Atlas Shrugged Movie - June Production

[9thdoctor]

Yikes: talk about a wooden job of acting. The lock-jawed hero. Using that portrayal as an argument against the merits of more preparation is almost funny. We won't even go into all the things wrong with that movie(s)but "Vigor Mortis" was certainly only one of them...

Phil’s back to being a Braying Ass. When did I defend “lack of preparation”? I said It can be done. Too bad Phil didn’t like Viggo Mortensen in LOTR, but there’s no denying he went from unknown to A-list as a result, and the franchise is one of the most successful in history. Phil's comment reminds me of Sergio Leone’s line:

I like Clint Eastwood because he has only two facial expressions: one with the hat, and one without it.

Except he was joking.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[algernonsidney]

Chris, I don't really want to debate this with you or Jonathan. Memorization (even worse, in tiny 'chunks' taken out of order), is exactly the wrong way to do anything of intellectual substance.

Do you honestly believe that every movie ever made is shot with all the scenes in sequence, Phil?

Have you been impressed with the quality of movies coming out of Hollywood or stuff on tv lately?

I've hardly seen anything out of Hollywood lately anyway. I spend more time going to local plays that feature people that I actually know.

Good actors try to get deeply into a serious or meaty role. They read the whole book or material beforehand. Often they also study background and critical material. They think themselves into the role, how the character would move, act, etc. They spend months thinking about the project, about how to do every aspect, about how to 'inhabit' their character.

Good actors also learn to do this very quickly. This is because they know that things change all the time. Actors are taught to be prepared for anything and everything. Actors know that if they don't do this, the producers and directors will find someone who does.

My experience with acting: I had a lead role in two school productions and took an acting workshop from Phil Smith and have taught drama in my literature classes.

My experience with acting is about as much as yours, Phil. However, I can say that I know people and have talked to them a lot. I have taken classes from a guy here in Austin who knows the Coen Brothers and the guy who an Oscar for The Cove. I know another guy who ran a production company with Ted Danson. Ted Danson also says that the same guy influenced his career more than anyone. I know about a dozen people who have been on Friday Night Lights. I know one woman who starred in a Disney movie as a child and another who won several awards as a child actor.

I congratulate you on taking the lead in the school play, Phil. It's something I wish I had done. Unfortunately, that's not the real world--not even close.

The producers and directors will have plenty of actors to choose from. Do you really expect that they will choose someone who doesn't like the book or doesn't know anything about it? I imagine they would find people who have already read the book. It's an overcrowded profession, Phil.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Chris Baker

[Jerry Biggers]

> this movie will never see the light of day or theater projector. If something does occur bearing the name, Atlas Shrugged, its form, storyline, and messages will be diluted or twisted beyond the recognition of those of have read and admired the novel. It size, format, multiple plot lines, characterizations and particularly its incendiary messages (antithetical to the MSM "guardians of the culture," and certainly the Hollywood Establishment, which follows lock-step behind them) will not allow its adaptation to the screen, at least in the format that we would recognize.

Jerry, I don't know how you can know all that: I don't like what I sense to be the rushed, unprepared, "start filming in a fortnight", learn scenes out of order or in snippets approach of what may be coming. But doing an independent film, privately financed certain seems like a way about the Hollywood Establishment, doesn't it?

Phil, you're right: there is no way that I can "know" all the above. However, the opposition of the predominent media elite in Hollywood virtually guarantees that it will not receive the required support to be completed in any form similar to the novel. This has already been demostrated by its long history of production failures.

The book is too long to be adapted and attempts to make it two movies or a TV mini-series have also failed. But let's not belabor the obvious. Let's say that AS can get adequate private financing (to its completion!) and get produced "independently" of the Hollywood Establishment. If the result is true to the novel (particularly its multiple messages), it will be subjected to the a campaign of villification, misrepresentation, and ridicule (one of the Left's favorite tactics) that will make the recent onslaught of attacks on Rand in the MSM look like child's play. The chances are, it will die after a few showings and then go to DVD (maybe) where its massive distribution and audience be severely limited.

