Feeling left out

For some reason I haven't gotten any of the e-mails that I'm told are circulating around the "community," asking film critics to stand in solidarity with Armond White. I can't imagine why that is. 

UPDATE: A friend sent me the text of one of the e-mails, which I reproduce, with some redactions, below. Any of you guys remember this kinda/sorta novelty group called Old Skull? They were ten-year-olds who played hardcore? They had a song called "Hot Dog Hell" which contains the line "Whoever works here doesn't know how to cook a hot dog." For some reason that song popped into my head while I was reading this: 

You may not have heard that Armond White has been blackballed by Focus
Features at the request of Noah Baumbach and his producer Scott Rudin
from seeing Noah's latest "masterpiece" GREENBERG. [Noah, maybe you
should make better films.  Scott, go throw a cellphone at some PA you
thin-skinned pussy.]

Some of you may think that Armond is a pretentious pompous fool who has
no idea what he's talking about, but he is still a fellow film critic.
[Hail Todd McCarthy, fired by Variety today so they can save some
shekels.]

Publicists are akin to Nazis.  Remember what Hitler said, "Who remembers
the Armenians?"  As publicists blacklist each of us one by one we will
be left with the Paul Wunders of the 21st Century aka blogger hacks who
can't spell or write a comprehensive sentence.

I suggest we all do three things:

1. DO NOT review Greenberg, if you are ordered to by your superior make
a reference to the Gestapo tactics of the distributor, filmmaker and
producer.

2. Complain directly to the President of Focus Features, James Schamus
who prides himself on being a writer and supporter of the written word.
This is his email address: [redacted]

3. Write directly to Scott Rudin and tell him you will not review any of
his upcoming films.

Scott Rudin Productions
[address and other info redacted]

Upcoming Films: Margaret (Fox Searchlight), The Social Network (Columbia
- 10/15)

Hail the First Amendment.  Fuck the talentless hacks.

FURTHER UPDATE: According to a post at the...wait for it...New York Press blog, the whole thing's been smoothed over, and White will be attending a screening of Greenberg on Friday. (I'll be going on Wednesday myself, which is too bad, because I would have liked to have been able to say hello to the asshole.) Call me a cynic, but the whole thing smells a little Aimee Semple McPherson-esque to me.

Comments

[Keith Phipps]

Perhaps their anonymous author questions your ability to write a "comprehensive" sentence.

[bill]

I like the comment under the Wells piece about how Baumbach is a voyeur. Who's the target of his voyeurism? Why, the fictional characters he creates! That's who!

[Steven Santos]

So when a critic wishes a filmmaker's mother aborted him or claims he can tell he's an asshole from watching his films, that's okay. But deny that critic a screening (though it's not like he will be banned from every theater in the country playing it) and it's time to invoke the Nazis and Gestapo tactics. The moral and ethical stance of this e-mail perplexes me.

[Tony Dayoub]

How about we all join together and pledge to review GREENBERG, write directly to James Schamus and tell him we don't give a shit that he's a writer (nor does Armond White), and write directly to Scott Rudin and promise to review everyone of his films?

[Jim]

He seems to completely misunderstand the First Amendment too, based on his e-mail to a colleague.

[bill]

I know Keith already made reference to this, but "comprehensive sentence"...I expect that's going to be the best thing I read all day.

[Ben Sachs]

Remember that website "In the Future Everyone Will Be Hitler for 15 Minutes"?

I can't believe someone would invoke genocide because a critic has not been allowed into a press screening.

[ptatleriv]

@ Ben - I can't believe someone would use "shekels" in a particularly loaded context AND THEN invoke the Holocaust.

The Old Skull reference works, but this conflict also reminds me of the less-obscure tagline to a horrible sequel: "Whoever wins... we lose."

[Doniphon]

I always liked Armond because his approach to cinema is so different from mine, and I prefer reading people I don't agree with to be honest. He does get harder to defend year-by-year though, and flirts more and more with self-parody, but I don't understand at all what the hoopla is about calling Baumbach an asshole, like that's so controversial or something. Critics have always judged artists by their work (hell, how many times was Peckinpah called a misogynist and fascist and probably an asshole), if anything, Armond is just a little more in-your-face and frank about it (like that's a surprise). Isn't that what auteurism is, the idea of the nature and identity of a person emerging through his/her work? If it is, then Armond's claim seems off-color, and not something I would say, but pretty justifiable.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't the Paul Wunder reference indicate that Armond White himself is the author? (Or is that already painfully obvious to everyone else?) Which is unsurprising, since I've heard that he patrols the internet and intervenes on his own behalf under a variety of pseudonyms. Pitiful but true.

