criterionforum.org

Yes, I know, you want to pretend that all politics are relative, that each of the filmmakers listed here is simply expressing their valid 'view' and 'opinion' of the world - post-modernism dictating that no single viewpoint is more 'correct' than any other

You're the one claiming there's no difference of "correctness" between Syndromes & a Century and Jud Süß. That's the most extreme example of political relativism I've ever come across.

Sloper wrote:yes The Birth of a Nation is an honest representation of 'the negro' by an extremely racist man.

Thank you for an honest answer. However, taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, the only means by which we can therefore judge a film is on it's formal/technical qualities (the content of the film and it's relation to reality being entirely relative and, therefore, arbitrary) - and surely this is no way to be judging anything; or rather, more to the point, I don't believe for a second that this is the spirit in which this list, or any other recent list, was genuinely compiled.

Imagine that a formally and technically astounding and innovative film had been released last year by a WASP director that also happened to paint the Klan in a positive light and encourage the murder of black muslims. Would this film have been celebrated and championed for its formal achievements? Would it have made this list, or the Cinematheque Onatario's list, or any other? Somehow, I doubt such a film would even have seen a release... In other words, Griffith is given a 'pass' because of his belonging to a distant past, a different, more 'backward' time, not because the compilers of the cinematic canon are acting on strict relativistic principal.

Sloper wrote:the 'let everyone have their voice' perspective turns problematic at a certain point, but so does any perspective.

Except that, as I have pointed out, this isn't what is happening here at all. New voices are being supported and championed because of their superficial adherence to / usefulness to a very narrow band of liberal capitalist thought. Never mind that this support remains, beneath the surface, deeply patronising and colonial in nature (eg. the championing of Precious for it's 'fearless' tackling of race issues - a film which, it now transpires, most black audiences consider to be racist, or the support given to hi-so filmmakers in third world dictatorships/sham-democracies on the convenient misunderstanding that they represent the people they oppress).

Sloper wrote:it seems to me you're often talking about politics, and the way films are received by critics, not about the films themelves films.

I'm glad to see you've grasped the basic thesis... That the championing, or not, of the films and filmmakers discussed, or not discussed, or listed, or not listed, on this site and elsewhere, has very little to do with the value and talent, or otherwise, of the artworks and artists, but, rather, the underlying politics and assumptions of the champions and listmakers themselves.

Nothing wrote:Taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, the only means by which we can therefore judge a film is on it's formal/technical qualities (the content of the film and it's relation to reality being entirely relative and, therefore, arbitrary) - and surely this is no way to be judging anything; or rather, more to the point, I don't believe for a second that this is the spirit in which this list, or any other recent list, was genuinely compiled.

I've had this conversation about Griffith before, though I can't remember the thread... I would say The Birth of a Nation is one of the best films ever made, perhaps the best - The Passion of Joan of Arc, Pather Panchali and (ye gods forgive me) Citizen Kane are the only films I couldn't comfortably say The Birth is 'better than'. I hasten to add that I use the term 'best' here not in quite the same sense as 'favourite', since on my list of favourites The Birth would come somewhat lower down.

Mainly it's a great and important film for its formal/technical qualities, but its racism is also part of what makes it important: of course you can trot out the usual stuff about how it proves the power of film as propaganda, how film can be a political event, get the U.S. president in trouble, etc, but for me the essential point is that this is an evil film. It had a demonstrably negative impact on the world, caused people to be persecuted and murdered, and has (I gather) provoked violent riots as recently as the 1990s. It's an artwork that raises some very fundamental questions about art, much like the ones you're asking, and to me it exposes the fact that great art is not necessarily a force for good - morality has no necessary role in a work's aesthetic quality. Your question:

Nothing wrote:Imagine that a formally and technically astounding and innovative film had been released last year by a WASP director that also happened to paint the Klan in a positive light and encourage the murder of black muslims. Would this film have been celebrated and championed for its formal achievements? Would it have made this list, or the Cinematheque Onatario's list, or any other? Somehow, I doubt such a film would even have seen a release...

is one I often (well, not that often) ask myself. If someone today made what, in objective terms, was the greatest film of all time, but it was also a frank advocation of ethnic cleansing, would I want to see it? My immediate response would be 'no', because I truly think such a film should never be made, seen or supported in any way, whatever the consequent loss in aesthetic terms. Ultimately, morality should be more important than art.

