Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are schlock? Not by any definition of cinema I know. Two of the best films of the last 30 years. The statement about everything produced by lefitsts being suspect doesn't get very far in this subject. Dickens, Stienbeck, Shelley, Faulkner... The list goes on and on.
"Two of the best films of the last 30 years."
De gustibus non disputandum est. We'll see if they stand the test of time. Personally, I don't see how they could. There's no "there" there.
"The statement about everything produced by lefitsts being suspect"
You're applying a statement made about a non-fiction essay to fiction.
"Dickens, Stienbeck, Shelley, Faulkner... The list goes on and on."
Shelley managed to write some decent poetry, and I read Steinbeck and Faulkner (their comlete works) as a college student. Thirty-some years later, it doesn't look like genius to me. In contrast, my appreciation for Shakespeare just continues to grow.