Paraphrasing Ayn Rand's announcement (in her Playboy interview) that she was challenging two-thousand years of Western cultural history (and interviewer Alvin Toffler's remark, "And she means it!), we will increasingly find out exactly what that kind of challenge entails. A successful and accurate AS movie would be met by the full force of that opposition. The Left cultural Establishment is not about to back out this fight and they will not play "fair."

Of course, on the other hand, if an Atlas Shrugged movie ever does appear, a gutted, defenestrated version devoid of Rand's messages may have a slight chance of getting a viewing. But it will not be recognizable.

In an earlier thread (last July), I posed a scenario that while in the distant future is much more likely. The details may differ, but it is just as likely as a successful adaptation as we are likely to find.

Dateline October 10, 2057. Utopia Planitia Studios, Mars.

UTOPIA PLANITIA STUDIOS is proud to announce, at long last, the completion of the ATLAS SHRUGGED movie on the 100th anniversary of the novel's publication. Long in the works (having gone through 153 attempts, all sadly aborted), ATLAS SHRUGGED will finally be available for immediate download to your Apple VIRTUAL REALITY MACHINE for use on your view-screen, or through use of the headsets. You will actually be able to be John Galt! Or Hank Reardan! Or Dagny Taggart!! OR, you can cast your favorite current stars or those from Hollywood's glorious nostalgic past into any of the roles! When we ran the beta version at the Terra Planitia University, students and faculty in the Department of Intellectual History had fun casting many of the villains and heroes of the Objectivist Movements of the last 100 years into the roles of major and minor characters of the novel! Be creative - try it yourself!!(Of course, dialog is copyrighted and cannot be changed from the original script which remains true to the actual novel by Ayn Rand!)

Since the original concept was that of a movie, UTOPIA PLANITIA STUDIOS is proud to announce that the premier of ATLAS SHRUGGED will be actually shown in motion picture format using ULTRA LASERMAX projection onto the thousand foot walls of one of our most famous Martian canyons, at Echus Chasma! Reservations for this once in a lifetime event are being taken now! FINALLY - AFTER 100 YEARS AYN RAND'S MAGNIFICENT VISION HITS THE SCREENS!!

[Philip Coates]

Jerry, I may have to rethink my plan to nominate you as lead publicist for the movie.

[Jerry Biggers]

Jerry, I may have to rethink my plan to nominate you as lead publicist for the movie.

RE: the October 10, 2057 Atlas Shrugged movie debut on Mars,....remember Phil, you heard it here, first! Get your ticket requests in early. In my case, I guess I will have to consider cryogenics to make that debut.

By the way, whatever happened to all the publicists for the previous attempts? I mean the last 20-some attempts, not the 133 more before the AS 100th Anniversary. Did Leonard ever finish one of the earlier producer's requests to condense Galt's Speech into 5 minutes? That would have been great.

[Philip Coates]

> In my case, I guess I will have to consider cryogenics to make that debut.

Not me. I'll just be hitting my stride.

Clint Eastwood wanted to direct Atlas Shrugged during the eighties. Leonard turned him down.

[Brant Gaede]

> In my case, I guess I will have to consider cryogenics to make that debut.

Not me. I'll just be hitting my stride.

Clint Eastwood wanted to direct Atlas Shrugged during the eighties. Leonard turned him down.

That's a strange story as told. What are the details?

--Brant

[Jerry Biggers]

Never heard about the Clint Eastwood offer to produce Atlas Shrugged - or of Leonard turning him down. However, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw were Clint's "nutritional advisors" in the nineteen eighties (and may still be). In addition to chugging down nutritional supplements, Clint apparently became close friends and Clint let Pearson-Shaw write the screenplay for "The Dead Pool" and also used them as "scientific advisors" (??) for "FireFox."

Durk was/is a libertarian with the usual Objectivist tendencies. Perhaps that is the source of Eastwood's offer to Peikoff?

Considering Eastwood's long history of success as an actor and director, I am tempted to "congratulate" Leonard on yet another masterstroke in his efforts to keep Objectivism small, PURE, and with minimal cultural impact. It is not likely that Eastwood would agree on Peikoff having ultimate script control, which is most likely what Leonard would have wanted.

