Cooler than thou

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Craig G. Bleakley writes:
> I wonder how much this Speilberg/Tarentino bashing has to do with the
> bashers' need to feel cooler than us poor suckers whose pedestrianly
> programmed tastes lean this way.  Or profit envy.  Let's do some bashing of
> that knuclehead David Lynch instead--or Barbra Streisand.  None of these
> folks are exactly "talent-free" but we may not agree on the level of that
> talent, our predisposition to appreciate that talent, or what exactly, that
> talent is--making money, maybe?

Sorry, but no ceegar.

It has to do with Thomas Pynchon - who tries to explain to his readers
through example, metaphor and parable: that the evil of the Holocaust
was not the work of a small group of people or even a large group of
people, but arose because of the way that societies tend towards an
organisation along lines which promote evil; that there is something
inherent in people that militates such an alignment of forces; that
this evil is called Death; that we may all attain to brief,
grace-filled moments of joy when we can temporarily escape from the
tyranny of Death; or that we may succumb to despair and arrive early
at Death's door while still in the midst of life.

Spielberg gets a bit part as the whizz-kid movie director who is hired
to argue a PR case for the big money boys. He pushes all the usual
sentiment buttons as ordered by his backers but as a sop to his
feelings of worthlessness at his own lack of artistic integrity he
pushes for this one to be a class act - black and white, high fi
costumes and settings (no museum stuff, but the best the studio
carpenters and dressmakers can manage at least), classical strings
rather than pulsing pop beats, the works. Anyway, the studio can
expect to rake it all back in when they pick up the academy award
nominations. Every studio has to push out a bit of class now and then
to keep morale up and pick up some gongs. And once in a while the
class act has to have a big money director. So, they agree to let
Stevie have his Oscars, just so long as the big money comes out
looking white.

It's a minor plotline in the world-encompassing plot of GR. A-and
Pynchon effortlessly sidelines small-fry like Stevie with his exposure
of what the big money really did in the war to aid the Holocaust.
That's why such a minor topic is on this list and that's also why it
would be more worthwhile to talk about other subjects.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.