Yesterday I watched, on Netflix, a 2010 Polanski film called The Ghost Writer. Eli Wallach has a tiny cameo role in the film. I checked afterwards. Wallach was 95 when he did that bit of acting! He died three years later at 98. Since it is a Polanski film, the hero dies in the very last scene, of course. God forbid it should have a happy ending.
The day before that, I re-watched Three Days of the Condor, an old nifty spy film with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway among other A-list actors. The credits said it was adapted from a book entitled Six Days of the Condor. ??? Were we supposed to wait for the sequel?
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Wikipedia says that the film is "considerably different" from the book, which itself has three sequels.
It's my least favorite Polanski movie. But, it's still pretty decent!
Despite the undeniable artistic merit of Polanski's films, he drugged a 14-year old girl and then fucked her in the ass.
Polanski and his films can burn in hell.
I totally agree
As you say, Polanski's films have an undeniable artistic merit. I judge his films according to their artistic quality, not according to his sins. If historical research were to discover that Shakespeare had had sex with a 14 year old, would you burn all his plays?
Heck, I burn Shakespeare just cause he reads like someone who had sex with 14 year olds.
S. Wallerstein
I take your point, and generally agree. But what about Heidegger? I have never read him, in part for the same reason I've never gotten anywhere with Hegel. Obtuse German philosophy doesn't appeal to me. But apart taste, I would have a difficult time appreciating anything from someone like Heidegger.
Right on, Sonic.
And while we got the bonfire going, let's throw Plato in because the guy was a out and out pederast. Now it's been said that Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato. If that's the case, why not throw all Western philosophers in the bonfire and be done with the fucking perverts once and for all?
David Palmeter,
I've read Being and Time. That was written before Heidegger became a Nazi, although some say that they can see elements of far-rightwing German ideology there. If you want to understand existentialism, it's certainly a work that you should read.
I've never read Hegel myself, because I find him too difficult, but Heidegger is no more difficult than, say, Sartre.
In any case, I wouldn't compare having sex with a 14 year old with being a Nazi, with actively supporting a regime which carries out genocide.
How about Richard Wagner who was a rabid anti-semite? Do you have problems listening to his opera? I don't and I'm Jewish. Wagner is one of my favorite composers.
Apropos of s. wallerstein's comment @8:12 PM re: Plato -- and yes, I get the sarcasm -- I can't recommend more heartily the late Kenneth Dover's remarkable study, Greek Homosexuality, which depicts a complex account of a historical sexual (and social and cultural) practice (among both men and women) in an enlightening, non-polemical way. Very refreshing, perhaps at the time even courageous.
S. Wallerstein
Wagner is easy for me -- I don't care for his music. A question I ask myself when this issue comes up is whether the individual behaved in compliance with the mores of the time. Thus, I don't blame Aristotle for being a slave owner. I have more trouble blaming Jefferson as his behavior was more or less in conformity with his times. The problem I have with him is "more or less." There were abolitionists at the time, but they were few in number in the South. The other question I ask myself is what would I have done if I had been born into Aristotle's world or Jefferson's? I suspect that, had I been a wealthy ancient Greek, I would have had slaves and considered very normal. With Jefferson, I'd like that I'd have behaved differently, but, in all honesty, I don't know.
David Palmeter,
I can't imagine myself Jefferson, with or without slaves. I dislike having servile people around me, whether they are slaves or housemaids or even doormen: it's not even an ethical thing, but a personal preference. Still, I can imagine that I might have lived in the 18th century without owning slaves, but without speaking out against slavery: I'm generally no hero.
However, that's not the issue above. Wagner was a horrid person, yet I listen to his music. Heidegger was a horrid person, yet I read his philosophy. Schopenhauer lent his opera glasses to the Prussian snipers who were aiming at pro-democracy demonstrators during the 1848 Revolution, yet I enjoy reading him. Polanski is a horrid person, yet I watch his movies. I still don't see why the character of the person has anything to do with whether I should enjoy his artistic or intellectual creations or not.
"I still don't see why the character of the person has anything to do with whether I should enjoy his artistic or intellectual creations or not."
Well, for one, sometimes the character of the artist becomes somehow a factor in the aesthetic evaluation of the work. Yeah, this is begging the question. But inasmuch as, contra I.A. Richards, we consider the biography, authorial intent, and historical context when we arrive at our individual judgments, then character (or bad behavior) is fair game.
On second thought, I am, much like you, s. wallerstein, a pure modernist. It is all about the work, the material object, the printed words on the paper, and nothing outside it. But this is because we are all modernists, and we will always be so, because there is no alternative. Meanwhile, given this matter of fact, I can recognize that some modernists are jerks. And that observation colors my view of the work of some of them.
