Of course I’m angry that one of the death spasms of this preposterous government is to appease the fossil fuel lobby and gammony petrolhead voters by refusing to acknowledge the reality of climate change. Truth be told, I’m even more annoyed by the spelling mistake.
PS: Nothing to do with the above, but I’d normally assume that an article with the subhead “Barbie and Oppenheimer show us how in the heart of the darkest realities we stumble upon fantasies” was a spoof originating in The Onion or McSweeney’s or similar but since Slavoj Žižek is the author, who can tell?
The critic Derek Malcolm has died, which inevitably draws us back to 2001 and his shamelessly highbrow farewell gift to The Guardian, his 100 best films; any reader of his work would have a pretty good idea of the directors that would appear, although some might query the specific movies. (The Bitter Tea of General Yen for Capra? Really?)
The fun starts when his fellow reviewers are asked to review his list. Most respond with respect, while quibbling with the details; David Thomson despairs of the whole idea. And then there’s Nick Fisher from The Sun (who also died in the past few months), who gives a lovely display of performative philistinism:
This is a buff's list, not a punter’s list. Where's Erin Brockovich and Men In Black? Where’s American Beauty or American Pie or American Movie, come to that? Long films with dense subtitles are not my cup of rosie. I think Derek and me would be hard pushed to ever pick a Saturday night out at the flicks together. Does he even eat popcorn? I think I read down to Kes before I even recognised any of these names as movies. Kinda smells of pretension to me. But hey, without buffs there would be no poncey foreign film festivals. And we know how important they are. Not. Kes, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull and Night At The Opera... yep, I go along with all of these as firm candidates for any Top 100. But, as for the other 96 titles, you're on your own Del.
Two thoughts. First, although Malcolm might seem to be in thrall to the canon emforced by Sight and Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma, Film Comment and so forth, surely Fisher’s reference points are similarly unsurprising, playing the same game, but shorn of the “dense subtitles”. (Too many words, my dear Godard...)
The other is the frame of reference. Malcolm had almost certainly seen most of the films Fisher cited, and decided from a position of knowledge that they didn’t merit inclusion; could Fisher have said the same about the 96 he objected to on Malcolm’s list?
I’m not going to add to all the partially-informed verbiage prompted by the story apparently involving the BBC, The Sun, £35,000 and some unedifying pictures, except to stroke my chin over one legal oddity the case has highlighted. Someone 16 years old or more has the capacity, the law says, to choose to display his or her or their naked body to someone older, provided said viewer isn’t in a position of responsibility. However, said 16+-year-old is not allowed to distribute an image of said body. The image, one might infer, is more powerful than the original. Baudrillard vindicated again.
Following on from the theatre reviewer who wondered why someone might write a play about TS Eliot and/or the Marx Brothers, because only old people have heard of them and might understand the jokes; first, from an article about Evelyn Waugh, which assumes in the reader’s favour.
It’s the “of course”, of course, that confirms this could only appear in the TLS, or something of that calibre. But then there’s another kind of assumption, from Albion’s Secret History by Guy Mankowski
which (apart from the fact that I know where Bromley is, thanks) I’m calling performative ignorance because even if he doesn’t know where Bromley is, Mankowski could look it up in a matter of seconds.
(And, on vaguely related lines, the people who tore chunks out of a quotation from The Masque of Anarchy because they thought it was by Jeremy Corbyn, rather than Shelley; or “Shelley, whoever that is”, as one Twitter sage put it.)
I’ve long been a fan of Brian Wilson and I’ve been fortunate to see him in concert three times. The first was at one of his triumphant Pet Sounds concerts in London in 2002 and it was probably the greatest musical event I’ve ever attended. The second was in Singapore, when he temporarily reunited with the Beach Boys for their 50th anniversary tour and although it was more of a case study in the dynamics of a dysfunctional family than a gig per se, it was still fun. The most recent was back in London a few years ago; he could no longer hit the high notes, and was having trouble with some of the medium range ones, and barely played the piano that seemed to serve more as a barrier to protect him from the audience than any kind of musical instrument. But the accompanying musicians filled in the gaps very well and the fans seemed to come to a consensus that what were really doing was to say thank you to this damaged genius, for the times when he could do it, and did. I probably won’t see him again if another opportunity arises, but I’m glad I did.
I was reminded of that most recent concert when I watched TV coverage of Elton John’s performance at Glastonbury last night, supposedly his last ever gig in the UK. Elton’s career trajectory has been similar to Brian’s in some respects, with mental troubles and substance abuse threatening to derail things at several junctures. But he too pulled through, and seems to be in better shape than his American counterpart, at all times aware of where he is and what he’s doing, acknowledging and appreciating the love of the crowd. And Elton's hands are definitely hammering away at those keys, unlike Brian’s, which hover a few inches above, never daring to connect.
There’s one problem, though. Elton can’t sing any more. It’s not a matter of not being able to sing in key any more, as with Brian; it’s that his diction is shot to pieces. He mumbles, he slurs, and we hadn’t heard Bernie Taupin’s lyrics a hundred, a thousand times before, we wouldn’t know what the hell he was on about. This is something that was identified during lockdown when he gave us his now-notorious Pub Singer rendition of ‘I’m Still Standing’ and many brushed off his inadequacy with the explanation that he was out of practice, that once the pandemic was over and he started to tour again, all would be well. Apparently not. It’s not clear what’s gone wrong (Something neurological? Cosmetic surgery? New teeth?) but it sounded bloody horrible.
And does that matter? Not really, certainly not to the devotees who bade him farewell at Glastonbury and from their living rooms. Just like Brian’s fans in Hammersmith, they were gathered to remember the good old days, and above all to say thank you.
But I’m baffled by the professional, paid critics (here’s one; here’s another; and there’s more) who’ve been telling us, quite rightly, that this was an emotionally charged, joyous gathering of faithful, a celebration of a long and glorious career, without acknowledging that, as a musical performance, it was all a bit rubbish, frankly.
PS: Vaguely related, an argument that criticism doesn’t require any particular knowledge or contextual understanding. Which makes it just reaction, surely?
Zadie Smith in the New York Review of Books on the generational divide exposed by Todd Fields’s film Tár (which I really ought to have watched by now):
We of Tár’s generation can be quick to lambaste those we call (behind their backs) “the youngs,” but speaking for myself, I’m the one severely triggered by statements like “Chaucer is misogynistic” or “Virginia Woolf was a racist.” Not because I can’t see that both statements are partially true, but because I am of that generation whose only real shibboleth was: “Is it interesting?” Into which broad category both evils and flaws could easily be fit, not because you agreed with them personally but because they had the potential to be analyzed, just like anything else. Whereas if you grew up online, the negative attributes of individual humans are immediately disqualifying. The very phrase ad hominem has been rendered obsolete, almost incomprehensible. An argument that is directed against a person, rather than the position they are maintaining? Online a person is the position they’re maintaining and vice versa. Opinions are identities and identities are opinions. Unfollow!
As a 2nd-language writer, I often get corrected on my use of conditional sentences. People routinely strike out my "were" to replace with "was." I stand by: "If she were a musician" & "If she were a dragon" & "If she were a prime minister"
— Olga Zilberbourg (@bowlga) June 12, 2023
sigh. is this a British thing?