You say that:

Nothing wrote:Griffith is given a 'pass' because of his belonging to a distant past, a different, more 'backward' time, not because the compilers of the cinematic canon are acting on strict relativistic principal.

I guess there's some truth in this, and I tend to think that my purchasing a DVD of the film, and watching it from time to time, doesn't foster racism in any way. In other words, time has neutralised it. (As I said above, the film retains some of its inflammatory qualities to this day, so perhaps I'm wrong about this; perhaps it should be ignored altogether...) There's more to it than this, though, because I think it's important to watch and appreciate this film now for what it tells us about the nature of art. We are too quick to assume that art has no moral responsibilities, and to conflate beauty with goodness (to put it in rather trite terms). It's something that interests me as a scholar, because academics are desperate to hold past writers (in my field, medieval ones) up as celebrants of love, art, sex etc, even though those writers are (I would argue) demonstrably sceptical about the value of these things - in other words, the values of the critics are determining what they value in these ancient texts. My own view is that to understand how artists meditate on the failings and limitations of their art (and of things like love and sex) enriches our understanding of their work.

With Griffith, the meditation is, of course, completely unwitting, but The Birth is nonetheless a valuable example for these reasons. It's perhaps the most important and influential of all early films - one of the central foundational works of cinema - and I think any film-lover should think about the implications of that, of the whole medium being in a sense founded on something immoral. If I could erase the film from existence, perhaps I would, and if you could convince me that some of these more recent films we're discussing have as demonstrable a negative impact on the world as did Griffith's film (or Jew Suss), perhaps I would not watch them on principle. As I said before (and this is what makes the discussion slightly futile) I haven't seen most of the films you're referring to, so I can't engage with, for instance, your critique of Syndromes. But with regard to 4 Months, I know that any interpretation you try to put on its ideology - on the bourgeois values it supports - could be endlessly debated, because it isn't a film that tells you what to think, however certain of its political intent its more vocal fans have been.

A couple of pages back, you expressed a liking (at least I think it was you, haven't checked) for The Darjeeling Limited, and I distinctly remember several reviews calling it out for its condescension towards Indians. I found this in Chris Tookey's review:

Chris Tookey wrote:The nadir of the film, epitomising its crassness, complacency and insularity, comes when the three become involved in the accidental death of an Indian boy, and the awful realisation dawns on the audience that we’re meant to care not about the dead child or his family, but about the humanising effect of the death on our irksome western heroes.

Now I haven't seen the whole film, but I have seen this bit, and although I'm not an Anderson fan I think Tookey's misjudged it (he's not the hardest of targets, to be fair), but I do remember he wasn't the only one to take issue with the film on these grounds. My point is that you would presumably argue against these complaints, and show (from evidence within the film) how it in fact is not condescending towards Indians; but the issue is debatable, the relation of the film's content to the real world is relative and, I guess, arbitrary, in a way that isn't the case with The Birth or Jew Suss. It strikes me that the films you're condemning are similarly open to more than one interpretation, and therein lies the problem with your Nazi/Klan comparisons: these are simply not unambiguously oppressive, evil films, and the onus of proof is on you if you want to claim that they're causing damage and suffering.

Nothing wrote:The championing, or not, of the films and filmmakers discussed, or not discussed, or listed, or not listed, on this site and elsewhere, has very little to do with the value and talent, or otherwise, of the artworks and artists, but, rather, the underlying politics and assumptions of the champions and listmakers themselves.

Zedz has already argued with you about this - I really can't see how you can actually believe it? It is no doubt true to some extent that the kind of art we like is determined by our moral/political values, but your statement desperately needs moderating. This is a forum populated by insular aesthetes: In the Mood For Love and Mulholland Drive didn't top this board's list because they pander to bourgeois capitalist values; these are not primarily politically engaged films, people like them because they're aesthetically pleasing. And I would have thought that, however much a film chimed with someone's (or at least a member of this forum's) political beliefs, they wouldn't champion it if they didn't appreciate its formal/technical qualities.

