Some new entries for the "Dictionary Of Received Critical Ideas"

Tim Grierson, writing at Deadspin, allows that he "likes" Beasts of the Southern Wild, further generously admitting that he's impressed by the "boldness of its ambitions" and the "depth of its emotional pull." That's the good news. But Tim has some bad news too, which is that the movie exemplifies the five worst indie-film clichés EVER!

But does it really? I don't know Mr. Grierson, and up until now I haven't sampled his work much (thanks a pantload, Jeffrey Wells), but it's clear he went to school and learned a little jargon and has a kit bag from which he can produce terminology to prove his point. Or has/can/does he? My general counter-argument to Mr. Grierson's is that his agenda here and perhaps in general is to outsmart art, rather than to examine and describe it. And that, proceeding from there, he merely unpacks a bunch of received academic/critical ideas, throws them at Beasts, and figures they'll stick, mainly because his terminology is kid-tested/mom-approved. This is my nice/fancy way of saying I think his theses are full of shit. Let's look at them one at a time.

Grierson kicks off by accusing Beasts of "fetishizing 'authenticity'." If you know your Lacan and Zizek, and if you've read the occasionally feisty music critic lay out a lecture you on how, you know, Charlie Patton was actually a POP musician, you'll recognize in this phrase a very big double no-no. Lucky for us, then, that when marshalling proof for this claim, he only refers to promotional materials about the making of the film, not with what's actually on screen. "[P]eople lap up stories about how Zeitlin and his cast and crew essentially lived in the handmade world of their fictional Bathtub while making the movie," Grierson sighs (I assume). "Knowing that the filmmaker personally pounded nails into wood doesn't tell us a thing about how he did at making a movie." Agreed. I don't ever wonder if Godard got seasick while shooting Film socialisme myself. But, I'm sorry, you were saying Beasts of the Southern Wild fetishizes "authenticity." Are you suggesting that its hype is inextricable from the movie itself? Because if you are, that's a different argument. That you are also not making. 

Next, Grierson says Beasts "Tries Way Too Hard To be Gritty". Like a few of his other complaints, this definitely falls into the realm of the judgment call, although the extent to which one's argument that a film is "trying to hard" is effective is of course relative to the number of pertinent examples one lays out in support of the assertion. Here Grierson does not do as well as he might. He cites "stale art-house moves" such as "shaky handheld" and...and...and...oh, "other self-conscious camera tricks." Oh. Those. "Contrary to popular opinion"...UH-OH..."having the occasionally out-of-focus shot doesn't automatically suggest 'realness.'" Oooh, snap. OK, aside from the fact that the term "realness" has some Urban Dictionary cred and a vague peripheral connection to what some contemporary philosophers refer to as "the Real," it's a pretty vague term, and Grierson has little leg to stand on in assuming that it is the precise quality that Beast's director Benh Zeitlin was after. For myself, one of the things that impressed me with respect to the visuals in Beasts was a certain deceptive quality; that the way certain shots were set up, handheld or not, giving the viewer the expectation of something relatively mundane happening in the frame, and then something rather unexpected and thrilling and literally dangerous taking place, as in the scene in which a trailer catches fire, which literally had me holding my breath. This elaborate effect was all the more startling for being approached in such a seemingly offhand way, and in retrospect gives one the impression that Zeitlin is a filmmaker in very tight control over his effects, and that the "accidents" that one might take the "occasional" out-of-focus shots for are not accidents, or any such like thing.

The really rich seam of pernicious bullshit is contained in Gierson's assertion and argument with respect to supposed indie-film-cliché number three, "It Treats Poverty As Something Noble." The ostensible nobility of poverty is a complex and vexed issue, as Saint Francis would no doubt tell you were he to appear on earth at this very moment. But after making this assertion, Grierson declines to go directly there. Rather, he just writes: 'There have been eyebrows raised about the fact that Hushpuppy and Wink are black, while Zeitlin is white." Grierson then cites Richard Brody, who makes a not entirely laughable proposition—whether the movie taps into "magical, mythical blackness" is certainly worth arguing about, but not so much if you preface it with an admonishment concerning the film's "love for its characters," oy—and...that's it. Again, how convenient to have all these raised eyebrows at your disposal.

