Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Perfect Snob

Head over to Hollywood Elsewhere for Jeffrey Wells's honest and thoughtful evaluation of "The Film Snob's Dictionary", a book coming out next year. He includes quotes from the book's introduction which, among other things, talks about the film's snob's pride in having "populist, un-arty taste". Though I don't think I've ever been a film snob (I'm more of the Scorsese-style enthusiast also mentioned in the introductory text), I'm no stranger to having pride in populist, un-arty taste. But this is a trait I've been moving away from in the past few years of my life. Super-arty things like Bergman's films or My Dinner with Andre hit me harder, emotionally, than anything else these days (though like any decent human being, I'll shout the virtues of the very populist Sergio Leone or Dario Argento to anyone who will listen and sometimes to those who don't care.). I'm not entirely sure why this is, other than I'm tired of seeing people wrestle over who gets to hold the gun at the end of the movie.

Anyway, this sounds like a book I'll have to pick up when it comes out.

4 comments:

Iovany said...

do you works on a blockbuster or what?

byes

Ash Karreau said...

So, you're a film snob if you like arty films and populist films? Isn't likeing everything sort of the opposite of being snobby?

DMW said...

The point being made in the piece was the rejection of certain so-called "arty" films for counterparts that seemed more populist.

Anonymous said...

Dave,
Diablokof poses an important question and one that merits an answer.
Please respond.

Byes