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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

The Turan Column

Ken Turan, the lion in winter of Los Angeles criticism, wrote a piece today that will aggravate some. But I actually agree with him about what he wrote. That said, I don’t think he went nearly far enough or spoke directly enough to the issue for my tastes.
He closes by saying, “Criticism is a lonely job, and in the final analysis either you’re a gang of one or you’re nothing at all.” And he is absolutely right.
There was a lot of talk about this issue here on the blog last week. And at the core of it is that philosophy.
What I see is that there are more and more outside pressures on film critics as the work gets done. From the very first days I got into this in L.A., I was privy to the little non-coffee klatches that gather after screenings as people compare notes. Not all critics participate in this.
But the seduction of engaging is powerful… and not just for the wrong reasons (or taking a poll). We are (mostly) people who really love and care for movies. Discussing film with others who are similarly passionate can be wonderful. Even conflict, as we see so often on this blog, can be exhilarating, as defending one’s position can clarify one’s position to their self. None of us can consider every idea about a film… certainly not on deadline, whether that deadline is 2 hours or 2 days.
And with any conversation, the issue of reacting instead of build one’s own opinion is dangerous. And it’s not a black and white situation. And not talking to others does not necessarily mean you are not being pushed by outside influencers, like ads or feature stories or tone from your colleagues or real-world friends.
As Turan says, “criticism is at its core opinion shaped by all the personal and societal forces that shape anyone’s taste.”
Now… “the closest I ever came to making a mistake” may seem like an arrogant argument that Turan was never wrong, but I read it as saying that it would have been a mistake to offer anything but his real, personal opinion… so even if he changes his mind about a film, the original review was not a mistake.
And that is where I think the piece comes up a little short. Only someone in profound denial could ever go through hundreds of movies for years and never think their original take on a few of them turned out to be wrongheaded. Even if the film didn’t change, we all do. And even the movies we most love change in the perspective of time. Mr. Turan does not offer a personal example of this. All he does is to offer a self-serving example of a movie that he “fought the crowd on” to be honest. Yawn.
We live in a new era of media. Movies, like television, is now often “re-run” and reconsidered. I haven’t read “The Immediate Experience” by critic Robert Warshow – I now will – but I suspect that the idea of committing to our first reactions is no longer valid in the way it once was.
To toot my own horn, I have been looked at funny by media and publicists alike for years for often going to movies twice before writing about them. But I don’t consider my job to be to simply spew out my gut reaction to everything. I am not here to be “one of you,” which is not to say that I am better than any of you. But it is my work to be considerate of the films on a professional level and to offer my best insight into the work that you may or may not pay to see. If I’m not sure, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest for me to guess. I want to see the film again and see how it plays, because the film will exist long after I viewed it and long after opening weekend. The film, like any work of art, is there pretty much forever, to be considered and reconsidered. My real, personal opinion should be as informed as I want it to be before I offer it to others in a professional capacity.
As for a film that has changed in my view over time, Die Hard 4 is one where the phenomenon of what it is… not really a Die Hard movie by the standards of the iconic series… but something new and different that I was unwilling to separate from last summer when I saw it… is worth reconsideration. In that same vein, I am ongoingly reconsidering this summer’s Marvel movies. Though some of you take my lack of real love for them to be a continuing slap, what I am really after is context for them. I would not judge a Corman film in opposition to a Lean film… that would be silly and unhelpful. Likewise, I consider it part of my work now to recognize what is going on with the Marvel product line… or with the newly CGed Indiana Jones… or with the more densely populated Hellboy II, etc. I am not withdrawing my critical perception. But I am trying to consider context in a more complex way. And I think that is part of the work of the post-DVD critic.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon