Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

strange bedfellows

A while back I stumbled across the pages of film professor and critic, Ray Carney, and found myself exasperated at his bow-tied intransigence. Throwing out the likes of David Lynch, the Coen brothers, et al., while preserving the strange bedfellows of John Cassavetes and Frank Capra, just seemed too damned strange. Over the weekend, the pessimist in me came up with a theory of a theory of aesthetics: (à la Kracauer) any critic's aesthetics are reverse engineered from their favorite films. Not exactly rocket science, but how else to explain Capra and Cassavetes? (Perhaps filmmakers whose surnames begin with "Ca" ...) I like Cassavetes, both as an actor and a director, but I see no need to get rid of David Lynch and keep Frank Capra on theoretical grounds. Just too shrill. Kurt Krens, Peter Gidal, and Malcolm LeGrice, as well as David Lynch, Michael Curtiz, and John Cassavetes are all engaged in making films. Saying they're not and building a theory of aesthetics on these sandy wastes doesn't help me much. (And for the note, I like Frank Capra, especially Hemo the Magnificent ...)

Links that got me there and beyond: Cinema Electronica, Film and Philosophy, Filmmaker Magazine, indieWIRE, Millennium Film Journal.