Curious turn, this blog sometimes takes. The foibles of geniuses are legendary---not so much the comments upon them.
It's a basic ad hominem fallacy to equate the product/work/result of the artist/creator/producer with the character of the artist/creator/producer. As Wallerstein said, if we resurrect Shakespeare today, politically he's no ally of anyone on this blog. Who cares? His plays remain great. And if Hitler writes 2+2=4 on a chalk board, he's right, to argue otherwise is ad hominem. Same goes for Polanski as an artist. He creates beautiful work. As a human however, I agree, fuck him. These claims can be separated. Unless everyone wants to retroactively say they were duped into believing Shakespeare was great, or Rosemary's Baby (an EXCELLENT FEMINIST film might I add - just like Repulsion!) was a masterpiece, and Pulp Fiction was also trash. Come on.
The claims *can* be separated, but must they be separated? That is the question. (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1). Take, for example, Philip Roth, whose work is pretty transparently inspired by his own life and behavior. It's also, at times, sexist, even misogynist. At the same time, it can be laugh-out-loud hilarious, and for me, uncomfortably so, in part because I sense that (or at least wonder whether) Roth is expressing his own personally held values. Granted, this level of misdeed, if it is at all a misdeed, doesn't reach the level of statutory rape or collaboration with Nazis. But it's an illustration of how an ad hominem reading of a work of literature isn't always fallacious.
Roth is a troubling case, more so than Polanski, since again, Polanski actually makes great feminist films (Anyone that doubts this needs to see Repulsion ASAP). Which is queer, since as a human being acting in the world, he's not a feminist. Whereas, you're right, Roth, and also Edward Abbey, wear their demons on their sleeve. Roth was a pretty gross human being, who turned his vices into wicked humor.
That said, the test - for me at least to determine whether or not I'm engaged in ad hominem - is to ask: how would I appreciate this work if it's creator was 'anonymous'? And I suspect I would still revere almost all Polanski films (perhaps more so), and would still revere many Roth novels. And of course Shakespeare would remain THE genius of Modern Western society.
And these are all separate points from the following moral questions:
Should people continue to work with Polanski/Roth/CK/Weinstein/etc
Should people continue to PURCHASE works made by deviants? [What about downloading his stuff illegally? Or buying used copies? Or watching old copies purchased before we knew he was an offender?]
So it could be the case that one should cease working with Polanski, and cease buying his stuff, but his films remain great. Or, maybe people shouldn't work with him, but should still buy his stuff. Or they should work with him, but not buy his stuff. Each of these questions has to be analyzed and addressed appropriately, without conflation.
There is a laugh-out-loud confusion between away Wagner and Mendelssohn at the beginning of MENDELSSOHN IS ON THE ROOF by the Czech writer Jizi (Jezhi) Weil. Since the story is set in Nazi-occupied Prague, what starts out as high comedy ends in tragedy.
Philip Roth?
He's not my favorite novelist and I've only read a few of his books because he's Jewish from Newark, New Jersey and I'm from there too, so I know the terrain he describes.
However, what are Roth's terrible sins? He is as sexist as most Jewish men of his generation, politically liberal although not leftist and no doubt makes jokes about gays as did most Jewish males of his generation.
When did the U.S. left become so puritanical? I left the U.S. in 1977 and at that time the right was puritanical and the left was much more open, in favor of ending all censorship, in favor of publishing De Sade and lots of other non-politically correct writers. I myself still have 1977 leftwing attitudes about who I read.
When I see such puritanical moralism on the left (and it gets a lot worse than it does in this blog), I'm glad I'm no longer in the U.S. and I'm not going back.
As you intimate, the right's epithet for the left's puritanical moralism is "political correctness," the irony of which escapes me, because I can't imagine why one wouldn't strive to be politically (or mathematically, or historically, or...) correct. Anyway, I understand that Roth's bad (perhaps purely literary) character traits are not per se terrible sins; that was why I hedged in my comment. But inasmuch as those traits are shared by lots of men who, in the aggregate, make life miserable for women (and the men who are close to them), and inasmuch as Roth parlayed those traits into a wildly successful literary career, then it's fair to feel just a little queasy, as I do, when reading and enjoying his work. It doesn't merely display sexism; it celebrates sexism. Granted, Roth took a lot of heat for the way he treats women in his books, and he mostly took it in stride. But that he was as sexist as most men his age isn't an excuse, particularly since his work suggests he, unlike most men his age, recognized as much.