For years he's been doing this - trashing people in the worst terms imaginable and then invoking the First Amendment and racism when he's challenged. His stance appeals to young people because he constantly waves the flag or morality and ethics, but his own morality and ethics are elastic and ridiculously, indiscriminately punitive.

His hatred of Noah Baumbach pre-dates Noah Baumbach's films and goes all the way back to his hatred of Baumbach's mother, Georgia Brown.

[The Siren]

I will just come right out and say it, I love Armond White. We need Armond White. You can't say the man doesn't bring up points that nobody, but nobody else did. And without Armond White, there is no "Armond Whiteism of the Week" and damn, that would make my film-criticism-reading time just that much bleaker.

But a question does arise in the Siren's (ahem) decidedly non-compensated and therefore I suppose non-professional mind: Can he not buy a ticket?

[Ben Sachs]

@Doniphon: I don't think auteurism means extrapolating personal judgments about a director based on his/her work, as commonly as this may occur. What does it mean, then, if an "asshole" makes a film that's artistically valuable?

I'm reminded of an old Cahiers du cinema defense of Robert Aldrich (I can't remember if it was Godard or Rivette), something to the extent that "Kiss Me Deadly" is great filmmaking not because of what it has to tell us about Aldrich but because of what Aldrich is able to reflect of the larger culture, and that his ability to do this makes him worthy of auteur status. I have no idea what Aldrich was like in his private life, nor Baumbach, for that matter. I don't think that's any of my business. In any case, none of this seems to justify a completely tasteless reference to the Holocaust.

[Anonymous]

Excuse me, but shouldn't there be a dividing line between Armond White's writing and his pronouncements in an interview? Shouldn't writing, which is hard work, count for something? Or is everything all about judgments all the time?

I see no reason to value someone's point of view simply because it's different from yours. The real question is: can they mount an argument to back up their opinions? I stopped reading Armond White a long time ago, because the arguments simply disappeared and all that was left was a weekly collection of accusations, pronouncements, fire-and-brimstone judgments and an unbearable pomposity expressed in "talentless" (to use his word) prose. Internet ranting aside, I can't think of another critic who has been less generous to his peers, who has attacked them so relentlessly, and who has resorted so frequently to the "people who fall for X or Y are deluding themselves" construction. I think that's a really terrible way to mount an argument. Also, on a more basic level, the man is grammatically challenged, and has a pretty tough time putting together a "comprehensive" word combination, let alone a sentence. I think his biggest problem is his martyrdom complex, which does not make for good critical judgment.

[Doniphon]

Ben, assholes do make films that are artistically valuable. It's totally valid to say an asshole made Margot At The Wedding, and it's a great film. That's Armond's biggest problem, and the problem of all criticism that is overly politicized and moralistic; it denies the possibility of great immoral art. But that's not really my point.

That very well may be Cahier's defense of Kiss Me Deadly, but what about that article on Fuller (I can't remember who wrote it) that goes bullet-style through a series of questions: Is Fuller a fascist? Is Fuller a Communist? Is Fuller an anti-Fascist? I don't see how that's any different from what Armond is doing here. If we're going to say he has no right to do that, we also have to say we have no right to talk about Hitchcock's cinema in terms of his voyeuristic fetishes. Suddenly calling Hitch or Lynch or De Palma voyeurs becomes wrong. We'd probably have to throw out a good deal of the great film criticism written in the last fifty years, and I don't think anyone is prepared to do that.

I had an English professor, really low-key, down to earth guy, who loved Faulkner, but said he knew Faulkner was a racist because there was a racist character in every one of his books. The point being that even the parts of the artist that he tries to suppress ends up manifesting itself in his art. I think that's true, and what I was trying to convey here.

And unless I'm misunderstanding this, Armond did not refer to the Holocaust. He didn't send that email. The one he did referred to the first amendment, which is idiotic, but hardly tasteless.

[James Keepnews]

I've defended White a bit in the past because of his decades-long championing of neglected artists like Bill Gunn. It's one thing to tease out perceived crypto-fascist-commie tendencies in a filmmaker's work (though unless you're culpable on some Heideggerian/Reifenstahlisn level in any of these historically oppressive ideologies, I don't really see alot of value in it). And perhaps we are truly revealed by our expressions...if so, ANY critic capable of petulantly, arrogantly asserting her/his omniscient foreknowledge of a person's character when s/he says something on the order of "you look at BLANK's work, and you see he's an asshole...I don't need to meet him to know that. Better than meeting him, I've seen his movies.", then that critic is worse than an asshole. That critic is a literal know-nothing, judgemental dipshit. I know because I've read his know-nothing, judgemental dipshit comments.

Here's an idea for a protest -- a competition to write the BEST Armond White review of Greenberg.

[I.V.]

White is becoming a Baumbach character.

[Tom Russell]

I'm squarely with Baumbach on this one-- once someone with a weird vendetta against your mother[*] has publicly said that he wished you were dead, you're allowed to bar him from critic's screenings of your film. I really don't know in what universe someone has to be living in to consider Baumbach to be in the wrong on this one.

[*-- Said vendetta being based, if I'm not mistaken, by some sort of racist comment Ms. Brown was to have made in print, which, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever actually found in print, the implication being (and correct me if I'm wrong!) that, well, she never said any such thing. Which is about par for the course for Armond White.]

[Glenn Kenny]

@ The Siren: I don't think White will need to by a ticket. My understanding of the situation, such as it is, is that White is being shut out of certain early screenings, and that he'll be invited to attand an all-media event or some such. Which only means, finally, that he'll see the film in less cozy environs than the Broadway Screening Room, and that he'll have less time to craft (ROTFLMAO) his review of it. A shame, really, as I understand that "Greenberg" was gonna be the film that was gonna turn A.W. around on Baumbach! (Not.)

@ Anonymous and Tom Russell: Yeah, pretty creepy stuff w/r/t White's vendetta, general ill-advised-ness of talking smack about people's mothers aside.

I was actually expecting more expressions of sympathy for White and his situation here, and instead I'm being regaled with vivid reminders of what a non-thinking, non-writing, vindictive creep this self-proclaimed champion of humanism really is. I can't say that I'm displeased with the development.

[Victor Morton]

Yeah ... when you state that someone should have been aborted, you've basically forfeited the right to expect any civility back from that person. And attending a free, advanced screening of a film is a civility, not a right.

There'd be something worth protesting if all White had ever done was hate Baumbach's films. Knowing he's an "asshole" from his films, the abortion comment, and the way his negative reviews of Baumbach's films were so ad-hominem in content -- he should be (have been, I guess) banned.

[Jeff McMahon]

Now that this has happened, isn't it a conflict of interest for White to review the film? Not that that'll stop him...

[Brian]

Anon wrote: "I can't think of another critic who has been less generous to his peers, who has attacked them so relentlessly, and who has resorted so frequently to the "people who fall for X or Y are deluding themselves" construction. I think that's a really terrible way to mount an argument. Also, on a more basic level, the man is grammatically challenged, and has a pretty tough time putting together a "comprehensive" word combination, let alone a sentence. I think his biggest problem is his martyrdom complex, which does not make for good critical judgment."

Maybe it's because folks are referencing CAHIERS DU CINEMA, but Anon's passage above and the initial email request Glenn posted remind me of the exchange of letters between Godard and Truffaut in '73 (collected in the book of Truffaut's correspondence), where Godard writes his old friend a letter accusing him of being a liar and a fraud, of telling lies about cinema in DAY FOR NIGHT, of making shitty bourgeois films, of selling out and not being properly political...then he asks if Truffaut will loan him several thousand francs for his next film. Perhaps it's important for someone to speak up for the Armondians among us (for who else will??), but White definitely seems like the Godard in this situation (without the talent and importance).

[Tom Russell]

I remember that letter! IIRC, Truffaut called Godard "a shit on a pedestal", which is of course much more romantic sounding in the original French. (This isn't meant as any kind of comment on your Godard analogy, it's just a turn of phrase that always resonated with me. The volume I have of Truffaut's letters is introduced by Godard, and I found JLG's introduction to be more than a little moving.)

In "honour" of Mr. White, I'm going to make a blanket statement without presenting any kind of evidence to support it: Godard was a much more important filmmaker than Truffaut, but Truffaut was a _better_ filmmaker.

[Brian]

Tom,
Yes, it's a great exchange-- I think it captures each man so well, and their readings of one another through all the bile are often quite fascinating. I agree that Truffaut was the better filmmaker-- as time goes by, his movies just resonate for me more-- and maybe equally important with Godard? I love Godard's work, too, just in a different way. And I agree that his intro to the volume is touching-- the Antoine deBacque Truffaut bio published around '99 suggested that he tried to make amends with Truffaut in the late seventies/early eighties, and was rebuffed, which is too bad if it's true.

