Aviator to Director to Criticism more generally

I saw this last night, and I enjoyed it. Enjoy: relished the sweep and spectacle, rocked gently in the film’s tight staccato rhythm, and dug the performances, the production values, the anachronistic tinted coloring of the shots….

… and was reminded how damn good DiCaprio can be. But maybe he has to play someone disabled to really sell a part.

Yet I still feel disappointed, sort of. Why wasn’t it great? More complex? C’mon it’s Scorsese, and he’s a genius, so…
…and then I pull back and look at how often conversations/writing about films falls into scolding directors for not being what they ought to be. To wit: Wes Anderson & Alexander Payne currently getting slammed, for being “hip” and detached and even (for Payne) cruel. Scorsese — hell, the normally-razor-sharp A. O. Scott has a witless idea that Scorsese so wants to be loved by the Academy that he made a sloppy-dog of a movie, a bit of cheap-seat psychoanalysis as melodramatically obvious as the bad-mother-washing-nude-son that is the germ [ahem] of Hughes’ madness in the film. Jane Campion getting savaged for “In the Cut,” which is at least interesting if not good. Spike Lee always taking shit, for every film, for not being as good as he “ought” to be. Same goes for the current objects of scorn, all intriguing films from idiosyncratic filmmakers. (And a couple other folks always get a pass, despite weaker films, because they’re well-liked–Michael Mann, Eastwood.)

What gives? Why is so much contemporary film criticism so dully focused on assigning blame? I’m trying to think of reviewers who struggle to convey something about the experience of seeing a film… and Elvis Mitchell is the only one who really comes to mind.

3 thoughts on “Aviator to Director to Criticism more generally”

  1. I recently saw In the Cut on On Demand, an ingenious development in cable t.v. in my opinion. I also found it very interesting, esp. in regard to female sexuality and narratives of normative heterosexuality. And I was surprised that I hand’t heard anything interesting about this movie.

  2. I think “In the Cut” is quite good, and I remember talking about the film with someone in reference to “Punch Drunk Love,” which came out at about the same time. Anderson’s (that’s Paul Thomas, not Wes) film, I thought, did a couple of the same things “In the Cut” did, in terms of raising questions about how we assign guilt & innocence, and the appeal of retributive vioence. Both films were met with, at best, lukewarm responses (“In the Cut” was criticzed far more harshly). I don’t think Campsion’s and Scorsese’s work are slammed for the same reasons (or by the same people). “Aviator” will do very well, though it will be criticized by those of us who want something a bit more disturbing. “In the Cut” and “Punch Drunk Love” tanked, and they were criticized by those who don’t like disturbing movies. I know that’s simplistic, but I just don’t think Mike’s dissatisfaction with “Aviator” has anything to do with what happened to Campion and Anderson, or what happened (and continues to happen) to Spike Lee.

  3. watched “the aviator” last night. boring! this is the movie scorcese wanted to make all his life?

    an interesting juxtaposition: we watched “the bad and the beautiful” the previous night. i think i prefer films in which the protagonist’s psyche isn’t boiled down to “his mother washed him and kate hepburn left him”.

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