Author: Xia Xuejie
Paulina Kyle was an American film critic who wrote frequent reviews for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Her film criticism is witty, sharp and to the point, which has deeply influenced the perception of female writers by a generation. Roger Ebert, a famous American film critic and Pulitzer Prize winner, called Paulina "no theory, no rules, no guidelines, and no objective standards", that all her comments were "personal" and that "she was far more than a great critic, she revolutionized this genre and pioneered a whole aesthetic of writing". In 1970, Paulina received the George Burke Award for her outstanding critical work in The New Yorker. Her fourth collection, Deep Film, published in 1973, won the National Book Award, the only work to date to win the National Book Award for film criticism.
"Movie Times" contains Paulina's most interesting, invigorating and insightful passages, allowing us to have a dialogue full of inspiration and entertainment with her. In the book, Paulina takes readers back to the essence of great artists, such as Orson Wells and Robert Altman, and does not hesitate to praise the way commercial films touch our deepest emotions. At the same time, we must not let go of the fact that the entire film industry is becoming more and more degenerate and self-deceptive. Paulina's arguments are often ahead of the times, and she wrote wonderful reviews of many works that were later considered groundbreaking in the history of cinema— such as "Exhausted," "The Thief," "The Godfather," "The Last Tango in Paris," and "Nashville."— as soon as the film came out.
American writer John Updike said: "She is a fine critic who brilliantly combines personal practical knowledge with priceless human individual thinking. In Paulina's view, mediocre works also have appreciation value. Even a glimpse of a mediocre movie—such as a fleeting excitement at a particularly brilliant performance, a gesture, a line, or a picture that is particularly beautiful—can make us understand the value of art, which the teacher who teaches us appreciation lessons can never do. And it's something harder for those who don't love movies to grasp — even after greater, more lofty feelings arise, we still feel cold in the heights. We still enjoy the joy of self-discovery; we need to pin ourselves on the mundane, inactive, and unsatisfactory as part of a safe and controlled atmosphere.
Paulina calls cinema "the most all-encompassing art form we have" and, in a precise, witty, and improvised style, comments on the film while also addressing the entire human world associated with it. Why do people watch bad movies? She wrote: "The cynical protagonists of the film, before they discovered that the world was much worse than they thought, were idealists; we, like them, almost all of us were wandering around and uprooted. When we feel frustrated, when we fantasize that we may now be able to barely settle for the feeling of home, it means that home no longer exists. But the cinema is still there. We can hide in the cinema wherever we are, and what we see on the screen makes us feel very intimate — the ideals of the past have grown old with us and don't look very ideal. "Analyze and look at bad movies, they are so poetic! Admittedly, people like or are used to falling, and it's easier to fall than to go up. This is the same as reading, people would rather read online novels than touch classic masterpieces. As Kundera put it in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Life: "A man who constantly demands to be 'ahead' should expect to one day feel dizzy." What's going on with dizziness? Is it fear of falling? But standing on a platform with a sturdy guardrail, how can we still faint? Fainting is not the fear of falling, but another matter. It is the voice that emanates from the emptiness beneath us, it seduces us, it confuses us; it is the desire to jump down, and we are often afraid of it, desperately trying to resist this longing. ”
When others laughed at the audience's ignorance, she said, "We don't believe in movies!" I recently heard a kid comment on The House of Loyalty and Courage say, 'Think about it that year they really believed in such a thing.' Of course we didn't believe it... Many of us will go to see those famous films, just like we go to see "Wushan Stormy Night", but we will not believe that the plot of the movie has a minute and a second of the plot is real... Even the movies they enjoy watching do not directly indicate that they believe it, but only indirectly hint at the tone and style of a culture. In her opinion, even "garbage" movies are valuable. "No matter how sick the groaning, it still helps to form an open modern consciousness. These 'junks' – most of which were, and still are – perhaps have taught us more about the world and even about values than the 'education' we have received. Movies break through all kinds of obstacles, open doors to the world for us, and promote our awakening. ”
Why do some movies suck? "The main reason, she says, is that some bad movies make money — not necessarily ridiculously many (though a few do make outrageously), but quite lucrative." If the boss of the studio has nothing to think about but to make money and grab power, why make a good movie? In the book, she also reveals some insiders in the film industry: If a big star or director takes a fancy to a script, these executives will raise their budgets to $4 million or even $5 million, even if the film should be a small production depending on the subject matter. So it could have been made into a lighthearted and charming entertainment film that millions of people around the world liked, but instead it had to be exaggerated, rewritten to highlight the role of the star and make the scale of the production unnecessarily exaggerated.
In the film industry, the balance between art and business has always been in a state of flux, and business often trumps art. But at least the industry is still in the hands of businessmen who like movies. As a tool of mass entertainment, filmmakers need to have feelings—they must be warm-hearted, trust their instincts, and have a self-inflicted dedication, a determination to make films that will make people proud and respectful of their qualities; and one of the most important qualities: a willingness to take risks. However, those calm management predators do not have such feelings, and some scholars do not have this feeling. Most of these people shout lofty ideals while squeezing profits from all. People in the film industry feel that there is no need to talk about principles, and they don't talk about principles anymore, which is the big change that has happened in this country.
These comments, written forty or fifty years ago, still feel sharp when read today, and the scene they say is still so familiar that it has not become a past tense. (Xia Xuejie)
Source: Liberation Daily