shakespeare however enjoyed their wealth.

[Borges]

Not fighting just discussing. So then they weren’t ‘real artists’ either? Oh my.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Well, you can't define art can we? I think the work of Russ Meyer is art compared to the crap that wins oscars these days. You may have the great visions of Michelangelo, but he was in if for the fame and money as much as his artistic reputation. And what do artists crave, they usually crave acceptance and the admiration of the public.

[Borges]

I’m just talking about the end product not what the personalities involved were like.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Well, I think a film is either good or bad. The films of John Ford, America’s greatest fimmaker right, were entertaining as heck. When I’m watching The Searchers I’m not thinking about the artistic value of the piece. I’m thinking John Wayne is one brutal, racist son of a gun. Most powerful performance in screen history. What a great performance.
Maybe there is a fine line for me anyway between what I consider great and entertaining to what is art. I’m entertained in a much different way when I watch Raider’s of the Lost Ark. What fun that movie is and no less as great as the Searchers in my mind.

[Borges]

The impact of Wayne’s character on you is part of its artistic value.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Okay. Here’s one for you. When Indiana Jones shots the arab waving the swords around at the market, and I laugh myself silly, is that a response to its artistic value, or merely a gut reaction?

[Borges]

Actually in the most recent version Spielberg digitally altered that scene where Indy doesn't shoot him but gets to know him and his culture and the scene ends with the two of them happily reciting verses from the Koran.

I had you going didn't I? Anyway that's just an isolated moment. The impact of Wayne's character comes from accumulated effect.

[Revolting cat!]

I’m thinking John Wayne is one brutal, racist son of a gun.

Uhm, the film was filmed before the term "racist" became a, how shall we put it, a fashion statement.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

Well, there’s going to be an Indy 5 so look out. Anyway I could go on for hours about The Searchers. Greatest final shot in movie history I think. But if it wasn’t so good, and some critic told me it was great art, I could care less about it.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

The Wayne character, Ethan Edwards is not someone to be admired. I respect the characters iron will, despise the brutality and the racism. The Searchers I think was Ford’s attempt to show just how horribly the Indians, excuse me, native Americans were treated. And in many ways the enemy that we see, is often times and extension of ourselves. Scar and Ethan Edwards are very similar characters, almost cut from the same cloth.