Posted on 01/13/2004 2:37:26 PM PST by quidnunc
You usually hear the tune on Oscar night, but not often the lyric, which is more to the point:
Hooray For Hollywood
Where you’re terrific if you’re even good.
When someone’s really terrific, it’s a different story. In a town where everyone from Johnny Depp to Janeane Garofalo is an “artist”, Hollywood doesn’t always know how to deal with the real thing. In 1996, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, mulling over their Career Achievement Award, decided to reject Elia Kazan and honour instead Roger Corman, the director of Swamp Women, Attack Of The Crab Monsters and Teenage Caveman. Swamp Women and Attack Of The Crab Monsters are good, and Teenage Caveman is not only good, it’s also an eloquent plea for world disarmament, at least according to its youthful star Robert Vaughan. But On The Waterfront is terrific. This should not be a difficult call.
But apparently it is. Kazan can make a claim to be the father of modern American acting, the man who brought Stanislavskian techniques to Broadway and then to the silver screen. Insofar as the young lions of our present-tense culture aspire to emulate any of the old guys, it’s not David Niven or even Jimmy Cagney who resonate, but Marlon Brando, James Dean, Rod Steiger — on all of whom Kazan was the greatest single influence. He was a great theatre director, and later a fine novelist, and, when he walked on stage in 1999 to receive a belated Lifetime Achievement Oscar, he might reasonably have expected the orchestra to be vamping Leonard Bernstein’s theme to On The Waterfront for a good ten minutes while Hollywood roared its appreciation. Instead, outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, elderly hack screenwriters led protests and, inside, the likes of Sean Penn sat on their hands. For both Hollywood’s ancient D-list Communists and its A-list anti-anti-Communists, there’s only one thing about Kazan that matters: he “named names”.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Only in proper context. My only point is that Robeson has a high profile only because of his political activism. Had he not sung the praises of Communism, he would have been just another great voice.
True. And my point is, and has been, that his voice can and should be appreciated whatever his politics.
Only in proper context
Enter the censors to make sure I know what that is.
This is wrong too.
Many, many people - in all walks of life - believed that democratic capitalism was fatally flawed during the'30s and large numbers of them turned to the Left towards communism and socialism, or to the Right towards fascism and Nazism.
What made Robeson different, what singled him out, was that he was a black man protesting against white domination. Too many in today's right prefer to forget that and instead focus on the failure of his (Robeson's) proposed solutions...and by the way, what was so great about Lindberg? He was just another pilot, just another courageous guy. Why don't you insist that he be forgetten if politics trumps everything.
This is off-topic but since you continue to focus on Robeson I thought I'd clear it up.
As they say, as long as they spell the name right.
The temporal nature of a single performance, however, does not have the lasting impact of other art forms. There will be many tenors, but they will sing the work of the one and only Mozart.
For the record, Paul Robeson was a favorite son of Rutgers (my grad school) and a poster was put up in the faculty lounge promoting some or other Robeson-named event. There was an angry remark written on the poster regarding Robeson's activities. Probably written by a student of one of Rutgers' more prominent professors who is very active in human rights, is Jewish and escaped a particularly unpleasant version of Communist oppression.
to the Right towards fascism and Nazism.
BTW, I will argue with this characterization, not so much with the first, but with the last. Hitler's nationalism was important, but he infused it with run-of-the-mill leftist socialism. But I won't argue the point further.
What made Robeson different, what singled him out, was that he was a black man protesting against white domination.
OK, that too. The point was, his political bent has served as part of the marketing of his legacy (posthumously and without his active participation, of course).
and by the way, what was so great about Lindberg?
Well, he risked his life making the trans-Atlantic trip and he had done something no one else had done. That's what history remembers. Now if Robeson were the first person to put words to music . . .
Wagner wasn't bad either. :)
I don't dispute that Lindberg should be celebrated for his talents. I say Robeson should be treated in the same way. What's wrong is that you want Lindberg's talents celebrated despite his politics, while insisting that Robeson's be denigrated because of his politics.
Why is that?
Both Lindberg and Robeson faced real problems. Both proposed solutions which proved to be fatally flawed - had either triumphed the problems they adressed would not have been solved and America would have been mortally wounded if not destroyed.
So why are you willing to forgive Lindberg but not Robeson?
But he's not. Lindberg is unique among his peers for a single accomplishment. Robeson is not, in any meaningful sense. Robeson is elevated because of his politics.