Although Eastwood has a reputation of being a "conservative," several of his recent movies have been more "liberal" in tone. And, several of the actors (e.g., Sean Penn and Matt Damon) that he has recently used have made very public displays of their fondness for radical leftists, Penn for Hugo Chavez and Damon for the late Marxist Profeesor, Howard Zinn. Damon has campaigned for Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" to be adopted for use as school textbooks. Perhaps Eastwood has moved to the left.

By the way, can you imagine Sean Penn as John Galt? Or Hugo Chavez as Mr. Thompson? I guess Barack has pre-empted that role for himself.

[9thdoctor]

How about some optimism, folks? Seems Eeyore’s taken over the Hundred Acre Wood.

Did you read the articles MSK linked? According to this one there’ll be four films(!).

[anonrobt]

How about some optimism, folks? Seems Eeyore’s taken over the Hundred Acre Wood.

Did you read the articles MSK linked? According to this one there’ll be four films(!).

Can see three - what would be the fourth? [Richard Gleaves' Galt Speech visualization?]

[Jerry Biggers]

How about some optimism, folks? Seems Eeyore’s taken over the Hundred Acre Wood.

Did you read the articles MSK linked? According to this one there’ll be four films(!).

Ninth,...

err, and you consider information in the link that you just included to be.... optimistic?

You must be defining "optimistic" in the same way that Ford Prefect, just revealed as a Betelgeusian researcher for The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy, defined "safe" to Arthur Dent (in Douglas Adams' book of the same title): Arthur has just been informed by Ford that he was now "safe," having been teleported onto a Vogon Destructor Fleet ship that had just vaporized Earth to makeway for a Hyperspace Bypass:

"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of!"

The site you referenced has a link to an article, on another site, with many interesting reader responses, that also does not lend itself to an optimistic view of this new Atlas movie project, at least using common "earther" parlance.

Maybe it fits the Betelgeusian usage, though.

This whole comedy of errors needs the talents of another Douglas Adams to be chronicled.

[jriggenbach]

> Viggo Mortensen reportedly was cast for Lord of the Rings and was on set in a matter of days. He started reading the book on the plane.

Yikes: talk about a wooden job of acting. The lock-jawed hero. Using that portrayal as an argument against the merits of more preparation is almost funny. We won't even go into all the things wrong with that movie(s)but "Vigor Mortis" was certainly only one of them...

It may be useful to mention that the individual offering this evaluation of Viggo Mortenson's performance as Aragorn has never read the novel on which the films were based, and therefore, arguably, has no idea what sort of character it is that Mortenson was trying to play - and therefore, arguably, has no basis whatever for evaluating Mortenson's performance in the first place. The reason the individual in question has never read LOTR, by the way is that, having not read it, he knows that the claims of its partisans that it is one of the major works of imaginative literature in English in the 20th Century are utterly without merit.

I can't believe you three dudes would actually -defend- lack of preparation. Or lazy, sloppy, stupid, ill-prepared acting in a major roles in a major film of enormous importance. Especially given so much of the johnny-one-note acting we see these days. Could it be that Jonathan, Brant, and ND pop up on every thread where I post and -- because I've criticized them harshly in the past -- try to find something to attack or a nit to pick in -anything- I say, any statement I make, no matter how obvious? Even if I said it doesn't rain much in the Sahara...Jonathan would -never- spend a lot of time hunting through film clips looking for one of a rainstorm in an oasis? Would he??? Nah! That could never be true. Each of them is perfectly objective, and there are no grudges or emotions of "I'm gonna git you back" involved.

For that would be childish...

Fascinating hypothesis, Phil. I had initially been drawn to another, alternative, hypothesis - namely, that you don't know what you're talking about. But, having realized that this is never true of you, under any circumstances, I have discarded it, and will probably adopt the one you have proposed instead: any disagreement with Phil's self-evident claims are based on personal dislike of Phil and a determination to pick on him.