Fact is, there should not be a single eyebrow raised, and for the record, I just got off the phone with a film-savvy friend who was very taken with Beasts and didn't have a single idea as to the ethnicity of its director. Years ago, Anthony Burgess made some cranky noises at the forces of what is incorrectly termed "political correctness" and asserted that as an artist, he had every right to imagine himself into the world and voice of a homosexual, which he was not, or of a black man, which he was not. (He did exactly that in the novels Earthly Powers and M/F, respectively, if I'm not mistaken.) To deny the artist his or her imaginative prerogative on the grounds that the artist is not the thing that he or she is imagining is a form of aesthetic totalitarianism, pure and simple, and if that's the way Grierson wants things that's fine but he should at least be honest about it. But where were we? Oh, the "poverty as something noble" bit. Again, it's a judgment call. I think the residents of the movie's "Bathtub" who refuse to clear out are a bunch of loony drunks, myself. Yes, the film sets them apart as unique, and depicts the forces that come to clear them out in a way that's almost as sinister as the Orwellian campaign van in Altman's Nashville. But with respect to nobility, or a desirable way to live, I don't see how Beasts is actively selling that. Yes, its subjectivity deals with how its protagonist Hushpuppy perceives/survive the insanity and physical calamity around her, and the things within that matrix she's become attached to, but that's hardly the same thing as validating/valorizing a way of life. Again, the baggage here is not the film's but the perfectly insipid counterintuitive don't-love-me-I'm-really-not-THAT-kind-of-liberal non-response Grierson's so invested in erecting. 

Bringing us to four, "It Confuses Simple Characters For Memorable Ones." I wonder, had Grierson been on the set of the film, and then in the editing room, at what point he could have said to Zeitlin, "Hey, wait a minute, you're making a mistake..." But again, Grierson doesn't make the argument. Instead, he says that the young girl who plays Hushpuppy is "undeniably captivating" but that the "filmmakers don't really give her a character to play." Huh? It's pretty clear she's a resourceful resilient very young person in an impossible situation, and she's certainly mythologized at least a bit, I can't deny that, but you know, she does also have a kind of quest, that being a reconnection with an absent and herself somewhat mythologized mother. But that's not enough "character" I guess. Further evidence that Grierson's assembling a straw man comes when he bitches that her "banal voiceover musings" are "treated as cockeyed wisdom." Well, they are in voice-over, so they clearly have some significance to them. Does the film make a church out of them? No. The girl is five goddamn years old. The viewer is meant to weigh the pronouncements against the fact that they're coming out of a five year old. Finally, Grierson lays the hammer down and damningly compares Hushpuppy to Forrest Gump, clearly one of the least memorable characters in all cinema, indie or studio, Nyah. Nyah. Nyah. (I'm not even going to get into the assertion that by putting a five-year-old in the lead role Zeitlin was self-consciously "critic-proofing" the movie. No more adorable children in movies, indie filmmakers; that's CHEATING.)

God, I'm exhausted.

Fortunately, we are up to cliché five, which I believe Orson Welles would characterize as "Impossible! Meaningless!," and it is that the film "Touches On Real-Life Events Without Saying Anything About Them." I know I've bored the tits off of most of you with my reiteration of Nabokov's "or still worse, 'What is the guy trying to say?'" So I don't need to get into that again. I'm not a big fan of "allegory" myself, but I don't argue that it ought not exist. Grierson's assertion that Beasts "tries to have it both ways" with respect to Hurricane Katrina is, one more time, more to do with the baggage he wants to load the film down with than anything that actually occurs when the film itself is onscreen.

It occurs to me that I went through a whole lot of trouble here when the sheer shittiness of Grierson's project here is handily epitomized by the way he uses the phrase "Sundance darling" in his headline. 

Finally, I am more in sympathy with David Edelstein's review of the movie. And if you consider Edelstein to be precisely the "type" of critic who would be suspicious of a movie coming in on Beast's wheels of promotion, well, that's kind of my point. 

UPDATE: On his Twitter feed, a critic friend notes: "So I guess the new rule is: 'Privileged' people shouldn't make art about themselves (Girls) or anyone else (Beasts)." Hmm, pretty much. Although I suspect there may be an exception codicil for Louis C.K.. (No disrespect to Mr. C.K., who is indeed great.)