[Victor Morton]

Brian wrote (in two posts):

Godard writes his old friend a letter accusing him of being a liar and a fraud, of telling lies about cinema in DAY FOR NIGHT, of making shitty bourgeois films, of selling out and not being properly political...then he asks if Truffaut will loan him several thousand francs for his next film. ... the Antoine deBacque Truffaut bio published around '99 suggested that [Godard] tried to make amends with Truffaut in the late seventies/early eighties, and was rebuffed, which is too bad if it's true.

No ... I *don't* think it's too bad. There have to be consequences to public contempt.

It's become cliche to say that Internet discourse is so ugly because Web anonymity lets people say things they would never say, and in a tone they never would use if their rudeness were delivered in person. But this shows it's not strictly an Internet phenomenon. What's in common is the expectation by Godard that he can call someone a shitty bourgeois sellout and not make an enemy, thinking it can all be taken back. No. It. Can't.

[Brian]

Victor, fair enough-- according to the bio, that seemed to be Truffaut's take on it, too, and I have sympathy for that. I guess it's just the sentimentalist in me that likes to think two former friends can patch up their differences, however great. But I have sympathy for the point you're making.

[joel_gordon]

Whoever wrote that email is doing White no favors. A critic should be proud that his targets don't want to share a room with him. If I were a critic, I'd make sure that Joel Schumacher, Sam Mendes, and either Scott brother had me pre-banned from any screening at which they were present. Whining about non-existent First Amendment rights, evading the fact that White made personal attacks on the critic, and feeling entitled to attend one particular screening out of many--this is pathetic. And, it should be said, I actually do enjoy reading the man's reviews. I even agree with him 50% of the time.

[JH]

I haven't been able to bring myself to read an Armond White piece since his unintentionally hilarious celebration, years ago, of a pedestrian Nas video as some kind of major breakthrough in urban realism. He's clearly a lightweight, and I find that I can keep myself from throwing up a bit (if not from laughing) if, every time I see one of his lines quoted in print or online, I just imagine the words being spoken by the "smart Gremlin" from GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH. You know, this guy: http://21.media.tumblr.com/WoMAD3ZDjqmzlgoaKaiy2zKwo1_500.jpg

Try it sometime!

[Anonymous]

Godard's intro to the letters is extremely moving. He was horrible to Truffaut, and Truffaut responded just as any of us would have (I thought the section in Richard Brody's bio where he tries to re-cast Godard's response in a more favorable light was absolutely absurd). But Godard was following his nature, like the scorpion in MR. ARKADIN.

On the other hand, Armond White imagining that he's taking the moral high ground by proclaiming Noah Baumbach an asshole because he makes the wrong kind of movies about privileged people, and trying to start a groundswell under a pseudonym (I'm sorry Doniphon, but aside from the fact that he's known to write on the internet under different names, his presence is unmistakable, from the reference to the long-dead Paul Wunder to the insane hyperbole to the faulty grammar - plus, no one else would possibly care enough to draft such a silly document), is utterly, and perhaps definitively, pitiful.

[Albert]

"Maybe it's because folks are referencing CAHIERS DU CINEMA, but Anon's passage above and the initial email request Glenn posted remind me of the exchange of letters between Godard and Truffaut in '73 (collected in the book of Truffaut's correspondence), where Godard writes his old friend a letter accusing him of being a liar and a fraud, of telling lies about cinema in DAY FOR NIGHT, of making shitty bourgeois films, of selling out and not being properly political...then he asks if Truffaut will loan him several thousand francs for his next film. Perhaps it's important for someone to speak up for the Armondians among us (for who else will??), but White definitely seems like the Godard in this situation (without the talent and importance)."

-While I understand the attempt to compare these two situations it seems to overlook quite a bit of the context to compare a) two friends, former critics/filmmakers with a long history both personal and professional, that I am sure we are all familiar with here, in a very specific political climate to b) a critic, arguably with a vendetta, based upon the sins of the mother, and a filmmaker. I think it is quite clear that the comparison falters on these grounds alone, let alone, as you point out, the lack of talent and importance (though sometimes that latter one is a sticky situation, broadly speaking). Perhaps the better analogy is Truffaut's own attack on the "tradition of quality."

[Jaime]

Wow, very amusing to read Victor Morton taking a high, moral tone regarding internet (or pre-internet) posturing, i.e. being a prick online and making like it's all good when a real-life encounter takes place. Some of us know him a little better than to buy that.