All this reminds me, for some obscure reason, of the time Phil began vigorously denouncing the New York Times for an article it had run, singling out the headline and the accompanying photo for particular abuse and "explaining" tendentiously why this enormity (whatever it was) could not be regarded as an innocent error. In the ensuing conversation, it emerged that no, Phil had never been employed in any editorial capacity by a newspaper, and no, Phil knew exactly nothing about the standard division of labor that exists in a newspaper office with regard to the various aspects of getting an article into print. He had no way of knowing, therefore, exactly who was responsible for each of the things he was so vociferously and ignorantly complaining about. Nor did he have the remotest clue what the pressures on each of those newspaper employees were and what different considerations each of them would have to take into account in making their decisions about, for example, the photo or the headline. What he did have was the stereotypical amateur press critic's unshakable confidence in his belief that every editorial employee of every American newspaper is consumed by political fervor and always does whatever s/he does in order to advance a political agenda. (The truth, as anyone who has actually worked at a newspaper knows, is much more prosaic. Most newspaper people are apolitical and conscious devotion to political ideas almost never plays any part at all in governing the way they run their papers.)

JR

Edited May 30, 2010 by Jeff Riggenbach

[Jonathan]

I can't believe you three dudes would actually -defend- lack of preparation. Or lazy, sloppy, stupid, ill-prepared acting in a major roles in a major film of enormous importance.

I haven't defended lack of preparation. The fact that I think that professional actors would not need as much time to prepare for a professional film role as aesthetically inept novice Phil Coates would need to prepare for a small-time, amateur production of a play in no way suggests that I'm defending lack of preparation. The fact that I don't think that actors would need to study The Prissy Schoolmarm's Ideally Uptight Twelve-Year Lesson Plan for Learning How to Properly Understand Objectivism and How to Properly Play Objectivist Heroes in Films doesn't mean that I support "ill-prepared acting."

For what it's worth, actors often prefer an improvisational approach and think that over-preparation can make a performance worse than under-preparation (which I would imagine wouldn't matter to Phil if he were in charge of a movie -- creating a bad film "the right way," as defined by greenhorn Phil, would be more important than creating a great film "the wrong way"). I've heard actors, from Tom Hanks to Dustin Hoffman to Robin Williams, talk about the advantages of just jumping into a role on the fly. And they've done quite well for themselves without following the advice of prissy Objectivist schoolmarms.

Especially given so much of the johnny-one-note acting we see these days.

By "these days" do you mean something like 1983, when you were actually watching movies? Kind of like how you once complained here on OL about how there's nothing of quality on television these days, and then later in the conversation you admitted that you only get a few channels and you don't watch television?

Could it be that Jonathan, Brant, and ND pop up on every thread where I post and -- because I've criticized them harshly in the past -- try to find something to attack or a nit to pick in -anything- I say, any statement I make, no matter how obvious? Even if I said it doesn't rain much in the Sahara...Jonathan would -never- spend a lot of time hunting through film clips looking for one of a rainstorm in an oasis? Would he??? Nah! That could never be true. Each of them is perfectly objective, and there are no grudges or emotions of "I'm gonna git you back" involved.

Phil, I'd suggest that you try to get inside your own head instead of mine. Lashing out at me because I effectively demonstrate that you don't have a clue what you're talking about isn't going to help you face up to your problems. Instead of focusing on attacking me, I think you'd be better served to start asking yourself why you so often need to try to control others and to comment as if you're an authority on subjects about which you actually know very little. Why are these behaviors so important to you?

J

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Logically-Challenged Jeff

> has never read the novel on which the films were based

How does a conversation from the nineties prove that someone has not read the books since? Never one to let logic get in the way of trying to ridicule, Jeff did this on another thread, in which he reported a conversation about a course I was preparing to teach in which he claimed that I was unprepared because I didn't know what a sonnet's exact rhyme scheme was or the difference between the meter of the Italian and the English form. Just like in the Lord Of the Rings case, logically-challenged Jeff ignores the possibility that I was prepared by the time I taught the course. That would get in the way of ridicule.

> [thus] has no idea what sort of character it is that Mortenson was trying to play

Another inconvenient bit of logic for Jeff is that a movie is supposed to be self-contained. You don't have to have read a book (and most viewers won't) to say you didn't understand how the movie presented the story or the acting had problems. ...And, oh by the way, another awkward fact: the films were not based on a novel, LOTR, as Jeff claims, but on a series of novels.

> he knows that the claims of its partisans that it [LOTR] is one of the major works of imaginative literature in English in the 20th Century are utterly without merit.

Nor did he ever claim it. Another imaginative reconstruction by Jeff (with, of course, no forgetting of minor details) of a private conversation from a decade or more ago.

[Philip Coates]

> Subject: Logically-Challenged Jeff, Part II

It seems that in addition to thinking that one can't criticize a movie unless he has read the book it is based on, Jeff seems to think you can't criticize bias in a newspaper unless you have worked on one. [Presumably, by this logic, he would say you can't then criticize a television program until you had worked in that field, or the plumber whose work leaks without having been a plumber, or, on this thread, movie acting without having been an actor...and that has to be in the movies, specifically?]==>

> Phil began vigorously denouncing the New York Times for an article it had run, singling out the headline and the accompanying photo for particular abuse and "explaining" tendentiously why this enormity (whatever it was) could not be regarded as an innocent error.

Let's start by removing the illogical, slanted language, first. What Jeff is reporting in neutral, objective language is this: "Phil criticized a New York Times article, particularly the bias in its headline and photo." [Aside: Writing tip for the writing expert: You don't have to overload your language with parody-type words like 'vigorously', 'denouncing' or negative evaluations like 'abuse' or 'tendentiously'. It's more effective if you can bend over backwards to present the view neutrally and still be able then to refute it. Have you learned anything from The Elements of Style? ]

First, Unlike Jeffaroni, I don't have total recall for the exact wording of conversations a decade or more ago, and I think once again Jeff is over-simplifying what I said to the point of ridicule. I doubt that I would criticize a single story in isolation as dishonest. My position is that the pattern, repeated over and over, in political stories and photo selection, is so consistent and never favorable to the 'right' that it can't be an innocent error.

Second, let's look at the logic Jeff offers for why my criticism couldn't possibly be valid. Even though he doesn't have the article or photo at hand! ==>

> Phil had never been employed in any editorial capacity by a newspaper

Aside: I can't resist adding that not only can't Omniscient Jeff know this for a fact, but he's worded this to exclude any relevance of my experience (which he may not know, but he is claiming omniscience about my experience) as the publisher of my own publication, as a staff member of a humor magazine, as a reporter for a libertarian publication, and as the columns editor of the Atlasphere).

> [There are] division of labor..in a newspaper office...pressures on each of those newspaper employees [and] different considerations..in making their decisions about..the photo or the headline...Most newspaper people are apolitical.

I apologize humbly for truncating Jeff's verbosity (after all he is a professional writer who has written hundreds of pieces). What he seems to be saying in simple English: (i) you can't call them biased because different people are responsible for different components of the particular article I was criticizing. And (ii)they do things for various reasons but they are not politically biased.

But both of these points overlook a very simple fact:

It's known to the headline writers and to the photo selectors or anyone who wants to keep his job in a tight economy or get ahead career-wise what the editorial position of the NYT is. They know that a picture of a dazed, sleepy, befuddled President Bush or a smiling, confident candidate Obama or a scowling, angry candidate McCain would be well-received by the executive editor and the publisher. But not a scowling, angry Teddy Kennedy or the like.

They don't have to get together with the headline writers to be biased -together- as logician Jeff... and newspaper 'expert' Jeff (did he work for one? if so, let's bow down) would have you believe.

[9thdoctor]

This whole comedy of errors needs the talents of another Douglas Adams to be chronicled.

Errors? What errors? They’re moving ahead without an A-list cast, you’re convinced that’s an error? After investing 17 years and millions of dollars you’re certain Aglialoro has blown it, based on some trade paper articles? I don’t know if the glass is full, empty, or somewhere in between, and I don’t claim to. You brought up H2G2, well you sound like Marvin moaning about pain in your diodes, only now it’s down both sides.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sZD7ZnWvc&feature=related

“I don't pretend to understand losers. When I read a script about a loser I think of people in life who are losers and they seem to want it that way. It's a compulsive philosophy with them. Winners tell themselves, I'm as bright as the next person. I can do it. Nothing can stop me.”

Clint Eastwood

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I didn't read this debate all that closely, so if this has already been mentioned, sorry.

Those interested in acting techniques might be interested to know that some of Hollywood's greatest actors and actresses used to tape pieces of paper with their lines on them (crib notes) to bits of the scenery like tables, chairs, plants, etc, on the side that would not show to the camera when they were being filmed. They still do. It's one of those dirty little secrets nobody likes to talk about, but no actor I ever heard of who does it is ashamed of it. Since films are expensive to shoot, this is a precaution against flubbed lines.

Also, there are three basic acting schools (for adults in major Hollywood films) from what I have been able to discern--and actors from all three have used crib notes:

1. Method (Stanislavski and variations), where the actor draws on personal emotional experiences from his life and injects them into the character--good examples are Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.

2. Classical (for lack of a better word), where the actor makes a rational analysis of the character and constructs it from his or her repertoire of techniques--good examples are Sir Lawrence Olivier and Gene Hackman.

3. Do it as you go along (for a real lack of a better word), where the actor flies by the seat of his or her pants and hates rehearsing. Good examples are Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

I didn't mention any women, but there are plenty of examples of them, too.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

I agree that Pigero would make a good Toohey, but why would Toohey be cast for a film of Atlas Shrugged?

I just wanted to put it in there so badly I went ahead.

Unfortunately, one thing we know for sure is that Dennis Hopper is out of the running for anything.

[jriggenbach]

Subject: Logically-Challenged Jeff

> has never read the novel on which the films were based

How does a conversation from the nineties prove that someone has not read the books since? Never one to let logic get in the way of trying to ridicule, Jeff did this on another thread, in which he reported a conversation about a course I was preparing to teach in which he claimed that I was unprepared because I didn't know what a sonnet's exact rhyme scheme was or the difference between the meter of the Italian and the English form. Just like in the Lord Of the Rings case, logically-challenged Jeff ignores the possibility that I was prepared by the time I taught the course. That would get in the way of ridicule.

> [thus] has no idea what sort of character it is that Mortenson was trying to play

Another inconvenient bit of logic for Jeff is that a movie is supposed to be self-contained. You don't have to have read a book (and most viewers won't) to say you didn't understand how the movie presented the story or the acting had problems. ...And, oh by the way, another awkward fact: the films were not based on a novel, LOTR, as Jeff claims, but on a series of novels.

> he knows that the claims of its partisans that it [LOTR] is one of the major works of imaginative literature in English in the 20th Century are utterly without merit.

Nor did he ever claim it. Another imaginative reconstruction by Jeff (with, of course, no forgetting of minor details) of a private conversation from a decade or more ago.

Most of this runs afoul of various basic rules of what might be called (I suppose) "the logic of artistic criticism." Perhaps I'll come back to this later. For now, though, this one howler was simply too precious to hold for later:

"And, oh by the way, another awkward fact: the films were not based on a novel, LOTR, as Jeff claims, but on a series of novels."

LOTR is a single novel in three parts, just as Atlas Shrugged is a single novel in three parts - not "a series of novels" entitled Non-Contradiction, Either-Or, and A Is A. LOTR was originally submitted to its publishers as a single, long manuscript, and was meant to be published in one long volume. It ended up being printed in three volumes for purely technical and financial reasons having to do with paper supplies and publisher's estimates of the relative salability of different size volumes at different retail prices.

Phil would know this if, in fact, he had read LOTR in the past ten years or learned the slightest thing about it. Let the reader judge whether he seems to have done so.

JR

[Philip Coates]

> Perhaps I'll come back to this later.

Yeah, right! We'll see...in my experience, too often when I've backed somebody into a logical corner, they never admit any of my points because it makes 'em look weak. Instead they employ the clever debater's trick which I guess I'd call the "side shuffle":

Ignore all the major flaws pointed out -substantively- in your arguments and instead deflect: Comment -only- on the most trivial side issue.

...In this case the semantics of whether the three books are three novels or three "volumes" in one novel...I'm truly sorry I brought it up, since it gave him a rabbit hole, allowed him to pretend to answer my two quite detailed and systematic posts.

(Usually when Jeff feels he can answer a cogent criticism he's not shy about doing so, instead of saying 'maybe'.)

Edited May 31, 2010 by Philip Coates

[jriggenbach]

. . . a movie is supposed to be self-contained. You don't have to have read a book (and most viewers won't) to say you didn't understand how the movie presented the story or the acting had problems.

