Behind every Hollywood Elsewhere post has been some form of pain. Certainly in the sense that one can’t recognize pleasurable, high-craft, top-of-the-line films without suffering through thousands of mediocre or awful films. (Truffaut: “Taste is a result of a thousand distastes.”) Plus: Every funny joke is rooted in some form of pain. Plus: Every mediocre or awful film is rooted in the belief that pain must be denied or avoided or laughed off, etc. The emptier or more shallow you are, the more banal your convictions, the more terrible your films are.