Now if you want to say (as you have said) that we should not be so fixated on formal qualities, and be more politically and morally informed about our tastes, that might be something like a reasonable position; but your claim that such lists are determined mainly by politics seems astronomically wide of the mark. It sounds like an eccentric conspiracy theory. And in any case, if you really do want to change people's attitudes, baldly telling them that their tastes are politically motivated, that their favourite films are equivalent to Nazi propaganda, and that they effectively don't know their own minds hardly seems the way to go - unless you want to be perceived as the unusually well-informed troll you're sometimes taken to be around here. I think you're saying very interesting things, but your lack of balance is killing your argument. My opinion, for what it's worth.

Sloper wrote:I would say The Birth of a Nation is one of the best films ever made, perhaps the best

Whereas I am amongst those who consider it to be little better than tripe. A film with nothing honest or interesting to say for itself, a compendium of formal techniques that had already been pioneered by others (the latter could also be said Kane). In any case, to follow Tarkovsky's line, formal innovation in-and-of-itself is of little intrinsic value - it is what you do with a particular technique, or set of techniques, that counts.

Dovzhenko's Earth is actually a far more troubling example for me. A film I find genuinely beautiful (not to mention innovative), a film whose heart appears to be in the right place - and yet, at base, it stands as a mendacious apologia for Stalin's murderous agrarian reforms - and a film I therefore feel I must ultimately dismiss or, at least, relegate.

Sloper wrote: I truly think such a film should never be made, seen or supported in any way, whatever the consequent loss in aesthetic terms. Ultimately, morality should be more important than art.

Good. Now tell that to the Cinematheque Ontario & friends...

Sloper wrote:if you could convince me that some of these more recent films we're discussing have as demonstrable a negative impact on the world as did Griffith's film (or Jew Suss), perhaps I would not watch them on principle.

So the moral dishonesty of a work is judged not by it's content but by it's scale of distribution...?

Sloper wrote:A couple of pages back, you expressed a liking (at least I think it was you, haven't checked) for The Darjeeling Limited, and I distinctly remember several reviews calling it out for its condescension towards Indians.

A good example of liberal racism / bias at work. Anderson was criticised, essentially, for the colour of his skin. True - the film has little of nuance to say about poverty and corruption in India; this wasn't really Anderson's concern (and the limit of his scope ultimately leads to a slight, if entertaining, work). At the same time, he never misrepresents these things (for that, see Slumdog Millionaire). The death of the child is a critical moment, acknowledging the unbridgeable gulf that exists between the lives of the rich western protagonists and the poor Indian villagers - we are not supposed to then 'relate' to Brody's character's selfish appropriation of the situation but, rather, observe it; he is characterized honestly, in other words, and it is this honesty that both elevates the film and which the usual suspects find uncomfortable and are therefore quick to condemn (nb. this isn't arbitrary - Armond and myself are correct, they are wrong ).

Sloper wrote:This is a forum populated by insular aesthetes: In the Mood For Love and Mulholland Drive didn't top this board's list because they pander to bourgeois capitalist values; these are not primarily politically engaged films, people like them because they're aesthetically pleasing... your claim that such lists are determined mainly by politics seems astronomically wide of the mark.

Your mistake is to assume that the position of the 'insular aesthete' is not a political one. To assume that such a thing as an 'apolitical' film or position can even exist. I would posit that a vote for political 'non-engagement' is, in fact, a vote for the status quo (it would be pretty hard for, say, a Laotian villager to remain 'unengaged' after Nixon and Kissinger have dropped a megaton bomb on his or her head; or, in other words, your/Wong's 'non-engagement' is simply a privilege/indicator of bourgeois circumstance). I also think you're confusing cack-handed didacticism (Redford, Loach, etc) with what I would describe as honest, politically-aware filmmaking (Akerman, Aldrich, Alonso, Angelopoulos, Antonioni - those are just the As...).

Maybe I missed something, but isn't there a hypocrisy in giving Darjeeling a relative pass on account of those politics being beyond its scope and than saying that apolitism is a form of political acceptance? After all wouldn't keeping something off of ones scope be a way of accepting it as just another part of existence by your definition?

knives wrote:Maybe I missed something, but isn't there a hypocrisy in giving Darjeeling a relative pass on account of those politics being beyond its scope and than saying that apolitism is a form of political acceptance? After all wouldn't keeping something off of ones scope be a way of accepting it as just another part of existence by your definition?

