Robin Wood is dead.

[baby doll]

Heavy.

Here's David Bordwell's tribute. (http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=6483)

[balmakboor]

Yeah. I read about it in the film discussion thread the other night and was deeply saddened. You really know you are in the minority when the "celebrity" death that hits you the hardest is still getting zero hits on google news searches two days later.

Anyway, he was easily my favorite film critic.

[baby doll]

Yeah. I read about it in the film discussion thread the other night and was deeply saddened. You really know you are in the minority when the "celebrity" death that hits you the hardest is still getting zero hits on google news searches two days later.

Anyway, he was easily my favorite film critic.At the end of Bordwell's piece, he provides a link to The Autuers' Notebook (http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1345), which has been collecting pieces on Wood's death.

[Qrazy]

Hawks is not like Shakespeare. At all.

[Grouchy]

Hawks is not like Shakespeare. At all.
For the purposes of that comparison, he is.

[Derek]

Hawks is not like Shakespeare. At all.

Seriously dude?

RIP, he was one of the best.

[Boner M]

I picked up an tattered bunch of 70's/80's Film Comment issues from a secondhand bookstore a few weeks ago; Wood's pieces are the highlight of every one I've read so far.

RIP.

[ledfloyd]

i remember really enjoying his piece on diary of the dead in film comment. sadly that was all i had read by him. a very astute mind though, and the quotes i've read in rememberance pieces have impressed me. i'd love to check out his books on hitchcock and hawks.

[balmakboor]

I remember going into Cinema Books in Seattle and picking up something titled "Hitchcock's Films Revisited." I asked the store owner if it was any good and she said, "I don't know. It's pretty heavy going."

I bought it anyway and it changed both the way I think about Hitchcock and film criticism. I've since read two of his other books as well and a bunch of things from Film Comment and CineAction. His piece on Munyurangabo turned me on to one of my favorite films in years.

I was so eagerly awaiting his thoughts on Survival of the Dead. Maybe he wrote something, probably not. I was also eager to read his long in the works book on Haneke.

I hope all of his magazine writings are eventually anthologized.

[balmakboor]

From DVD Beaver:

"Much sadness when we lose a friend. Critic/journalist extraordinaire Robin Wood has passed on at 78 years of age. Truly one of the most interesting people I will ever meet. I'm very proud that the DVDBeaver ListServ pooled funds to buy Robin a region-free player and many titles a few years back. He was as appreciative as we were at his extensive writings. He will be greatly missed."

That's cool.

[Qrazy]

Seriously dude?

RIP, he was one of the best.

Seriously, but also RIP.

[Qrazy]

For the purposes of that comparison, he is.

No he isn't, because there's a drastic difference between Shakespeare's clowns and Dean Martin's songs. I fail to see how he uses Martin's songs for fundamentally serious purposes, simply saying something without backing it up doesn't make it so. Furthermore, Wood's goal with these claims is as much to make his point about giving art wide appeal as it is to liken Hawks to a significant and established literary figure. That being said, I retract everything I just stated by virtue of the fact that this is a RIP thread.

[balmakboor]

No he isn't, because there's a drastic difference between Shakespeare's clowns and Dean Martin's songs. I fail to see how he uses Martin's songs for fundamentally serious purposes, simply saying something without backing it up doesn't make it so. Furthermore, Wood's goal with these claims is as much to make his point about giving art wide appeal as it is to liken Hawks to a significant and established literary figure. That being said, I retract everything I just stated by virtue of the fact that this is a RIP thread.

One thing that Wood can never be accused of is what you accuse him of here. He always meticulously backed up everything he said and wrote -- and then with a heap of humility he asked people to argue with him.

[Qrazy]

One thing that Wood can never be accused of is what you accuse him of here. He always meticulously backed up everything he said and wrote -- and then with a heap of humility he asked people to argue with him.

Well he didn't back it up in that block of text.

[balmakboor]

Well he didn't back it up in that block of text.

Wood was never a man who was short on words. He wrote lengthy introductions for his books -- I believe his Hitchock's Films Revisited book has about 30 pages of introductory material -- to let the reader know where he's coming from.

That paragraph about Rio Bravo and Hawks is merely a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of what he wrote about Hawks and his all-time favorite film.

[Qrazy]

Wood was never a man who was short on words. He wrote lengthy introductions for his books -- I believe his Hitchock's Films Revisited book has about 30 pages of introductory material -- to let the reader know where he's coming from.

That paragraph about Rio Bravo and Hawks is merely a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of what he wrote about Hawks and his all-time favorite film.

Alright well if you can find the sentences backing up the sentence in question I will read them. Although either way I'd still disagree with the sentiment because I think there's a big difference between Shakespeare's 'compromises' and Hawks. I was not enamored by Martin's song.

[balmakboor]

Alright well if you can find the sentences backing up the sentence in question I will read them. Although either way I'd still disagree with the sentiment because I think there's a big difference between Shakespeare's 'compromises' and Hawks. I was not enamored by Martin's song.

Fair enough. Woods was pretty old-school and never embraced the Internet, so almost nothing he wrote except some of his Film Comment pieces are readily available outside of the paper world.