Dean,
To object to the use of the term "political correctness" because the right coined it is another form of political correctness. I guess that political correctness refers to purism or puritanism. Your analogy with math is telling: in math there are correct answers, while in politics some answers are better than others, but none are correct in the sense that mathematical answers are.
Anyway, this isn't directed at you personally.
I don't know anything about Roth's life. I'd guess that he married many times, cheated on all his wives and never changed a diaper or washed a dish. Not very different from other major post World War 2 male Jewish writers such as Bellow and Mailer. I'd say that Bellow is the best novelist of the group, Mailer the best journalist (Armies of the Night, etc.) and Roth comes in 3rd. If I were going to reread any of the three, I'd reread Bellow.
I read novels because I enjoy them, not for moral edification. I enjoy good writing and
certain insight into human nature. A while ago a friend from California asked me what I was reading and I told her "The Heart of Darkness" by Conrad. She became very upset because the book is racist. Of course, it's racist, but first of all, it's a literary masterpiece and second, in its day it was seen as a denunciation of the excesses of Belgian colonialism, it's not Kipling.
I continued reading the Heart of Darkness and enjoyed it. One of life's "harmless" pleasures is good fiction (or good movies) and moralizing about the author's life simply spoils that "harmless" pleasure. We moralize about too many things. We need to learn to be bit more amoral about what we read, watch and listen to.
Could anyone recommend a book or two on the ethical considerations that pertain to boycotting?
It's commonly presumed, but (as far as I've seen) rarely defended with explicit reasons, that if the party (P) responsible for the creation of some purchasable good (G) is also responsible for some morally reprehensible deed (R), then each of us as consumers should refrain from purchasing or owning G.
(Briefly: If P creates G, and P also promotes R - whether through G itself, or independently of G - then I shouldn't buy G, because doing so makes me complicit in R.)
I do think there's something missing here. Intuitively the inference is strong, but its strength is hard to account for. In practice, I admit, I find many boycotts praiseworthy but not obligatory; I don't fault the reader who's unashamed to own books by Heidegger, say, but if someone declines to purchase them as part of a principled effort to distance herself from Nazism and help rid the world of its presence, then I wouldn't call her silly, either. So, if she condemns me for having purchased Being and Time, then I think I'll understand to a large degree, but ultimately not treat it as more than a negligible offense. Hopefully we can still be friends!
I won't go into it at length, but will consider some of the more obvious attempts that might be made to ground the inference I've laid out above. (Some might apply only to one version rather than both.)
1. "If I buy G, then I give money to a known promoter of R, and thereby enable him to further promote R; and my doing so is wrong."
Possible counter: My giving money to P doesn't necessarily create more R. The Nazi guitarist whose album I bought might just use the cash to buy a beer. Or in any case, he might need many hundreds or thousands more contributions from other consumers besides myself to inflict any appreciable harm, and so my contribution is arguably negligible.
2. "If I buy G, and if G's production was made possible through R, then I derive benefit from R; and my doing so is wrong."
Possible counter: This is to "cry over spilled milk." The misdeed is in the past. The pig who was brutalized for your ham sandwich is not harmed any further by your enjoyment of the sandwich.
3. "If I buy G, then I express approval of R, if only to an unfamiliar and presumptuous observer; (and I thereby further promote R, by way of said observer;) and my doing so is wrong."
Possible counter: If I don't approve of R, but merely approve of G, then the observer who supposes differently is indeed being presumptuous, and I do not bear responsibility for his misinterpretation; and in any case, my influence on other people's consumption is slight at best.
Wallerstein,
If you like Heart of Darkness (as every aesthetically inclined individual ought to), check out Conrad's Nostramo!
Michael,
One other problem with boycotting is it often directly harms more working class folks than the directors and creators. For instance, if you boycott a new Polanski film, you're also boycotting craft services, lighting, makeup, etc etc. Moreover, if, as Americans living in the heart of empire and capitalism, we want to not consume items that have immoral implications, the ONLY possible solution is to either: become a self sustaining hermit in some forest or island space, OR, kill ourselves. Neither is really likely though...
Thanks Chris.
I've read Nostromo and it's great. Your mentioning it reminds me to put it on my reread list.
RE: "political correctness"
S Wallerstein wrote (July 28, 2019 at 12:49 PM): To object to the use of the term "political correctness" because the right coined it is another form of political correctness. I guess that political correctness refers to purism or puritanism.
I recall the term being bandied around among self-deprecating lefty undergraduates at the University of Chicago in the mid 1970s (including one I knew who was pretty much the only one trusted by all the different sectarians on campus). It was a way of poking fun at each other for being overly concerned with trivia. Over the years, have read comments of others online making pretty much the same point, though not invoking U of C. At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, those on the right thought the term was meant as serious criticism and began to use it that way.
