Beyond Embarrassment

I will have more on Bergman and Antonioni soon, but in the meantime I should note that anyone who thinks that people who admire Bergman do so because they are “embarrassed by the movies” couldn’t be more spectacularly wrongheaded. The idea that nobody can enjoy art that places more demands on your eye and intellect than Patch Adams — just because not all entertainment is art is hardly follows that art cannot be entertaining, and many of Bergman’s films were exceptional examples of this — is pretty much the definition of philistinism. It is, however, exactly what one would expect from someone who considers (or considered, before George Lucas was subsequently found guilty of Wrongthink) The Phantom Menace “captivating” and Ron Howard’s dreary, interminable, every-scene-a-cliche Cinderella Man “one of the best movies ever made.”

[Via Roy.]