Comments

[Matt Zoller Seitz]

Edelstein's BEASTS review is one of the best things he's written. Tough, fair, attentive to technique as well as story, lyrical but not sappy, and definitely not trying to outsmart the filmmaker or detach from the movie's emotions.

[Dana Olsen]

Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf. So I guess it is pointless to bitch about what they make films about, since they are the only ones who get to make films anyway.

[Glenn Kenny]

Dan Sallitt or Joe Swanberg, you wanna take this one?

[Josh Z]

Maybe the guy just didn't like the movie as much as you did? Having not seen it (and also having no familiarity with Grierson's other writings), nothing in that article strikes me as so unreasonable as to merit being ripped a new asshole. Edelstein makes a lot of the same points, albeit more eloquently. I guess I'm just not seeing what got you so fired up about this.

[Dana Olsen]

Your exceptions to the rule do not invalidate the rule, Glenn. And why is it so snarky to point out the obvious? Go visit any major film school sometime, Glenn. Those kids aren't there on scholarship. I'm not saying rich kids make bad movies, or that their movies don't deserve to be taken seriously. I'm just saying.

[Pinko Punko]

Grierson writes at Deadsping, trust me Josh, he can take it. His article was a generic rant forced onto a movie that might not deserve it.

[warren oates]

I knew a number of kids on scholarship (and not) at my famous public Cali film school. And whether or how much they paid for tuition had less than nothing to do with the quality of their work or how far they've gotten with it after school. Dana Olsen's line of argument is as false as it is boring. Unless you're in such abject war zone poverty that the very possibility of filmmaking couldn't even occur to you, then you've got as much of a shot to make it as anyone else.

[John M]

I guess I admire the fiery dedication, but the time taken for the dissection here seems kind of ill-spent. Why attach yourself so vehemently to something you've already dismissed?

I'd much rather see you take on, say, that review in Mubi, because then you wouldn't have to go out of your way to tell us you really really don't respect the writer you're writing about.

[warren oates]

Eh? I thought the whole point of Glenn's post wasn't curt dismissal but to give highly specific reasons for not respecting the writer in question? There's nothing personal at all in his takedown -- unless you take movies, clear thinking, good arguments and lucid writing personally. Well, okay then, nothing ad hominem.

[John M]

Oh, didn't mean to imply that it's personal. But I also don't think Glenn thinks very much of the writer in question--which is fine, but, well, a dialogue between (or response between, or whatever) two experienced critics who respect one another would be much more illuminating than a one-sided takedown from an experienced critic of someone who writes reviews for a site that generally focuses on professional sports.

And take it how you will, what's clear with this post to me is that Glenn really, really doesn't take this guy seriously.

[Will Leitch]

As Tim's colleague at Grierson & Leitch -- which runs on both Deadspin and Gawker -- I'll let him speak for himself as to his piece. (As I suspect he might.) I will say, however, to John M, that I don't quite understand why where a piece runs has anything to do with its quality. Surely, everybody here is a fan of Glenn's -- Grierson and I have been loyal readers for decades -- but no one would ever dismiss his work by simply saying, "Well, this is someone who writes reviews for a site that generally focuses on ads for Sensa and desperate attempts to get people to use Bing." Grierson's the VP of LAFCA, one of the primary critics for Screen International and someone who has written seriously about film for more than a decade. Frankly, he's slumming at Deadspin, and I say that as the person who both adores Deadspin and founded the place.

[Tothemaxxx]

Thanks for writing this.

[John M]

Fair enough. I regret the implication.

Though, one does tend to focus in on a work differently depending on where it is run--ultimately this is the fault of the reader (in this case, me), but it's an understandable tendency. Run a great movie review in National Geographic, and part of me will wonder if it's somehow primarily being written for fans of exotic locations and photography, and therefore not a "real" work of film criticism. This is probably just a just-live-with-it hazard of online cross-publishing, but it's still jarring to me.

I should also mention that, while I disagree with various points, I liked the piece more than Glenn. Beasts--which I haven't seen--does sound like, in no small part, a work of social excavation. And Grierson takes those elements on in a more direct fashion than many others have.