"A movie is supposed to be self-contained." Oh? "Supposed"? Supposed by whom and for what? A movie is what it is. If it is a complete original, it should be self-contained. If it is an adaptation of a play or a novel, and the screenwriter chose to deviate significantly from the original, then it should be self-contained. If it is an adaptation in which the screenwriter (as is the case with LOTR) chose to stick close to the original source and merely bring the same characters to life on screen, then one way of judging the effectiveness of a particular actor's performance is to consult the original novel or play or short story for information about what sort of character that actor is attempting to portray or "bring to life." In any case, it is impossible to evaluate an actor's performance without reference to a standard of some sort - either the screenplay or (under the conditions indicated above) the original source of the character. In the absence of consulting with these sources, one cannot offer anything that could properly be called an "evaluation" of the actor's performance. One can offer only a report about how much or how little one liked that performance - the aesthetic equivalent, you might say, of grunting (whether in approval or disapproval).

"Saying you didn't understand how the movie presented the story" is, again, not an act of criticism at all; it's merely a report on how one viewer understood or failed to understand what s/he saw.

JR

[jriggenbach]

> Subject: Logically-Challenged Jeff, Part II

It seems that in addition to thinking that one can't criticize a movie unless he has read the book it is based on . . .

See my previous post. I never said what Phil attributes to me; if he can't see this, it only proves the defectiveness of his reading comprehension - a fine quality for a teacher to have.

. . . Jeff seems to think you can't criticize bias in a newspaper unless you have worked on one.

Nor did I ever say this. What I said is that if one knows nothing about how newspapers are actually operated, one is likely to imagine all sorts of things that might go one there that might, if they did go on there, account for the end results one sees in the paper - and all of it could be nothing but your own (or Phil's) ignorant fantasy.

Let's start by removing the illogical, slanted language, first. What Jeff is reporting in neutral, objective language is this: "Phil criticized a New York Times article, particularly the bias in its headline and photo." [Aside: Writing tip for the writing expert: You don't have to overload your language with parody-type words like 'vigorously', 'denouncing' or negative evaluations like 'abuse' or 'tendentiously'. It's more effective if you can bend over backwards to present the view neutrally and still be able then to refute it. Have you learned anything from The Elements of Style? ]

The principal thing I learned from The Elements of Style is how absurdly overrated it is. It contains some good, commonsensical advice about writing, but it proceeds on the assumption that there is only one legitimate or effective way to write and that way is the way E.B. White wrote. I'm sorry; I don't buy into this. I think White was a pretty good writer, but I certainly wouldn't like the result if he had had his way and everyone now wrote like E.B. White. If you don't like the way I write, Phil, I encourage you to read somebody else.

Unlike Jeffaroni, I don't have total recall for the exact wording of conversations a decade or more ago . . . .

I'm deeply sorry that my memory is so much better than yours, Phil. I can't tell you how much pain that fact causes me.

I can't resist adding that not only can't Omniscient Jeff know this for a fact [that Phil has never been employed by a newspaper as a writer or editor], but he's worded this to exclude any relevance of my experience (which he may not know, but he is claiming omniscience about my experience) as the publisher of my own publication, as a staff member of a humor magazine, as a reporter for a libertarian publication, and as the columns editor of the Atlasphere).

None of this would teach you anything at all about how editorial decisions and photographic decisions are made on large daily newspapers, which was the issue at hand.

It's known to the headline writers and to the photo selectors or anyone who wants to keep his job in a tight economy or get ahead career-wise what the editorial position of the NYT is. They know that a picture of a dazed, sleepy, befuddled President Bush or a smiling, confident candidate Obama or a scowling, angry candidate McCain would be well-received by the executive editor and the publisher. But not a scowling, angry Teddy Kennedy or the like.

If you knew those people and asked them their thinking, they'd tell you the NYT has no editorial bias. And they don't make their decisions on the basis of their mostly non-existent political beliefs. If you had ever worked with the kind of people I'm talking about, the people who work on large daily newspapers, you'd know this.

... and newspaper 'expert' Jeff (did he work for one? if so, let's bow down). . .

Yes, I worked for two of them. How many did you work for?

