this blog has already done its job if it can bring even one more person to that Mordden book–it is truly a treasure trove of ideas and interpretations (which is not to say that I agree with all–or even most!–of the author’s opinions… I am particularly dead-set against his dismissive attitude toward early thirties Universal these days–but that’s part of the fun!)

Dave

And thanks for the Mordden book recommendation. I have not read it but have been wanting to find some nice reading material on the studio age for some time. This should fit the bill quite nicely.

I’ll be discussing Manichean modes of expression here–not engaging in them! (at least, that’s the plan–but if the prez starts commenting on this blog, all bets are off!)

I hope you will stick around here though…

Of course I will! And I’d be very happy about a copy of your Cerebus paper.

Now I’m just wondering how rock-solid your reason is for calling your new blog “Manichean” because I see no dearth of overheated arguments. The whole blogosphere, no matter from which parts of the political spectrum the writers come, has a reputation for being extremely polemical. There may be somewhere people who don’t want to attack their political opponents because they think there’s “not just black and white” and “all things are a shade of gray” but I suspect they aren’t many! In fact I always thought that you were — maybe in part influenced by postmodern thought — hesistant in playing the polemics game and attacking others, though it did happen occasionally at Motime Like The Present. Only after reading your piece Ecrasez L’Infame about Richard Hofstadter did it dawn on me that there was another side to your writing.

(A sort of noble discretion did make up not a small part of Motime’s attractiveness for me. When you write about superhero fandom that it “is not exactly the world’s greatest repository of maturity and wisdom” than this is just much more funny than the usual disdain which qua its (slightly) superficial mode of criticism undermines its credibility. Seen from this perspective, forums such as the one of the Comics Journal could be perceived as exhausting.)

So is there really a need for a Manichean mode of thinking? My impression — and I’m gallivanting here rather carelessly between aesthetic and political realms — is that George Bush gets denounced literally left and right. It’s just that it has no political consequences or only glacially advancing ones!

very happy to have you as a reader, as I am quite taken with your own blog!

I absolutely agree with your studio-auteur interpretation–sometimes (not always, of course!) it makes A LOT more sense than the director-centered version that the Cahiers de Cinema people introduced…

Have you ever Ethan Mordden’s The Hollywood Studios? It was fundamental to my being as a pubescent classic film fan, and I’ve probably re-read it once every year since I bought it in 1990! I think he does such a great job of fleshing out this approach, and one of the main ways I’ve marked the progress of my years has been through the cyclical way my enthusiasm has made its way through each of the old studios and back ’round again (I’m currently on a real Universal-under-Carl-Laemmle Jr. binge!)

Dave

lately, it’s been all fiction + teaching, so I don’t have much to offer in the way of essays–but I’ll be very pleased to send you the Cerebus paper when I get done with it (which probably won’t be until early in the fall, at the rate I’m going!)

I hope you will stick around here though–I definitely am planning to focus on movies on this blog, but as may already be apparent from my intro, there are a number of similarities between my approaches to studio Age films and superhero comics, and there will almost certainly be some bleed back and forth between the various categories of works under discussion (the other ol’ reliables–romantic poetry, 19th century novels, and pulp fiction–will undoubtedly make their way into my writings here too!)

I agree with your thoughts on the studios being driven by personality. I’ve always been interested myself in how the studios themselves seem to acquire personalities of their own (e.g., there’s a certain “feel” to a Warner Bros. or RKO film that makes it different from the films of other studios). I suppose this is mostly due to all the creative talent, including script-writers, directors, etc., being under long-term contract in addition to the main stars.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts in future posts. . .

Ok, enough OT posts for today!

PS: Here’s the (hopefully) working link for the Derrida paper I mentioned previously.

If your main focus here is on studio age movies then I’ll probably not contribute as much as I’d like, simply because I don’t know very much about them.

This is an opportune time to ask if you have any papers which are not internet-published and that you’d feel comfortable sharing. I think I’ve read every essay on “Motime Like The Present” and Please Sir, I Want Some Mo’. I admit having a bias for your historiographic papers and a bit against the more theoretical work like this short essay on Derrida. (I’m just not much of a Derrida fan, I’m afraid…)

I’m still rather proud of the Squadron Supreme paper–but I do suspect it would have been hard to make it meaningful to an audience of people that never heard of Mark Gruenwald’s magnum opus (but I do indeed look forward to hearing your own thoughts on the book AND the essay!)

thanks for leaving the first comment!

Dave