Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by EBerlin (A) on March 22, 2006 at 19:10:25

In Reply to: I said he was a "titan." Now, ask yourself this about his art: posted by tinear on March 22, 2006 at 04:25:48:

...I've watched his films, read biographical and critical works, and even written some papers on Bergman. All of those actions simply increased my respect and admiration for his work. He tackles some of the most abiding themes in human culture and philosophy, and does so with magnificent creativity and penetration. His films cover a great range of tonalities. Some of his films do have tremendous flashes of humor, even if you haven't noticed it. "Persona" is certainly the film that, more than any other, I've thought to be my favorite film of all. (So, to me it's the best, but I'd hardly claim it's "the best film ever made.")

Your assertion of the uniquely trite "half empty" or "half full" glass metaphor as a methodology for art criticism is inane at best. Not the kind of critical apparatus that a Northrop Frye or Eric Auerbach would employ, I must say! You sound to me like a Soviet apparatchik excoriating Shostakovich for writing music that doesn't "uplift the people." That's the kind of attitude that, in my view, leads to creative mediocrity. Sometimes the bleakest stories can be the most uplifting of all. What do think "catharsis" is all about, anyway?

You also appear to take some perverse pleasure in speaking of your opinions as if they were undeniable facts. As I may have said to you some months back, if you spoke in more balanced - and inquisitive - tones you'd find people considering your arguments a lot more carefully and seriously. When you speak in these categorical pronouncements you come across as both imperious and ill-considered.

Few if any will object if you don't like Bergman. No harm in that. But when you take the legacy of someone considered by so many to possess a creative mind of the highest order and speak of his work with a kind of supercilious dismissiveness, in the end you say more about the limiting effect of your own attitudes than about anything outside yourself. You may defend yourself by saying "Hey, I called him a titan," but you're really only using that as a smoke screen to help you get away with dismissing him.

I think many of Bergman's films are high-order masterpieces. Maybe I even believe that he's the greatest film director ever. But you won't hear me saying that he "is" the greatest director who ever lived. Only that he's my favorite or that, in my *opinion,* he is the best of all. The discussion gains nothing by asserting myself categorically. I know I'm not the pope.
eb