Marcel Proust,
Thanks. I didn't know that.
In any case, the idea is to carry out positive social change, to make society more just, not to avoid polluting our pure hands and unsullied minds with works penned by unsaintly authors who in many cases were creative geniuses and who often simply repeated the ungodly
prejudices of their benighted ages in their works.
It seems to me that any grown adult, who has committed themself to leftwing politics over the years, is unlikely to turn into a goose-stepping fascist simply because they watch a movie made by Polanski or read a book written by Heidegger. As for adolescents,
they should be exposed to all possible positions and points of view so that they can make up their minds for themselves because the most solid commitments are those which are the product of an individual conscious-decision making process.
I don't disagree with most of what has ensued since my prior comment, perhaps none of it. To clarify, though, I did not intend my remarks about political correctness to suggest that one should be critical of it because the right uses it, but because to be correct is a positive trait. If I'm asked for advice from somebody seeking assistance with a major life decision, I might offer, "I think the correct choice would be to" such-and-such. Of course that's not a prescription for mathematical correctness, but it's an entirely acceptable use of the word. (For some reason, I associate "political correctness" with Allan Bloom -- the Chicago connection -- and his insufferable book about "the American mind.")
Nor do I worry that reading Roth (or Heidegger or, well, Paul de Man, for another good example) will risk turning one into their worst selves. I would never consider not reading Conrad because "it's racist." But the pleasure one (or I, at least) derive from, say, a good novel can be colored ("tainted" is too strong) by the author's biography. Mailer is a great example. I adore Harlot's Ghost despite Mailer's injection of characteristics for which he as a celebrity author was notorious, his hyper-masculine swagger, for instance. I'm not worried that I might assume those traits after consuming the 1300 pages. I just don't enjoy his propensity to show off. The point being: while one can, and in some cases perhaps should, read a literary text (for enjoyment, for understanding, for enlightenment...) by attending purely to the text, in many cases one will be compelled to take account of the author's biography, traces of which might unsurprisingly appear in a text. If the work itself is in some significant way grounded in or commands attention to the author's life, then it isn't puritanical to take a measure of that life as a basis for one's response to the work.
Meanwhile, the professor's OP had to do in part with the fact that an "old guy" had appeared in a recent Polanski film. (The thread about whether or not it's "correct" to watch a Polanski film was introduced by an Anonymous.) Now I'd like to talk about dramaturgy and thespianism.
To my mind, verisimilitude is almost entirely irrelevant to dramatic effect. So, for example, there is no compelling reason not to cast a crusty 95 year old white man as a meek, diminutive, filipina nanny. If the old guy can carry the weight, he has the part. But that's not how movies and professional stage plays view the situation. They want mimics. This is aesthetically unfortunate, because it perpetuates a mistaken notion that theater is supposed to make the viewer believe he is "actually" seeing what he sees.
The essence of stage has to do with live people on the boards embodying their characters. The audience observes these live people. (None of this is possible in film, which is one reason I don't enjoy film.) The audience is in the same space as the performers, breathing the same air. The performance proceeds as the actors and audience work or hope to command each other's attention. This is why we can watch genuinely enjoyable productions of Our Town featuring high school kids in all the parts.
So, hurrah for the old guys, especially when they're not type-cast by Hollywood-types as old guys.
Whew. Finally, after two dozen comments on this thread, someone noticed that my original post was an homage to Eli Wallach. By the bye, what delighted me was not that Eli Wallach got to play an old man, but that at 95 he was able to play anything.
Re: Heiddeger
Being a believer in the the relationship between theory and praxis let us consider the situation. Did the great philosopher's theory lead him to the decisions he made at the time. Yes, and we don't need the smoking gun revelations of several years ago to draw that conclusion. On the other hand, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, et.al., held theories that led them to analyze and oppose Nazism. There is no better situation in which to apply the Woody Guthrie test: which side are you on?
And how did Woody Allen fail to be mentioned?
As to boycotts - the first boycott worked. Irish tenant famers refused to do business with the English Lord's estate manager, named Boycott. To try to prevent a total loss of crops for export, they brought in protestant laborers from the North under armed guard out of fear of violence. The cost of all this led to a big loss for Lord Erne. The first was successful, and the the most important one of my life was the the lettuce boycott by the United Farmworkers, which led to union recognition.
Why Woody Allen?
His early movies like "Everything you wanted to know about sex" are undoubtedly very sexist, I suppose because I haven't seen them since the time they first came out. However, are they more sexist than other Hollywood movies of that time?
