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 youre terrific if youre even good.
When someones really terrific, its a different story. In a town where everyone from Johnny Depp to Janeane Garofalo is an artist, Hollywood doesnt 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, its 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, its 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 Bernsteins 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 Hollywoods ancient D-list Communists and its A-list anti-anti-Communists, theres only one thing about Kazan that matters: he named names.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
You come off as a skin deep kind of guy, never understanding what is below the surface, what makes it art. You seem to grasp the semantics, what it is suppose to "sound" like, but never what is actually being said - which is the art.
There is no loss to those that choose to pass on you narrow understanding of art. I watch movies, read books and listen to music - some our fellow FReepers choose not to. But I do not claim some superiority because I subject myself to the horror of what many "artist" have to say.
Good question. I think part of the genius of the revolutionary left today is its ability to hide in plain sight. They are everywhere, even in high-placed federal jobs. But they avoid presenting a target by never threatening to overthrow the US government.
I will mention a couple of their foes. The New Criterion is a genuine intellectual publication that exposes Communist remnants, critical theory, transgressive art, etc. Mark Steyn is often published there. David Horowitz is having some success engaging American academia's discrimination against conservative thought.
Lots of people were Nazis. There was only one Hitler. You don't know what you're talking about.
You can if you want to be a soulless, amoral sociopath.
What do prigs have to do with opposition to communism???
Beds and tables should wear skirts to hide their legs.
My dear boy, you are mixing not apples and oranges, but grapes and armadillos.
Amish shouldn't dance because it's sinful.
Now you're mixing green beans and gravel.
I think you ought to lay off the (whatever it is you're taking that is shorting out the neurons).
Contemperaneously yes, but ultimately history will be the judge. Muhammed Ali has been lionized while still alive. Kazan received belated recognition.
When I see a "great artist" who also may be (whichever): a criminal, a traitor, a child molester, I see a miserable sorry excuse for a human being who I don't want to either support or taint my mind by absorbing their "art".
And I get to do that in a free country!
It's not just "politics" as though art is being judged by whether the artist is a Republican or Democrat.
I wonder if you draw the line anywhere - you know "Dr." Kevorkian paints pictures - and maybe even Jeffrey Dahmer did. If they were talented artists, would you have one of their paintings?
Don't forget to protect your bodily fluids.
Oh, I'm sure I do. Nobody's perfect.
I thought you would understand the point about the intersection of the art (specifically political art) you celebrate, the persons who make the art, the messages they project, who is influenced, and the results, so I didn't spell it all out for you.
The funny thing is, I agree with you as far as not letting the artist's politics interfere with art. I break on two issues: first, not letting the art's politics change my perception, and second, using the word "celebrate" regarding Hitler's ability to motivate mass murder.
I'm not sure what you mean by the art's politics...but I think you atribute a weakness to me where none exists. I'm not unduly influenced by the opinions of others in any context.
I could have chosen other words but "celebrate" is quite appropriate when talking about an appreciation of a skill, talent, ability. That these may be used for ignoble purposes is a separate issue - the point I've been trying to make.
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