Treading a fine line, admittedly. But I noted that:

1/ Anderson does at least acknowledge the gulf in experience between his hi-so leads and the Indian villagers they encounter - and the brutishness of the villagers' lives, as evidenced by the death of the child. He also doesn't shy away from portraying some of the nastier, self-centered edges of his characters ("I didn't save mine." - the best line in the film); ie. there is a class aspect present in the film, not altogether so distant from the approach Antonioni takes in L'Avventura, although Antonioni is, of course, far more thorough - and more cutting - in his observations. Note also that what I've been arguing for is cinematic honesty, not political activism necessarily, and, whilst his scope is limited, Anderson is at least fairly honest in what he shows - the glaring exception being the fling that Schwatzmann has with the preposterously 'liberated' Indian girl on the train (a sequence I wouldn't seek to defend for a moment).

2/ The film is still ultimately a minor work, due to this lightness and limited scope, albeit not as uselessly myopic as In the Mood for Love or as offensively dishonest as Syndromes.

Nothing wrote:I am amongst those who consider [The Birth of a Nation] to be little better than tripe. A film with nothing honest or interesting to say for itself, a compendium of formal techniques that had already been pioneered by others (the latter could also be said of Kane). In any case, to follow Tarkovsky's line, formal innovation in-and-of-itself is of little intrinsic value - it is what you do with a particular technique, or set of techniques, that counts.

I agree completely with the last statement, and value Griffith for what he did with the techniques rather than for having invented them (which, no, indeed he didn't). As for it having nothing honest or interesting to say: it's certainly a politically engaged film, and one that bespeaks the viewpoint of a racist southerner in very honest, very earnest terms. One version of the film allegedly featured scenes, towards the end, of blacks being deported. And although critics have been taking apart its version of the Reconsctruction era since it was released, I gather that at the time it was more or less in line with the 'official' history books. Griffith was saying something very personal and, to him, very meaningful about the South he grew up in, the war his father fought in, etc; if only he hadn't been! Fair enough if you don't find it interesting, but (to repeat myself) I don't know why you would take issue with its honesty.

Nothing wrote:So the moral dishonesty of a work is judged not by it's content but by it's scale of distribution...?

This threw me off a bit; I may have misunderstood your point. First of all, I'm not talking about scale of distribution, or about the impact of a film in any precisely 'quantifiable' terms. I have no earthly idea how much suffering the films in question caused; who knows, there may even be something in that specious argument that The Birth had a positive impact in giving the NAACP more publicity, opening the way for black film-makers, etc (probably not, on the whole). But insofar as it's possible to say what kind of impact a film had on the world, I think it's reasonable to say that The Birth had a negative one; even without the protests and riots that greeted its release and have dogged it ever since, the first-hand accounts of blacks-only cinemas filled with angry/crying patrons, the copycat lynchings and so on, you only have to look at the film - even just the opening scene, with the 'bringing of the African' to America, and then the abolitionist holding a handkerchief to her nose when the black child gets too close to her - to see what it's saying about black people, and the position they ought to occupy (if they must occupy one at all) in civilised white society. In other words, you can see what's wrong with it regardless of how widely distributed it was.

Furthermore, you're reverting to your term, 'moral dishonesty'. You seem to be asking an ethical question about whether acts should be judged on their intent (is the film honest or not?) or their consequences. You only have to have been to school to know what an age-old chestnut that is, but surely in this discussion some balance between the two is required? On a personal level, you can measure your own actions based on your intent, but when looking at a film made by a complete stranger, you can only judge it morally on the basis of the effect it appears to be aiming for; and in the case of The Birth, I think the fact that it was transparently designed for a mass audience must be part of the equation, as, to a lesser extent, must its success in reaching such an audience.

The implication of your question is that you're more comfortable calling a film-maker dishonest than actually saying what effect their supposed dishonesty has had or was seeking to have, and the problem is that you can't possibly know how honest or dishonest any of these directors are - only they could know that. When you call a film 'mendacious', your point seems to be that the film in question claims to stand up for a certain cause, class or whatever, but that in fact it contributes to and supports the very oppression it seems to be targeting. And correct me if I'm wrong, but in that case you are judging these films by the impact they have, and inferring dishonesty from that impact. I wasn't saying you should quantify this impact, just that it seems less demonstrably negative than that of Griffith's film, making your comparison between the two rather dubious.

Your defence of Darjeeling sounds reasonable to me. However, this -

Nothing wrote:(nb. this isn't arbitrary - Armond and myself are correct, they are wrong).

- is, I hope, as entirely facetious as the smiley would seem to indicate.

