Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition

Ray has argued that the dated aspects of films directed by William Wellman are more valuable than the relative "timelessness" of those directed by HowardHawks because they have more to tell us about the worlds they came from-which is another way of saying that film criticism can and should be a way of writing about the world.'

Such is our tortured ambivalence about fun as well as edification

Mythologies about macho power and the pride of wanton blood-spilling are arguably at the roots of what put George W. Bush twice into office, but this is something we've generally allowed ourselves to laugh at only after it's too late to undo most of the damage.

people around the globe have more in common today than they've ever had before at any other time in history - if only because the globe is being run by the same people and corporations who are doing the same things everywhere.

"I'm out to follow an argument, not seduce people."'

(Curiously, one reason why Wilder was himself disappointed with the way this film turned out was that he originally wanted Armbruster Sr.'s longterm affair to have been with a male hotel bellhop, until studio executives dissuaded him.)

the unreasoning conviction that anything that educates us can't be pleasurable probably accounts for much of the rest.

Like Los Angeles itself, politics and criticism sometimes need to be disguised or de-emphasized in order to register with effectiveness as entertainment.

praxis.