comment #1

JD says ...

So his film's getting panned because it's "daring" and "risky," not because it sucks. I'm glad he cleared that up.

comment #2

Sean says ...

You know, I agree with Jeffrey that that's an exceptionally brutal pan, but ...

Man, Shainberg sounds like a tool. He's trying to have it both ways rather absurdly. If he honestly accepted that he had made a movie which was not meant to appeal to everybody, because it's "personal" (as if, somehow, "impersonal" movies appeal to everybody), he would feel no need to respond to a critic who not only dislikes the movie, but dislikes Shainberg himself (which, logically, makes sense; if you don't like a person, why would you like their "personal" movie?). But he expects "this movie is personal" to be an answer to the criticism that it's a biopic which flagrantly invented sequences and characters. Not only an answer, but a silencer.

I don't agree with what the reviewer says about 'Secretary' and, for that matter, he (or she) seems very harsh on this new movie, but thems the breaks. Especially if you make a movie which you claim to know is very polarizing. Why should a critic automatically like something just because it's different? Is a movie which is bad in a unique way really better than a movie which is good in a pedestrian way? [More interesting, probably, but better?]

comment #3

Craig Kennedy says ...

I haven't seen the movie so I can't defend it but how does Shainberg come off as a 'tool' besides the fact he's a little defensive about being harshly and repeatedly slammed in public?

A guy spends a year of his life toiling over something he cares about, presents it to the world and then gets kicked in the balls. Who wouldn't be a little jumpy?

I didn't see him answering the criticism "that it's a biopic which flagrantly invented sequences and characters". I though the "An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" subtitle of the film covered that.

Maybe he is a tool and maybe the movie is awful. I don't know, haven't met him, haven't seen it, but there's no compelling evidence in this post to suggest those things are facts.

Schickel said so? Come on. Seriously.

comment #4

MathewM says ...

I love Secretary. It's not a great film by any measure but I find the romance in it throughly engaging. It deals with sex and attraction that very few filmmakers have the courage to do. It also did a nice job of displaying the natural rolls of gender. Liberals and even feminists might despise it thinking that it is a misogynist movie (wasn't it written by a woman though?)but in the end you have two characters who are involved in an unconditional love and are...happy. Nothing wrong with that and something we should all aspire for.

comment #5

frankbooth says ...

We'll give this film the benefit of the doubt and see it for ourselves, since Secretary is dear to the hearts of Frank and Dorothy. We saw it early in our, um, courtship, and were deeply moved. Shainberg may fall on his face this time, but at least he's reaching.

Happy post-election day, everybody! Let's take our neighbors for a joyride!

comment #6

tholl-yung says ...

I liked Fur (and Secretary) a lot. It thought they were both hot and ritualistic with a good story. My fav line from Fur was (something like) this from Arbus' husband -- people were laughing so hard, forgive me if I got it wrong, this is what I heard: "I'm just a regular guy and now there's a hole in my ceiling with freaks coming in."

comment #7

Sean says ...

I said he's a tool because he feels the need to defend himself against a review, but the only defense he has is "I don't make my movies for everybody, I make personal movies." If that were true, and he were secure in that, he would feel no need to respond to negative reviews because, logically speaking, if you don't make movies for everybody, there will be people who don't like it. His "defense" is self-defeating. The reason I chose "tool" specifically is because it seems really pompous to me to respond to a specific criticism of a specific movie with a generic "I look down on movies which attempt to appeal to everybody." [which, incidentally, is a straw man argument.] He's trying to hold himself up as somehow better than the people who don't like his movie, and not even in the typical "hey, you didn't make a movie" way, but in the "Well, I'm an artist, so I'm better than that" sort of way. If he felt the reviewer got anything wrong and wanted to speak to specific criticisms, that would be one thing, but he basically said "You don't get it because I made the movie for me." Which is to say, his sole defense of his film is that it's too masturbatory for the critics and wasn't meant for them to understand/like it.

"I didn't see him answering the criticism "that it's a biopic which flagrantly invented sequences and characters"."

I agree; my point was, that's one of the specific criticisms the reviewer makes. He doesn't respond to any of the criticisms, he seems to be angry that they'd dare criticize the movie at all, just because it's "personal" in his mind. It's a stupid response; whatever publicist let him do that should be fired.

"I though the "An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" subtitle of the film covered that."

Not really; the criticism is that, in inventing (or imagining) all these situations and characters, they have created a false portrait of Diane Arbus. "An Imaginary Portrait" implies using fiction to get at truth; the criticism is that it uses fiction to get at more fiction.

But, yeah, I know, "not for everybody".

"A guy spends a year of his life toiling over something he cares about, presents it to the world and then gets kicked in the balls. Who wouldn't be a little jumpy?"

A real artist accepts criticism from wherever it comes at face value, processes it, and comes out the other side more aware of their own shortcomings as an artist. If 100% of reviews say "This guy has a problem with this specific attribute of filmmaking," that means that it's something the filmmaker should think about next time.

A petulant child responds to criticisms by saying "SHUT UP SHUT UP IT'S A PERSONAL MOVIE." The defense "it's not meant for everybody" is a cop-out that every film student tries once, until people say "Yeah, that's fine, but you still have to be aware of the audience that it is for." It's a shallow thing to hide behind, so that everybody who likes it is right and worth listening to, because it was "for" them, and everybody who dislikes it for *any* reason is wrong and not worth listening to, because it wasn't "for" them.

comment #8

Sean says ...

Wow, that looked shorter in the 'comments' window.

comment #9

Sean says ...