Nothing wrote:Your mistake is to assume that the position of the 'insular aesthete' is not a political one. To assume that such a thing as an 'apolitical' film or position can even exist. I would posit that a vote for political 'non-engagement' is, in fact, a vote for the status quo (it would be pretty hard for, say, a Laotian villager to remain 'unengaged' after Nixon and Kissinger have dropped a megaton bomb on his or her head; or, in other words, your/Wong's 'non-engagement' is simply a privilege/indicator of bourgeois circumstance).

Well, you're uncomfortably right about this. It's fair enough to say that I'm only politically unengaged because, as a member of the oppressing colour, language, age, class and sex, I can afford to be. With regard to cinema, you seem to be saying that our tastes are informed by politics in the sense that we are too privileged, lazy and selfish to have any, so that we vote for films that make no political statement, or that claim to stand up for values we pay lip-service to but in fact help to uphold the oppressive status quo. This seems pretty harsh, but you're probably right. I do wonder whether you're fighting the right battle here, and whether the oppression you're talking about is really to be laid at the door of the directors you're lambasting - and indeed whether this is a discussion worth having on a forum like this one. At the very least, your position could use some more evidence and argument.

I know you think that my point about the 'honesty' or otherwise of these films being open to debate is evidence of my wishy-washy relativistic attitude, but don't you think that dogmatism - whichever political viewpoint it's supporting - is just as problematic? You have very fixed ideas about what certain films are trying to do, and seem unwilling to accept that there might be other perspectives. Speaking of the reception of Precious by black audiences, what if the criticisms of Darjeeling turned out to be a better reflection of the way that film is received by Indian viewers? Unlikely, perhaps, but how much do you really know about the impact of these other films on the people you claim they help to oppress?

Part of the trouble is that you sound as if you have a list of film-makers you've passed for public consumption, and I'm suspicious of anyone who wants to direct my tastes in one way or another. Maybe you could spend more time championing those films you approve of, and less time complaining about the ones you don't?

I'd be happy to hear him talk more about Soi Cowboy. He seems to have a pretty firm grasp on that one (especially as evidenced by his Amazon UK review).

But is this:

Sloper wrote:Griffith was saying something very personal and, to him, very meaningful about the South he grew up in

not contradicted by this?:

Sloper wrote:I truly think such a film should never be made, seen or supported in any way, whatever the consequent loss in aesthetic terms. Ultimately, morality should be more important than art.

Surely you either believe in a set of moral principals or you don't? Indeed, I would contend, the latter position is impossible for any sentient human being to genuinely hold. To walk, to eat, to procreate, even these are moral choices. To participate in a democracy, to express an opinion... And if your moral principals preclude the arbitrary lynching of negroes, then why do you tolerate Griffith? Isn't this kind of 'tolerance' a contradiction in terms, the kind of 'tolerance' that also makes excuses for, say, the oppressive regime in Iran, or for the existence of state-funded faith schools in the United Kingdom? Shouldn't you work out exactly what your moral principals are and then stand up for them?

Sloper wrote:the problem is that you can't possibly know how honest or dishonest any of these directors are - only they could know that

Whether or not a director is self-deluding (ie. whether or not he/she believes in what they are pedaling) is by-the-by. Syndromes & a Century, for example: AW has made a 'state of the nation' film, a film which, by its very title, seeks to address a century of Thai history (albeit through the gaze of his physician family, but this is no excuse), which, by its structure, proposes to address the rural/urban tension in modern Thailand. Yet he abjectly ignores the existence of the North-Eastern indigenous population, the largest ethnic group in the country (34%), the people whom his invading Chinese ancestors have oppressed and exploited for centuries, whose growing aprobation is the source of the urban/rural divide he pretends to address, the source of almost every international news story about Thailand for the past 5-10 years (not that there is anything genuinely new about this - the North-Eastern-based communist movement was brutally crushed by the military regime and its US allies in the 1970s). Indeed, his closest attempt at depicting the rural classes in the film is a marginal and unlikable farmer character who pesters the good female doctor for money (ie. not so far from Griffith's simplistic racial stereotypes, after all...) So... Either AW has an incredibly myopic and limited grasp of his country's history and politics (far from uncommon amongst the hi-so youth, it has to be said) or, as a supporter of the openly fascist, anti-democratic PAD movement (whose primary aim is to take the vote away from the indigenous population), he wishes to present a skewed version for foreign consumption. Does it ultimately matter...? Not really. What should matter to us, as members of the international film community, is that people like Fortissimo, Keith Griffiths, the BFI and the Cinematheque Ontario are willing to support him in pedaling these damaging untruths.