Woody Allen, unlike Polanski, was never convicted of the charges against him, and while I have no idea if he is guilty or not, I suppose that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. It would very unfair to boycott his movies because of unproven accusations against him.
I was going to write the same thing Wallerstein, but grew too lazy and apathetic!
Mr. Wallerstein,
I suggest you look up the scandal that arose when Mia Farrow and Allen divorced. I won't suggest Chris look anything up lest I be accused of condescension (just kidding). Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing their severn year old daughter Dylan. The judge in the the case awarded custody to Farrow and said something along the lines that Allen shouldn't be left alone with Farrow's children. Later, Allen married the adopted daughter of Andre Previn and Mia Farrow. The interview given by Dylan 5 or 6 years ago received extensive coverage.
That issues of child abuse by Allen were not decided by trial in no way means he is innocent. I am surprised Chris would rely on a corrupt judicial system to make his moral judgements rather than the testimony of the victim.
Given some posts, I thought I would get called out on my Heiddegar comment.
CJM,
Let me be clear about what I think on the matter, since your tongue in cheek comments are still transparently assaults.
To be perfectly frank, just as I don't spend any time reading establishment op-eds I also spend no time reading celebrity news. This applies to everything from what are the latest shoes X celebrity endorsed, to why is said celebrity going to prison. I just don't participate in celebrity culture, period. Now, the degree to which I do or don't know about Allen, Polanski, etc., is that I do read about film and the arts, and as such will read reviews, and interviews, along with technical details, about these peoples' output. So I will read about Polanski in relation to Chinatown, and Allen in relation to Blue Jasmine, but I don't read about who they are or aren't dating. That said, when it comes to people like Polanski and Allen, unlike maybe I dunno Bergman or Wes Anderson, the 'celebrity news' always filters into the other stuff I'm pro-actively trying to read. E.g., if I'm going to read about Blue Jasmine, some marriage stuff is going to come up, and if I'm going to read about Ninth Gate, some child rape stuff is probably going to come up. So that's how I do or don't know about celebrity crimes. Inadvertently.
All I've ever read, or remember, about Allen is something like the following (of which I FULLY WANT TO BE CLEAR my summary may be woefully incorrect since I never tried to follow the story to begin with): Allen married a woman, who brought a daughter into the marriage. Eventually Allen left the woman he married for the daughter, when she was of legal age. There's some speculation that he molested this former daughter now wife, or some other daughter. I don't know. I never investigated it. And all I do know is, he wasn't found guilty of something, and I'm presuming that something was molestation. Whereas, if I remember correctly, Polanski was found guilty of child rape, and fled the country before he could be sentenced. So there's something different about the nature of the cases in relation to a guilty verdict.
Like Wallerstein, I also try to presume innocence until proven guilty, so I don't see why I should prefer YOUR TOTALLY LOADED ASSERTION that it is a "victim's testimony", when in order to be CONFIDENT they are a victim, we need to be confident Allen is guilty. If we aren't confident, he is guilty, we aren't confident this is a victims testimony. So, with my extremely ignorant understanding of the case, all I can muster is 'maybe Allen did molest a kid, I don't know, but I won't indict him off my limited knowledge'.
And the reason I don't care to research these cases in depth was already stated: I like their artistic works, regardless of who they are as humans, and to focus on them as humans in relation to their work, is to engage in ad hominem thinking.
And I’ll just throw your bullshit back in your face:
“That issues of child abuse by Allen were not decided by trial means he is innocent. I am surprised CJM would rely on a just judicial system to make his negative moral judgements rather than the testimony of the exonerated.”
Mr. Mulvaney,
If you look at this rather extensive Wikipedia article on the case, the judge concluded that the accusations of sexual abuse had not been proven and that decisions was upheld upon appeals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen_sexual_assault_allegation
Accusations of sexual abuse are hard to prove, I know and upon reading the article which I link to, I declare myself unable to decide if Woody Allen is guilty or not.
Chris,
Let's leave aside claims of bullshit as I expect we are both quite good at it. I intended to, shall we say, poke you a little but it seems even what seems to me to be relatively insignificant wise crack is an offensive attack to you. I presume you don't want to read my bull shit any more than I want to read yours. I suggest we engage in a non-engagement treaty. I will gleefully ignore your comments as you do the same to mine.
Let me know if you concur.
Fine, I guess CJM.
Or you could just play nice, but if that's impossible, I accept the treaty.
All right, but a final comment: if you think I haven't been playing nice, you are wrong.
I wish you the best in your academic and political endeavors.
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