The Armond White Thread

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Forrest Taft
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1226 Post by Forrest Taft » Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:02 am

But Slimdog Millionaire and The Full Monty are written by the same guy. When did he become a - in the words of David Mamet - braindead liberal? And how did it happen? And why hasn't Armond White written anything on this particular subject?

Numero Trois
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1227 Post by Numero Trois » Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:02 am

Armond White wrote:Judd Apatow’s comedy of bad manners attacked maturity and propriety.
Guess he's not too big a fan of Harpo.
Armond White wrote:A History of Violence (2005) — David Cronenberg’s new take on Ugly Americans blamed patriotic sadism
What?? Everytime I think I'm Armond-jaded he comes up with a new one to take my breath away.

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dx23
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1228 Post by dx23 » Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:22 pm

Gregory wrote: To me, these little blurbs have an unsettling "propaganda ministry"/"state board of censors" quality, as they show White's inability to deal with films as creative works, in terms of how well crafted they are or how effectively they tell a story, and instead treats them as if their purpose was to instruct viewers about some rigid set of vague principles that he holds above reproach and will not reveal in any detail (or cannot do so because he writes with the skill of the average ranting reviewer at Amazon).
That's true, but I think it's just part of Armond's crazy persona. I think this guy has gone far beyond trolling. He's simply batshit crazy based on his behavior in the past several years and this "column" where he sounds like an old fart blaming Hollywood for ruining the world.

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tenia
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1229 Post by tenia » Tue Sep 09, 2014 2:54 am

Reading all this, White indeed really seems not to grasp anything close to what are these movies about.
I mean, as Gregory wrote, who thought The Hangover would carry any moral message or whatever ?
It seems as if White was looking for a drama about socially privileged people.

On the other end, this usual White's rant makes me wonder which movies he likes and why, but deep down, I know I don't really want to know.

rrenault
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1230 Post by rrenault » Tue Sep 09, 2014 3:48 am

No, I think Armond just has a Grade-A infrared pretension detector, so he'll invariably rankle some, but he speaks the truth more often than not, even if you don't want to hear it. His review of Celine and Julie Go Boating is a perfect example. I disagree with his assessment of Celine and Julie itself, but I full sympathize with where he's coming from. He's not a right-winger, but more than anything, he despises postmodernism. Like Manny Farber, either you love him or you hate him as a film critic. There's no in-between like with Rosenbaum or Bazin.

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tenia
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1231 Post by tenia » Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:47 am

I don't know, but I believe 90% of the texts I've read from him were looking as if he totally missed the point of the movie he was watching, and this list is just a best of of this.

I an understand him not liking this or that, and that's his right, but his arguments are most of the time quite debatable (to say the least). And in the case of such a list, since he doesn't give any argument...

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Gregory
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1232 Post by Gregory » Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:17 am

rrenault wrote:No, I think Armond just has a Grade-A infrared pretension detector, so he'll invariably rankle some, but he speaks the truth more often than not, even if you don't want to hear it.
Calling something out as "pretentious" is usually a pretty lazy route for a critic to take, because usually it's so much in the eye of the beholder that there's no such thing as having a finely tuned detector for it. Same with terms like "hipster self-righteousness" and "hipster nihilists" etc., which don't apply on the level of objective truth or accuracy and instead just give him a rhetorical target and allow him to argue that we're perpetually reaching the nadir of a "cultural abyss." I don't find what he says true or false in most of his writing; it lacks the clarity and specificity to even have truth value and instead ends up being bafflingly expressed opinions, which tend to use films to pound away at a jeremiad about how our society's moral values are in decline or actively under attack and then preaches about what we should value and what we need to get back on track. These tactics have great ideological and even emotional appeal, which is why so many politicians, religious officials, reactionary social crusaders and pundits have used them to increase their influence.
He's not a right-winger, but more than anything, he despises postmodernism.
He's not? I realize that "right" and "left" are often oversimplified, but he's writing for National Review, ranting about liberals (and "limousine liberals" in particular a favorite right-wing rhetorical target), criticizing a film because it supposedly "disparaged American foreign policy." He's lionized The Passion of the Christ while vilifying Michael Moore and blaming "the left" for criticisms of Mel Gibson (a polarizing tactic that seemed to deliberately announce his right-wing affinities and earn him a niche readership. And earlier he became the Armond we know and love when he was at New York Press, which often took a "conservative" or "politically incorrect" slant in order to set itself apart from its main competitor, the Voice. He can write about film calmly and competently as some of his Criterion booklet essays show, but he never would have made a name for himself with that mode of his writing. To do that he's had to play to a certain readership who likes to hear familiar talking points about how liberals and the films they love are destroying traditional American values, and lauds him for "telling it like it is," though honestly I rarely see much praise for him, which perhaps explains why many claim he must be intentionally trolling. He seems to have taken notions that I think many of us could agree on to some extent—that many films generally praised by critics aren't very original or good, and that the Academy fawns over a lot of feel-good shlock—and taken this to consistently ridiculous and incoherent extremes.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1233 Post by rrenault » Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:58 am

Fair enough, but in today's world there's a tendency for the notion of "great art" to make people squirm, so they recoil by invoking things such as "it's in the eye of the beholder" or "greatness is subjective", etc.. Really? So it's subjective that Louis Malle isn't the equal of Robert Bresson or that Dan Brown isn't worthy of Flaubert? The line needs to be drawn somewhere. The issue is everyone wants to assert his or her own 'individuality' and/or 'eclecticism', and singing the praises of Shakespeare, Mozart, and Hitchcock doesn't make them feel 'unique' enough. Sometimes geniuses are born. Deal with it. The fact that most people aren't talented doesn't give them the right to use egalitarianism as a club with which to "put great art in its place". Just let the greats be.