John Cope wrote:I'd be happy to hear him talk more about Soi Cowboy.

Perhaps something for a separate thread once that disc is out. In essence, it is everything Syndromes should be but isn't (a direct response to Weerasethakul and Ratangarung, quite possibly...) A shame there's no BR listing, the 16mm high grain b&w will lose a lot on DVD (the BFI really dropped the ball by not acquiring this, imho).

I can't really engage with what you're saying about Syndromes, though it sounds very persuasive. Maybe I'll come back to this when I have more than half a minute to reply, but for now I just wanted to rush in and address your first point: I don't approve of what Griffith had to say in The Birth of a Nation, I was just taking issue with your statement that he had 'nothing honest to say'. I still don't understand why you would take issue with the film's honesty; you're still assuming that considering a film's political stance to be deeply felt and sincere is the same thing as endorsing that political stance, and it isn't. Standing up for your principles is fine, but - to reiterate for the umpteenth time - not everyone whose principles differ from yours is necessarily 'dishonest'. You'd be on safer ground if you just called them 'wrong'.

And I'm not sure what it means to 'tolerate' or 'not tolerate' Griffith; I don't condone or perpetuate the operation (within today's society) of his racist views by watching his films, so in no meaningful way am I 'tolerating' him. (As I said before, the impact of his film today may be more complicated than that, but then you'd need to suggest what damage is done by purchasing/watching The Birth.)

Tentative, mind you.


1. There Will Be Blood
2. The White Ribbon
3. The Pianist
4. Kill Bill Vol 1
5. Requiem For a Dream
6. Slumdog Millionaire
7. City of God
8. A Prophet
9. The Wrestler
10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
11. Lilya 4-Ever
12. The Squid and the Whale
13. Once
14. Children of Men
15. Superbad
16. Memento
17. REC
18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
19. Adaptation
20. About Schmidt
21. Mulholland Drive
22. Mary and Max
23. Sunshine
24. Let the Right One In
25. No Country For Old Men
26. Brokeback Mountain
27. Sideways
28. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
29. The Royal Tenenbaums
30. Tsotsi
31. Werckmeister Harmonies
32. Before Sunset
33. 28 Days Later
34. Chop Shop
35. The Departed
36. Election
37. Rachel Getting Married
38. Sugar
39. Precious
40. Kill Bill 2
41. Bruno
42. Amores Perros
43. Insomnia
44. Sin Nombre
45. Ballast
46. Borat
47. Pan’s Labyrinth
48. The Class
49. Up
50. Waltz With Bashir

Amazed Miami Vice ended up as the sole Mann film on the list. Considering the rest of his out-put I have no problem saying it was his weakest film of the decade.

Yeah, I'd say it's the weakest of the four features he made in the aughts, though I think all of them were flawed in one way or another (for one thing, some of his digital video shots in Public Enemies and Collateral look like videotaped behind the scenes footage)

I'm far from the guy to ask about Mann, but I have always gotten the impression that Miami Vice is one of those films where the people who like it like it an awful lot.

I liked it, but wasn't as bowled over as I was when I saw Collateral. There was a sense of levity in that movie in a couple key scenes, that was nowhere to be found in Vice.

By chance, I read the interview with Mann in the new DGA Quarterly yesterday. He doesn't really address Miami Vice but his comments on Collateral and Public Enemies are interesting. I had no idea he was unhappy with Public Enemies, and it's a shame, because I think it's very strong.

I was also amused by his comment on the Tangerine Dream score for Thief.

I would say Collateral was his strongest effort of the 2000's. It's probably as good a Tom Cruise performance than anything else he's done. I was always ambivalent about his work but not overly negative, but about 15-20 minutes into it I literally forgot who he was. He was Vincent throughout, and the prep him and Michael did that's touched on the interview was just so perfect for the character.

Cruise is capable of being a wonderful actor as long as I'm not asked actually to like the character he's playing

Along those lines, one (of many) frustrations I had with Redford's Lions for Lambs is that it wasted the idea of having Cruise play a dishonest, cynical rightwing Senator.