[Grouchy]

Huh... Dean Martin's songs in Rio Bravo serve to express the feelings of the characters. They might not advance the plot, but if anything, they're significantly LESS arbitrary than Shakespeare's comic relief.

[Qrazy]

Huh... Dean Martin's songs in Rio Bravo serve to express the feelings of the characters. They might not advance the plot, but if anything, they're significantly LESS arbitrary than Shakespeare's comic relief.

Which Shakespeare's are you and Wood even talking about? His comedies? That would be too absurd so then certain dramas? The extremely pointed use of the fool in King Lear? The equally pointed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet? Give me a break. Rio Bravo contained a crooner and a teen idol so Hawks stuffed three songs into it. It's blatant and obnoxious. Although the songs are far from the weakest elements of the film so I guess it doesn't matter that much.

What I'm annoyed by is not so much the comparison itself as Wood's method of argumentation. Since Hawks is sooo much like Shakespeare people who aren't partial to Hawks must not have liked Shakespeare back in his day? That is just lazy, lame argumentation. First he transiently associates a cinematic figure with literary canon/authority and then claims if you're bothered by one's approach you'd have to be bothered by the other. It's utter tosh.

[Melville]

What confuses me is the final line: "[Hawks'] acceptance of the underlying conventions gives Rio Bravo, like Shakespeare’s plays, the timeless, universal quality of myth or fable." What are the conventions he's talking about? The preceding sentences make it seem as if comic relief is the convention he's talking about, but that can't be right.

[balmakboor]

Why aren't people criticizing Bordwell instead of Wood? Bordwell is the one who -- with all the best intentions -- quoted Wood grossly out of context. Why are people criticizing Wood based on one paragraph?

Why are people criticizing Wood anyway? This is a memorial thread. Or at least I thought it was.

[Melville]

Why are people criticizing Wood anyway?
I wasn't criticizing anybody. I was just wondering what he meant by that sentence.

[balmakboor]

I wasn't criticizing anybody. I was just wondering what he meant by that sentence.

Well, I still think your words sound critical, but, if that's not how you intended it, then sorry about that.

[Qrazy]

Why are people criticizing Wood anyway? This is a memorial thread. Or at least I thought it was.

Because I'm a horrible bastard, but yeah I'll stop now I suppose.

[Derek]

Why are people criticizing Wood anyway? This is a memorial thread. Or at least I thought it was.

Because Qrazy doesn't like Rio Bravo and since he can't be bothered to read the context surrounding Wood's quote and respond to the totality of the argument, he can glibly dismiss the film without actually responding to anything. And because he's a horrible bastard. :)

[Qrazy]

Because Qrazy doesn't like Rio Bravo and since he can't be bothered to read the context surrounding Wood's quote and respond to the totality of the argument, he can glibly dismiss the film without actually responding to anything. And because he's a horrible bastard. :)

The context surrounding the Wood quote is praise for said quote. I find said quote to be a lazy argument and I have deconstructed and exposed the poverty of this (Wood's) argument. So given that the context surrounding Wood's quotation is praise for it, I am by extension criticizing that context (the totality of the argument). Whether or not you like Rio Bravo I think recognizing that forging a tenuous association with literary canon and then using that connection to criticize others criticism is a weak form of rhetoric. Many people and critics refuse a split between high and pop culture and that's good, but that's not at issue here. Kudos to him for doing that. I just wish he'd done it in a more interesting manner.

If on the other hand by the totality of the argument you mean the larger context of Wood's comparison to Shakespeare, I have offered to read this if it can be procured... but I have no access to it currently so I have to go on what's in front of me.

Alternatively if you're referring to my other problems with Rio Bravo, we can discuss that in the film discussion thread. However I think it's enough for the quotation that I a) find the songs in the film underwhelming but b) have no problems with Shakespeare's comedy nor prefer Sir Philip Sydney.

Given the nature o this thread I realize I need to just stfu already but I can't help responding sometimes. If anyone wants to respond to me again they can have the last word on the matter.

[balmakboor]

While I do find the Wood quote praise-worthy and his comparison of Hawks and Shakespeare to be apt, my one criticism of Bordwell's piece is that, if his aim was to offer unimpeachable praise, he failed because he used a quote as an example of Wood's approach that seems to be doing a poor job of standing alone, out of context.

[Grouchy]

The extremely pointed use of the fool in King Lear? The equally pointed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet?
Yes, exactly. Your second example is the one I was actually thinking about.


First he transiently associates a cinematic figure with literary canon/authority and then claims if you're bothered by one's approach you'd have to be bothered by the other. It's utter tosh.
I disagree. The link he finds is that they're both popular narrators with a penchant for entertaining the audience and not taking their own work very seriously. That's valid enough for me.

And Rio Bravo is a masterpiece, so our communication right there is completely cut.

[number8]

I like Robin Wood's writing too. Shakespeare, however, is a cunt.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

Shakespeare, however, is a cunt.

A dead cunt.

[baby doll]

Obituary in The New York Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/arts/22wood.html?_r=1&ref=movies)