Baloney. He was merely the first to succeed at that distance. Many preceeded him in the attempt and many successes followed immediately after.
Besides your argument is completely lame. Politics should trump all except for great art? Who's to judge that? Not our political clowns...but that's exactly what you're suggesting.
In the 19th century the Sultan Abdulmecid gazed for a long time at the mosaics of Jesus and Mary which adorned the walls of the Hagia Sophia, then commented,
"They are very beautiful, but for the time it is not appropriate to leave them visible".
He instructed his restorers to
"Clean them and cover them over again carefully, so that they may survive until they are revealed to view in the future."
I stand with him.
In the 20th century the Taliban had the 2000 year old Buddhas of Bamiyan destroyed because they were politically incorrect.
You stand with them.
On the contrary, I'm arguing that it does, it has and it has influenced our perceptions of what is great art. Furthermore, the two can't be separated, it's all part of the package.
Lindburgh is a historical figure and is seen in that context. He's hardly an artist.
I think you have misconstrued my point.
Very broadly, one can't argue with what you're saying since life is unitary. But a lot of art has no overt political theme, nor are its creators political animals. More often, an artist will create some works which are political, some which aren't, and some which have political themes but are not about the modern world.
On this thread we've been using art in its most general sense - referring to those who do whatever it is they do in a particularly eloquent and effective way, those who are also described as having great talent.
Thus described we can continue to use the two people - Lindberg and Robeson - as examples. If you're uncomfortable with that just substitute Ali for Lindberg. Now explain to me how the art of any of them - singing, fighting, flying was connected to their politics or the politics of the day? I maintain their art, their talent would have been the same if they'd held different political positions and, in fact, there were others equally, or nearly equally, as good who did hold opposing positions.
Here it's important to ask whether your talking about the influence of politics on the artist or on the public.
Frankly, I can't make sense of what you're saying.
Agreed. But consider art today. In order to get attention, artists are not judged on technique or emotional content but on a banal and unchanging standard of edginess. And the history of art is rewritten so as to accomodate artists' politics.
On this thread we've been using art in its most general sense
Not me. Aesthetics and art are not to be confused.
If you're uncomfortable with that just substitute Ali for Lindberg.
Nope. Boxing has objective standards -- wins, losses, championships. Art is wholly subjective. By definition.
> On the contrary, I'm arguing that it does, it has and it has influenced our perceptions of what is great art
Here it's important to ask whether your talking about the influence of politics on the artist or on the public.
In particular, my critism is of art critics and of public perception.
Very broadly, one can't argue with what you're saying since life is unitary.
Oh, there are many reasons why one cannot argue with what I'm saying. Many many reasons.
My take on Mark Steyn ...
I never deign to predict Steyn's point of view. Even if I could divine it, I could never express it properly.
but finding such people on Free Republic would be quite hard to do.
I also never slam or generalize the forum. It is a weak substitute for genuine argumentation.
The art world - as opposed to art - is mostly about commerce and politics. That's what's so unfortunate about the whole thing. But I don't have to go along, do I? And neither does anyone else.
Nope. Boxing has objective standards -- wins, losses, championships. Art is wholly subjective. By definition.
Even worse then to deprive a sports champion of his honors for political reasons.
I never deign to predict Steyn's point of view. Even if I could divine it, I could never express it properly
I e-mailed Steyn with the following question"
"More generally, I wonder what you feel is the proper relationship between politics and art. Can you, for example, praise the work of Leni Reifenstal, of Paul Robeson, of Pablo Picasso, of any artists whose politics you don't like?"
If he replies I'll forward it to you.
I also never slam or generalize the forum
Not much of a stretch of this and many other issues.
Better to say you wouldn't compliment the chef on a terrific meal if you knew he'd killed his wife. I would...but only after he'd been executed. :)
Sorry, you do. The art that you see is filtered by the "art world."
You might get lucky and see something by accident, but what of the art that never gets any play because art critics don't find it fashionable?
I e-mailed Steyn with the following question"
Good luck. But don't hold your breath, he's a busy man.
Pablo Picasso
Picasso is an interesting case. Artists hate Picasso and their hatred bleeds into their evaluation of his work and it has nothing to do with politics. At the end of his life, he would doodle on a cocktail napkin, sign it and sell it.
> I also never slam or generalize the forum
Not much of a stretch of this and many other issues.
I try not to be so prejudicial, but to each his own.
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