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Maligned, in the Middle
There is something wrong with the bourgeoisie, at least in American film, and there are no small or large charms that can possibly redeem the fault—discreet or otherwise. The middle class is caught in a maelstrom of pettiness, trapped in an imagined propriety, and made heir to a grubby little enterprise meant to stuff its maw and line its bed. Its members, of all the three classes, are the most contemptible in film; the poor have their champions and the rich have their tragedies, but the middle class have neither style nor squalor to speak for them.
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A Generation of Byrons
Mark Edmundson has published a fascinating article describing the current generation of students. They are an active, intelligent, vulnerable bunch: "Its members have a spectacular hunger for life and more life. They want to study, travel, make friends, make more friends, read everything (superfast), take in all the movies, listen to every hot band, keep up with everyone they've ever known. And there’s something else, too, that distinguishes them...."
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Equivocal Grace
When you have a well-known story about a political leader in eighteenth century England who sets out to abolish the slave trade based on his Christian convictions; and when the sub-plot involves the epiphanic conversion of the man who wrote the most influential hymn of all time, Amazing Grace; and when the screenplay of a movie of the same name is by and large faithful to the historical account, no cynicism should be called for. But upon viewing this film, I find I am in fact slightly cynical, and I’m not exactly sure what warrants it.
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Blues and Black Snakes
Maybe the only way to make films set in places that people have too precise an idea about is to indulge that idea, make it even more precise, to the point where it becomes a caricature of itself. In other words, go ahead and give them what they expect, so that something larger and more important can be said. At times, the only way to transcend the common milieu is to be totally immersed in it.
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Elmore Leonard, Knight Errantry, and the Super Bowl
Robert Benchley once said that there are two kind of people in the world: Those who divide the world in two kinds of people, and those who don’t. I’m more prone to trilogies myself. The world is a set of triangles; not railroad tracks. Therefore, I start with Super Bowl XLII.
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Current Issue
Issue 72
Memoir by Lauren Winner, Poetry by James Harpur, Art by Guy Chase and Adrian Wiszniewski
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