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Gregory
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1234 Post by Gregory » Tue Sep 09, 2014 12:23 pm

There's probably an interesting discussion there, but I don't think it gets at what White is doing in his writing, or why he's able to stir up controversy. He does it using the means I describe in my previous post, and by generally shooting from the hip and making strong statements, but not backing them up with a deep knowledge or insight into film the way his first inspiration, Pauline Kael, was able to do.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1235 Post by rrenault » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:30 pm

It may seem unrelated to Armond, but whether or not he expresses it in such words I think he is alarmed by the way "anti-high brow" has become the new "high brow" so that the traditional "high brow" ethos of Freud, Dostoevsky, and modernism is dismissed as 'upper middlebrow', which leads to the conclusion that the intrinsic value of great works of art doesn't count for much in our current society but rather the way in which South Park, Breaking Bad, or The Daily Show is dissected is more important in determining someone's brow-level. Why can't reading Kafka, listening to Bach, and watching Antonioni or Bresson be enough? What use is it for one's intellectual growth and development to engage with South Park in the first place even if it's only to deconstruct it in a "media studies" in a kind of way? Does "sitting by the fire with The Brothers Karamazov" make someone a reactionary? Why did the traditional "high brow" ethos need to be scrapped?

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1236 Post by cdnchris » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:31 pm

I think what gets me is all this discussion over an obvious click-bait article, complete with attention grabbing heading and then a list of shit. There's nothing of substance in there except for some verbs and adjectives thrown together to get people in a tizzy.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1237 Post by Lemmy Caution » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:35 pm

I'll take Louis Malle ....

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1238 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:35 pm

rrenault -- you sure seem to be setting up lots of strawmen in your defense of the supposed perspicacity of White (who long ago had worthwhile things to say, but almost never does so today).

Want to actually give some examples of significant critics placing hacks or charlatans above certified "masters"?

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Mr Sausage
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The Armond White Thread

#1239 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:40 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:rrenault -- you sure seem to be setting up lots of strawmen in your defense of the supposed perspicacity of White (who long ago had worthwhile things to say, but almost never does so today).

Want to actually give some examples of significant critics placing hacks or charlatans above certified "masters"?
That's his MO. He spends the majority of his time on this board refuting arguments no one is making. He's plainly a smart guy, but he's so possessed by this topic that real ideas and genuine debate can't break in.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1240 Post by rrenault » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:45 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Want to actually give some examples of significant critics placing hacks or charlatans above certified "masters"?
I often admire Rosenbaum, but his devaluing of Fellini and Bergman while he praises stuff like AI as well as people like Jarmusch I think is good example. At least to me, it's indicative of a crypto-antipathy and resentment towards "Great Artists". In other words I like art that isn't Art, or at the very least I'm going to "put Art in its place". So someone like Rosenbaum may be posturing as leftist and progressive, but he's ultimately serving a somewhat reactionary agenda, perhaps unbeknownst to himself, when he takes a reflexive or deconstructionist approach towards the appreciation of "high culture". A great work of literature like The Brothers Karamazov or Macbeth can't just be appreciated as a 'great work of literature'. It has to be dissected and policed and given the postmodern or PC stamp of approval, and in turn be appropriated by the left.
Last edited by rrenault on Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1241 Post by domino harvey » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:52 pm

I went to college too, but I can make my arguments without obfuscating everything in a cloak of academic buzzwords. Deal with the comments we are making in this thread mocking White's incendiary and inflammatory leaps of logic with regards to the liberal peril inherent in his selections. That's what's under discussion, not a brave and noble attempt to paint White as savior of film criticism (a position almost as contrarian as White himself)

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1242 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Sep 09, 2014 3:41 pm

Has it ever dawned on you, rrenault, that educated and sophisticated people can have widely varied likes and dislikes? Idolizing Fellini and Bergman is not, in fact, a prerequisite for entry into either the ranks of film critics or film fans. And disagreeing with the relative ranking of folks enshrined in a canon is not reactionary -- except in the topsy-turvy world or right-wing ideologues.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1243 Post by rrenault » Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:07 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Has it ever dawned on you, rrenault, that educated and sophisticated people can have widely varied likes and dislikes? Idolizing Fellini and Bergman is not, in fact, a prerequisite for entry into either the ranks of film critics or film fans. And disagreeing with the relative ranking of folks enshrined in a canon is not reactionary -- except in the topsy-turvy world or right-wing ideologues.
But right-wing ideologues tend to be philistines and don't care about art or anything of an intellectual nature to begin with. And I don't disagree with your point about Bergman and Fellini. I was merely trying to be provocative, but I do often think certain filmmakers and artists, in the age of irony or in the postmodern era in general, are elevated above and revered over others on sociopolitical grounds rather than on aesthetic or intellectual ones.