[Glenn Kenny]

It's too late to apologize for what often comes across as a borderline withheld-vituperation tone, and I wouldn't anyway because it was intentional, however...I don't want my irritation with Tim Grierson's piece to translate as a dislike of Grierson, with whom I'm not acquainted, or for anyone to think that I'm trying to school him, or scold him. What i object to in his piece is stuff that he is hardly the only person guilty of (I use that term advisedly) and his piece getting the attention it got from me has a lot to do with the fact that, well, I happened to SEE it. The review by Mr. Vishnevetsky is a different kettle of fish. I would say it's somewhat better, or at least more originally argued than Grierson's. Rather than clichés, Vishnevetsky goes for cherry-picking in the style that I sometimes seem to see my friend Richard Brody doing; having decided that "Beasts" is unclean, he condemns it for doing things he finds at least tolerable if not laudable in other films. This is compounded by dog-whistling to the amen corner at Cinema Scope, and the claque there seems positively giddy at the prospect of finding an American independent film they can piss on, the better to exemplify their principles. "A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms."

[Don R. Lewis]

I admittedly didn't read Glenn's stuff above *too* closely as I try to not read reviews/reactions to movies I haven't seen. BUT....and I may be wrong, but I think Glenn's issues with Grierson's piece is that Grierson is responding to the fanfare, press materials and things he's heard about the process rather than the film. In fact alot of his complaints about the film seem to be reactions to other peoples positive reactions.

Again, I may have skimmed too lightly, but many of these big talkin' crits seem to want to make a name for themselves by being pundits or backlashers instead of actually reviewing the film and not the film reviews.

[Jaime N. Christley]

"Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf."

Airtight, that.

[David Ehrenstein]

Grierson is a Republican. He hates the poor and wants them dead.

Period.

[John M]

And in swoops David Ehrenstein with his trademarked Voice of Reason.

[David Ehrenstein]

You're welcome.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

DE is a valuable contribution to the dialogue, demonstrating that you can be acclaimed, widely-published, and still dumb as a rock.

[Tom Russell]

"Filmmaking has become a rich kids sport. Just like golf. So I guess it is pointless to bitch about what they make films about, since they are the only ones who get to make films anyway."

"Dan Sallitt or Joe Swanberg, you wanna take this one?"

I will if they don't.

[David Ehrenstein]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsjbKd-H4Y

[David Ehrenstein]

"Again, the baggage here is not the film's but the perfectly insipid counterintuitive don't-love-me-I'm-really-not-THAT-kind-of-liberal non-response Grierson's so invested in erecting."

BINGO!

The worst thing that anyone can be is a liberal. IT'S THE LAW!

And fr the record I don't find Louis CK funny in any way.

[Ryan Kelly]

Looks like Deadspin should stick to being smartasses about sports, instead of being smartasses about films. Thanks for a great read, Glenn.

[rdmtimp]

Tim Grierson has a response to Glenn up at his blog:
http://timgrierson.blogspot.com/

[John M]

"And fr the record I don't find Louis CK funny in any way."

Another shocker from Smuggy McCheerless.

[John M]

And while I think it's ludicrous to state that independent film is solely a rich kids' game--and doubly so to say that FILM SCHOOL, of all things, is only for rich kids--I would argue there's an ever-sharpening distinction between making independent films and actually being able to make a living as an independent filmmaker. And there's a growing convergence of financially stable independent filmmakers who just make films and people who grew up with certain financial privileges.

Heck, even Swanberg would agree with that.

It's always been a little like that, but now that it's gotten so much harder to find a real, money-paying audience, it's a lot more like that.

[David Ehrenstein]

Evidently antipathy to Louis CK is AGAINST THE LAW!

[Jaime N. Christley]

Pretty sure he's not saying it's against the law, dude.

[Steve]

How many people can make a living solely as an independent filmmaker? Very few. Does making commercials and music videos count against that, because in that case, even Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze aren't earning a living strictly off their films? I'd wager that Todd Solondz "grew up with certain financial privileges" - unless you're friends or family with the director, how exactly do you know their financial background? - but as far as I know, he's making a living largely as a college teacher. He may have been making a living off his films in the days of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE & HAPPINESS, but times have changed.