JR

[jriggenbach]

Usually when Jeff feels he can answer a cogent criticism he's not shy about doing so, instead of saying 'maybe'.

Did I miss some cogent criticism? I never saw any. What post was it in? Who wrote it?

Alas, sometimes, I have to put off answering a tissue of absurdities because it takes time to do so and I often have relatively little time available, since I actually work for a living instead of spending all my time looking in the mirror, preening, and patting myself on the back in smug self-satisfaction because my early decision to read Ayn Rand has left me an expert on everything and I've never had any need to acquire any further knowledge.

JR

[Philip Coates]

You Can't Judge a Movie or a Performance without Outside Reading or Homework?...Take That, Mr. Average Moviegoer!

Phil: a movie is supposed to be self-contained

Jeff: one way of judging the effectiveness of a particular actor's performance is to consult the original [source] or [screenplay]...[Without doing this] one cannot [evaluate] the actor's performance

Jeff's wording is a bit tangled. I tried to get to the essential source of disagreement. Jeff apparently misunderstands the common sense point I was making:

1. There are many more viewers of a major Hollywood movie than there are readers of the book it is based on...and certainly they won't have read the screenplay.

2. Since they will not refer to the book, the movie has to stand alone as a work of art and the actors' performances have to stand alone.

3. The audience must be able to appreciate the performances and the story as presented in the movie. That's what I mean by stand alone or self-contained. (And I think that phrase was taken out of context; it's pretty clear, I think, in my original post in which I was criticizing the woodenness of Viggo Mortensen in the movie and Jeff claimed you had to see the movie in the context of the book.)

4. It's valid to discuss whether a movie was true to the book but even if the movie departs from the book, one can evaluate its success (and that of its actors) as separable phenomena.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

1. Bias in the Liberal Press?? News Flash: Jeff, Based on his Allegedly Vast Experience Says No Way! Can't Possibly Be!!

> If you knew those people and asked them their thinking, they'd tell you the NYT has no editorial bias

So what? Do you believe everything you're told?

> If you had ever worked with the kind of people I'm talking about, the people who work on large daily newspapers...I worked for two of them.

I don't know why you are not getting a reasonably simple point. Here it is again:

Working for newspapers A and B which were not biased does not enable you to say that newspaper C is not biased or that all 'large, daily' newspapers are unbiased. Working with certain types of people that newspaper A finds congenial does not mean you can talk about -all- the people who work for different newspapers. I worked with "computer people" and managers at Hewlett-Packard. I wouldn't be naive enough to infer from that what "computer people" and managers were like in the corporate culture of IBM in every respect. If you were on the staff of better or less biased newspapers, that would not enable you to infer what the corporate culture was like at another newspaper, any more than working at one company enables you to know the rules, the pressures, the approaches at another. And no, having worked at two newspapers, doing what and for how long?, does -not- make you an expert on the bias or lack of it everywhere.

Almost every Objectivist or libertarian knows the New York Times is biased. Amazing to find someone who is so naive as not to know this. Unbelievable! (I even gave you some illustrative concrete examples to jog your memory, which you ignored: Never let concrete cases stand in the way, I guess.)

2. Don't Give Me No Stinkin' Rules

> The Elements of Style is..absurdly overrated...

> it proceeds on the assumption that there is only one legitimate or effective way to write and that way is the way E.B. White wrote.

No it doesn't. Have you actually understood the book?

More importantly, I wasn't talking about optional personal style. I was giving you basic advice from a reader: lose the verboseness and (unnecessary) slanting; let your argument stand on its own merits.

> If you don't like the way I write, Phil, I encourage you to read somebody else.

Only a man with hubris thinks his writing is perfect and can't possibly benefit from any criticism; the wise man learns even from his adversaries.

> looking in the mirror, preening, and patting myself on the back in smug self-satisfaction because my early decision to read Ayn Rand has left me an expert on everything and I've never had any need to acquire any further knowledge.

This may not be in the Elements of Style but it could be:

--Don't dull the force and clarity of your arguments with bluster and insult.

--Don't exaggerate because you are eager to make a put-down.

,,,,,,,,

We're done here.-->

As much as is possible, I'm pretty much going to ignore the insulting asshole after that last looking in the mirror comment.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Philip Coates