But what I am railing against is the belief that idolizing Fellini and Bergman invariably entails a reactionary mindset. I'm not saying liking them is a prerequisite for entry into the ranks of cinephiles but rather that to consider someone a reactionary simply because they idolize Bergman is nonsense.

Bergman and Fellini are just as examples I'm using to make a wider point about what I perceive to be the "knock-them-white-elephants-of-their pedestal" school of criticism.

Sure, Roger Scruton and John Simon lie at one problematic extreme but someone like Manny Farber lies at the other problematic extreme in my view. Armond White is sort of independent of this continuum I think. Rosenbaum's not quite as extremist as Farber, but he's certainly influenced by that school of thought. I guess what I'm asking for is some sort of middle ground between Scruton/Simon at one end and unabashed postmodernism and "egalitarianism" at the other end.
Last edited by rrenault on Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1244 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:33 pm

Sorry, rrenault, I fear you are foisting more strawmen on us.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1245 Post by zedz » Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:36 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Sorry, rrenault, I fear you are foisting more strawmen on us.
Damn, I had a great pic of a man made out of drinking straws that I was going to post, but a) you beat me to it, and b) the file was too big.

Anyway.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1246 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:40 pm

zedz wrote:Anyway.
Now, that's certainly a different sort of "straw man"

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Jeff
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1247 Post by Jeff » Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:25 pm

rrenault wrote:I often admire Rosenbaum, but his devaluing of Fellini and Bergman while he praises stuff like AI as well as people like Jarmusch I think is good example. At least to me, it's indicative of a crypto-antipathy...
A funny example to choose since Armond White would almost certainly rank Spielberg above Fellini and Bergman. He declared almost every film Spielberg released prior to Lincoln the best of its year, said that A.I. was better than anything Kubrick ever did, and that "each part of David’s journey through carnal and sexual universes into the final eschatological devastation becomes as profoundly philosophical and contemplative as anything by cinema’s most thoughtful, speculative artists – Borzage, Ozu, Demy, Tarkovsky."

Points for using White's favored "crypto" prefix though.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1248 Post by rrenault » Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:06 am

Jeff wrote:
rrenault wrote:I often admire Rosenbaum, but his devaluing of Fellini and Bergman while he praises stuff like AI as well as people like Jarmusch I think is good example. At least to me, it's indicative of a crypto-antipathy...
A funny example to choose since Armond White would almost certainly rank Spielberg above Fellini and Bergman. He declared almost every film Spielberg released prior to Lincoln the best of its year, said that A.I. was better than anything Kubrick ever did, and that "each part of David’s journey through carnal and sexual universes into the final eschatological devastation becomes as profoundly philosophical and contemplative as anything by cinema’s most thoughtful, speculative artists – Borzage, Ozu, Demy, Tarkovsky."

Points for using White's favored "crypto" prefix though.
Okay, fair enough, but I do think, even unintentionally perhaps, that White often brings attention to the "knock-them-white-elephants-off their pedestal" school of criticism. Again, see White's review of Celine and Julie Go Boating to have an understanding of what I'm getting at, even if I happen to be a fan of Celine and Julie. When one reads Rosenbaum's critiques of Bergman or Adorno's of Stravinsky you get this sense they feel an antipathy toward "Artists", as if they need to be "put in their place" before they can be embraced. They can't just let artists be artists. I often feel the sociopolitical has become more important than the aesthetic, and I feel Armond sometimes brings attention to that very issue.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1249 Post by Lemmy Caution » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:11 am

Seems AW usually applies a sociopolitical agenda to a film, and is less interested in its merits or aesthetics.

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Re: The Armond White Thread

#1250 Post by rrenault » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:29 am

Lemmy Caution wrote:Seems AW usually applies a sociopolitical agenda to a film, and is less interested in its merits or aesthetics.
Well I disagree. I think you have the cart before the horse. What AW hates is when otherwise bad films are presented as important works on largely sociopolitical grounds. In short, he hates "prestige" projects, and in his view 12 Years a Slave and There Will Be Blood are prestige projects. That's not to say he doesn't have an obnoxious tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because that he does, but he hates work that's classed as "important" for sociopolitical reasons. In that sense, he takes his cue from Kael but also from Manny Farber. How do you think Farber would have conducted himself in today's film climate as a critic? He'd probably be closer to AW than you think. White's generally partial to the classic Euro-art filmmakers like Godard, Antonioni, Dreyer, Bunuel, Bresson, etc. He's not some film philistine like Dan Kois. He just hates the faux-prestige of Oscar bait as well as that of much festival work including the films of Ceylan, Weerasethakul and so on.

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