Screen Memories by A.O. Scott

[nextren]

Sounds like someone could use a few quaffs from a Ha-Ha Club seidel... Not everyone is a grimly scowling scholar, I hope.

It is possible to be accurate and serious about movies and also to acknowledge that movies are, after all, e-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t. Welles would be appalled by any discussion of art or movies that is essentially joyless and angry. The great man was no ascetic rabbinical disputant when creating; he had jazz playing during his shoots and declared "Citizen Kane was made in the most fun-and-games kind of way."

I would not be surprised if the very people getting it in the neck for cracking smiles here are the only regulars actually qualified to write for scholarly journals. Certainly they seem more approachable, well-rounded and life-affirming. Like a certain person of whom they are very knowledgable and about whom they have profoundly enlightened us all many times in the past.

[mido505]

Well said, nextren. Let us not forget that Welles once confused Bogdanovich by laughing uproariously throughout a showing of THE TRIAL.