So I just read the full "interview" quote, which confirms how much of a tool he is. Read that full quote and explain to me how he's saying anything other than "This movie isn't for everybody, it's only for smart people, so if you're smart, you can enjoy it, but if not, you can't."

Hypocrisy alert: Almost all critics have the same response; Shainberg's response to their response is that they're not being open-minded. Yet, if everybody has the same reaction, and you dismiss that reaction out of hand, who's not being open-minded? If you point to specific things in the movie that, in your mind, answer the criticism that everybody has, the things that you're pointing at didn't address the criticism.

comment #10

Craig Kennedy says ...

Sean: I'll read the Shickel review after I see the movie...it sounds like my lack of familiarity with it led me to misunderstand your post.

Shainberg probably should just shut up and let the movie speak for itself, but being a massively insecure person myself, I can identify with someone freaking out when being told they suck.

Even if he is a whinebag, his point about making personal films and taking chances and not pandering to the audience is completely valid and that's the kind of thing I'm interested in seeing. Even if it's a failure I'm going to bet it's more interesting than A Good Year (even if A Good Year pulls off what it sets out to do which appears to be medicating the audience) so it's my top pick for this weekend's viewing.

comment #11

Craig Kennedy says ...

I read the full interview quote as well and while I agree he's being insecure and defensive it doesn't give me the impression he's a tool.

Like I said, he might be and he might have made the worst movie ever. I'll find out this weekend.

comment #12

Craig Kennedy says ...

For an example of a petulant crybaby tool, see James Cameron calling for the firing of Kenneth Turan in an article in the LA Times just because Turan hated Titanic.

This is especially amusing because audiences had already given the film much love to the tune of several hundred million dollars at the box office and if memory serves, there were only a minority of critics that didn't care for it.

comment #13

Bandersnatch says ...

I agree with Sean that "If you like this it was for you and if you didn't it wasn't" is a lame defense against criticism, but on the other hand I think Richard Schickel is being rather childish himself. He begins by conceding that every biopic, "imaginary" or not, finds it necessary to distort the truth somewhat in order to make a coherent story out of the complicated mess of any human life. What he objects to, apparently, is the degree to which this particular biopic stretches the truth. But, as cjKennedy rightly pointed out, the film isn't making any claim to factual accuracy, clearly stating in its subtitle and its on-screen foreword that this movie is NOT fact, but a flight of fancy based loosely on the filmmakers' idea of what Arbus's "inner experience" might have been. It's perfectly legitimate for Schickel to question whether Shainberg's experimentation with the biopic genre is worth watching, but it's stupid to criticize it for not being a straight biopic, when that's not what it's intended to do in the first place.

And furthermore, isn't this a fairly common thing to do in novels - take an actual historical person and place him/her in a fictional situation? I'm thinking of those silly Jane Austen Mysteries books, but there must be better examples. Can anyone help me out?

The point is, we don't all freak out when novels play fast-and-loose with historical figures' personalities. Why should it be so horrifying when a movie does it? Personally, I think Schickel's just being crotchety. Shainberg didn't make the Diane Arbus movie he wanted to see, so he's going to blast the guy on the pages of Time magazine.

comment #14

NYCritic says ...

Trust me. Sean has hit it on the head. The guy is a major TOOL. I did an interview with him for his first film -- HIT ME.

Even back then he had a very exaggerated sense of his abilities as a director. He's from a very wealthy New York family and hasn't really had to struggle all that much in his life. Daddy helped finance his first movie. He got a little lucky with SECRETARY.

I've seen FUR and it is very, very slow and has about 10 different spots where the film could have ended ... but it just kept on going and going. Kidman is okay but the character is so damned passive ... Downey Jr. is the best thing in it.

comment #15

Craig Kennedy says ...

I won't comment on Schickel's review until I read it next week, but Bandersnatch's point about what a biopic is allowed to be is a good one.

A comparison is Walk the Line and The Notorious Bettie Page. I don't know how factual it was, but Walk the Line seemed like a pretty routine biopic that makes a dramatic arc out of a famous person's life story. I enjoyed it well enough but it didn't have much to offer beyond my interest in the characters involved and I quickly forgot about it.

One of the big criticisms of Bettie Page was that it didn't seem to really tell you much about Bettie that wasn't already known and that she wasn't a fully fleshed out character. That's not incorrect, but I think the film had something bigger on its mind. I think it was using Bettie as a vehicle to illuminate us about ourselves and about human nature and society. I enjoyed the movie as an entertainment and it also left me thinking about bigger things.

A critic can say that works for them or it doesn't, but to tear a movie down because it's not what you wanted it to be is a little silly.

comment #16

Bandersnatch says ...

Thanks, cjKennedy. Isn't that one of Ebert's mantras for reviewing films: he tries to review the movie he saw and not the movie he wished the director had made?

comment #17

Craig Kennedy says ...

I believe it is and that's one of the many reasons I continue to admire him even though I think he's lost a few steps and I frequently disagree with his opinion.

comment #18

donnyboy says ...

Inscrutable. That was FUR to me which I saw screened a month ago.
Shainberg attacks conformity of "conservatives", but all he shows of Arbus is that she smokes some grass, drinks, has sex, and that is what individuality is all about? So impishly trite. I smoked a joint! Let the revolution begin!

Some of the lines that Downey's character has to spout like "show me your tits", are so falsely brazen, they only produce laughs.

I thought at first that Downey's character, seeing the mane of hair, was Joe Eztherhous (sp?), and that would be scary (the score tries to make you feel that way) and then I got to thinking, Downey as himself that would have been scary, imagine the people coming out of that apartment....

comment #19

Rich S. says ...

If you think Schickel's review is bad, check out Gleiberman's in EW. Ouch, babe.