|
Citizen Sarris
by David Geffner
photos by Joe Coomber
Richard Schickel and Andrew Sarris.
 |
If you thought being a film critic is a lonely, thankless profession, think again. For two entertaining, praise-filled nights, Southern California film fans packed the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA) to celebrate the careers of three of America's most respected critics, Andrew Sarris, Molly Haskell and Richard Schickel. (For a special discussion between Sarris and Schickel, see related story).
Inspired by Variety senior critic Emanuel Levy's new publication, Citizen Sarris, the LACMA honors featured the screening of two films handpicked by Sarris and his wife of 31 years, fellow film critic Molly Haskell. Q&As followed each screening along with a Saturday-night reception in LACMA's Japanese Pavilion.
Citizen Sarris is a collection of 38 essays ruminating on the critic's work from such contributors as: Leonard Maltin, Martin Scorsese, Robert Benton and John Sayles. The two-night celebration was co-sponsored by the DGA and curated by LACMA Head of Film Programming Ian Birnie.
Birnie kicked off the Friday-night segment. Standing before an SRO crowd, Birnie thanked the DGA for its co-sponsorship and singled out Special Projects Executive Gina Blumenfeld for her help in pulling the event together then introduced Levy who shared his thoughts on Sarris and Haskell.
"The last time Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell spoke in Los Angeles," Levy said, "was in 1979 at the former AFI Festival. Andrew was here to introduce Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait. It took more than 20 years to get them to come back to Los Angeles and introduce another film ‹ but it was worth the wait."
Levy went on to note that "every now and then a book comes along which revolutionizes those who read it. Such was the case for Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema, first published in 1968 and still in print. Revolutionary is defined as a new way of seeing and this book provided us all with a new way to look at movies, a new way of organizing movie history, and a new way to experience the cinema."
Levy went on to reference the year 1973 as another milestone in film criticism, the year Haskell's From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies was first published. Levy described Haskell's publication as "forever changing the way we perceive gender, sexuality and women in the cinema." Comparing Haskell and Sarris to Hepburn and Tracy, where each critic swaps great barbs like the famous acting pair, Levy concluded his introduction by noting that "there is only one royal couple of cinema today and that is Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell."
The Shop Around the Corner, a 1940 film by Ernst Lubitsch starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan (and the inspiration for the romantic comedy You've Got Mail), was handpicked by Sarris for the Friday-night event. Just before the pristine black- and-white print rolled, Time magazine critic and a personal friend of Sarris and Haskell for more than 30 years, Richard Schickel, observed that "Andy Sarris really defined the terms by which we comprehend modern film. And, that's all the more remarkable by how barren the landscape for film criticism was when Andy first translated the auteur theory from its French origins. It was a very controversial theory at the time. Yet, it has survived."
Sarris, Curtis Hanson and Molly Haskell.
 |
The auteur theory, which Sarris first translated from the legendary French journal, Cahiers du Cinema, was topic No. 1 in the post-film Q&A Schickel moderated on the LACMA stage. "You've written that auteurism, the authorship of a movie, can be identified through the film's subtext," Schickel began. "What subtext if any can be drawn from The Shop Around the Corner which would identify Lubitsch as the author of this movie?"
"Lubitsch became famous in Germany in the silent era," Sarris replied. "His films often dealt with power in a period setting and royal courts. Looking at the film tonight, you realize Lubitsch had the same concerns. The boss of the shop and all the toadies jockeying around him for favor is no different from a royal court. It's an interesting subtext because this is clearly a world which is disappearing even as Lubitsch is putting it on film."
The second and final night of the LACMA tribute featured another film selected by Sarris and Molly Haskell. The avowed favorite of Sarris' in all the Francois Truffaut canon, Shoot the Piano Player, is a wild mix of melodrama,
comedy and art-house action starring Charles Aznavour, and based on David Goodis' American novel Down There. The evening's film, as well as the post-screening Q&A with Haskell and Sarris, was hosted by director Curtis Hanson, a one-time film reviewer himself.
Hanson, like Schickel and Levy before him, credited Sarris with "opening my eyes to the possibilities of cinema like no other film critic before." Holding up a dog-eared copy of Sarris landmark book, The American Cinema, Hanson added: "I got this in 1968 at Larry Edmond's bookshop in Hollywood. It has influenced my life in incalculable ways. Good film criticism imparts knowledge that is filtered through and enriched by a personal point of view. A great teacher opens the door and encourages you to go through that door and continue the exploration on your own. That is what this book did for me and countless other filmmakers and lovers of movies."
After Truffaut's wry, excitable nouvelle vague film screened, highlighting Rauol Coutard's daring manipulation of black-and-white cinematography, Hanson took to the stage with Sarris and Haskell for an intimate look at the couple's career.
"The story goes that back in the late '60s," Hanson announced, "the controversial writer of the 'films in focus' column for The Village Voice, was running around with a girl who was really smart, really loved movies, and most surprising of all, was really attractive. I say most surprising, because Andrew Sarris had said his book was intended for the lonely filmgoer, which I think is a description that all cineastes can relate to."
Hanson went on to explain that the moment after he exits a movie is a fragile time. "The person you've seen the film with may say something which shatters or uplifts your impressions of the experience," Hanson relayed. "Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris have been watching and writing about movies for more than 30 years. Do they share personal feelings and see movies together?"
Haskell jumped in first, scoring big laughs when she said: "I think if I hadn't liked Lola Montez, our relationship might have been over." She went on to note that the pair is "different in every way you can imagine, except our taste in movies. I had been reading Andrew in The Village Voice before I met him," Haskell recounted, "and I fell in love with his sensibility. We both adored French cinema ‹ in fact I was working in the French Film Office in New York when we first met. Exchanging ideas about movies is a great anchor for a relationship because you always have something to talk about."
Hanson wrapped up the Q&A with audience questions. Among the queries: Do films still have the power to shock the world the way they did in the late '60s when Sarris wrote his book? And, would Sarris be updating his The American Cinema anytime soon?
"I don't feel like I have a great polemic to spread around anymore," Sarris said. "It's much more difficult nowadays for directors to build a large body of work, like the filmmakers I profiled in that book. I won't say things have become unraveled. But, there are so many more possibilities that I'm not sure I could even write a book like that today."
As the LACMA theatre emptied out, the invited luminaries wandered over to the nearby Japanese Pavilion for a reception and buffet. Among the guests in attendance at the Pavilion reception: Randa Haines, Chuck Workman, Curtis Hanson and, of course, Haskell, Sarris and Schickel. It was left to Molly Haskell with her quick wit and wry humor to sum up the two-day party best, when she casually noted: "We're in a golden age of film criticism right now. I'd even say that most reviews are so well-written, they're better than most of the movies I see."
"It's like a Ping-Pong game," Sarris concluded. "The audience and the filmmakers are all as knowledgeable as the critics, and the information ricochets back and forth among everyone who loves film."
-David Geffner
|
