"middlebrow," particularly regarding film

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Re Tombot's disgust with the term in Brokeback Snub thread: It's generally assumed that people who use "middlebrow" automatically mean as a dis. I don't. The quintessential middlebrow American filmmaker of the last 50 years might be Sidney Lumet, and I'd put his best (Dog Day Afternoon and Prince of the City) alongside any film from last year, including Munich, The New World or 2046. He's m-b because he can make movies that are rich and bursting with good acting, but doesn't do anything with film grammar (or attempt to) that hasn't been done before.

(And he's got a new courtroom satire! with Vin Diesel!)

Except for maybe A River Runs Through It, Robert Redford has failed to live up to his onetime promise as a King of Middlebrow. If Judd Hirsch could be successfully expunged from Ordinary People in favor of a tolerable actor, I'd say it deserved its '80 Oscar win over Raging Bull.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:29 (nineteen years ago)

Curtis Hanson

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

haha I was going to start this thread today but then I didn't.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

I like monobrow films.

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

The most unfairly-maligned genre since hairy back films.

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:34 (nineteen years ago)

for me no style, genre, use of actors, intended audience, or intended effect is automatically bad. but then i have been accused of being so open minded my brain falls out. i prefer to try to determine a work of art's inner integrity, it's own coherence or rules of expression, before judging it as suceeding or failing. the drawback to this is it is often VERY hard to determine if something is good or bad.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:34 (nineteen years ago)

so my point: there are good and bad middlebrow films!

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:35 (nineteen years ago)

Curtis Hanson: I won't object, despite the arty design of L.A. Confidential ... and given theway he made Wonder Boys more conventional than it had to be. But the rest of his filmography (besides Eminem) suggests lowbrow (The River Wild, Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Bad Influence) and not the good kind!

Oldskool naturals: George Stevens, Michael Curtiz, Wm Wyler.

I like monobrow films.

How is Dweezil doin?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:39 (nineteen years ago)

how about directors who are perceived as highbrow but in fact are middlebrow? copolla, wilder, scorcese...

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

i believe Sam Mendes and the English patient guy (too lazy to look up it up, Minghella or something) have made strong cases to be considered the new Kings of this. I hate the former, can tolerate the latter. Actually, Brits in Hollywood do this well, perhaps because Anglophilia and American Middlebrowism go hand-in-hand.

― Stanley Kramer, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:41 (nineteen years ago)

scorsese wasn't middlebrow in the 70s, surely?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:42 (nineteen years ago)

Middlebrow is no dis, agreed. Capote and most of Ang Lee's filmography qualify.

Joseph Ruben had a good streak for a while: The Stepfather, True Believer, Return to Paradise.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:43 (nineteen years ago)

Oh! Stephen Frears is definitely middlebrow.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:43 (nineteen years ago)

curtis hanson may be a middlebrow but more than that he's an incompetent

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

As likely argued in the Brokeback thread, middlebrow filmmakers can be counted on to reap Oscars (James L Brooks!).

I would never call Scorsese middlebrow; even his Leo Would-Be Blockbusters have had idiosyncratic or wondrous things in them. Coppola, high-middle. Wilder, yeah.

All of Ang Lee's filmography qualifies.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

not sure J.D. i could go either way.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

yeah Lee of course. Brokeback is in fact a very good middlebrow film id say.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

there is no way the hulk is a middlebrow movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:50 (nineteen years ago)

i mean, whatever it is, it ain't middlebrow. i'm not even sure it's brow at all.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:50 (nineteen years ago)

As with far right and far left politically, extreme highbrow and extreme lowbrow often intersect or become elusive: John Waters, Russ Meyer, the Kuchar Brothers -- Larry Clark? Stephen Chow, Jerry Lewis?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

there is no way the hulk is a middlebrow movie!

All these candidates make frequent attempts to break the mold into which they've inserted themselves (e.g. The Hulk, Wilder's Love in the Afternoon)

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

god i hate love in the afternoon! haha

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha don't get s1ocki started on love in the afternoon!!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

uh, x-post

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

i dont like Wilder in general! haha. he is a BAD middlebrow filmmaker!

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

i'll still rep for lots of wilder.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

ryan you nutter wilder is great! how can you argue with sunset blvd, dble indemnity and uh all the rest? except love in the afternoon?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

Wilder is a BAD middlebrow filmmaker!

The Front Page yes, Double Indemnity no. (And Kiss Me, Stupid is a spirited pass at lowbrow, sort of.)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

i will not justify my assertion!

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

shaddup and deal!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:00 (nineteen years ago)

ryan is not a mensch!

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

here is my argument: come on guys, you know Wilder sucks. just think about it. look into your heart, really, and tell me he doesn't suck. you know he does.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

doesn't do anything with film grammar (or attempt to) that hasn't been done before.

I don't know what 'film grammar' is (though it sounds like the film cognate of the kind of thing that's important to Guy Mann-Dude fans). Nor would I claim that Sidney Lumet focused on something other than storytelling-with-meaning. But is it possible that his directorial touches, like the slow lowering of the camera throughout 12 Angry Men, are simply unobtrusive?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

what's Michael Mann?

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:08 (nineteen years ago)

But is it possible that his directorial touches, like the slow lowering of the camera throughout 12 Angry Men, are simply unobtrusive?

See, but you'd have to watch every film made to make sure it hadn't been done before - otherwise, it's still middlebrow.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:10 (nineteen years ago)

Woody Allen!

(/trolling)

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

But think about it!

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

Match Point was definitely middlebrow.

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

i dont like Wilder in general! haha. he is a BAD middlebrow filmmaker!

So? Wilder made a lot of awful films, and some worse than that; so did Hawks, Preminger, Wyler, Curtiz, Cukor, and all the other vassals of the studio system.

Woody Allen's a great example.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:13 (nineteen years ago)

Peter Bogdanovich.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

Wilder and Allen are most definitely WRITERS first, and if you don't find their comedies funny, well, "that tears it." But Allen certainly has developed a visual style, which I thought was the best thing about Match Point.

is it possible that his directorial touches, like the slow lowering of the camera throughout 12 Angry Men, are simply unobtrusive?

Sure -- you've got to be resourceful to make a one-set TV play work like that. Funnily made me think of Billy Wilder complaining that florid camera movements -- something like "Over the roof, down the chimney, in the fireplace ... POV: Santa Claus!"

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

How about some middlebrow foreign filmmakers?

Exhibit A: Francois Truffaut

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:21 (nineteen years ago)

hawks actually made surprisingly few really BAD films.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:25 (nineteen years ago)

Exhibit A: Francois Truffaut

Post-Jules et Jim certainly. Post-The Story of Adele H he did nothing of interest.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:25 (nineteen years ago)

I thought people were avoiding talking about Woody Allen because it was so obvious.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

what about M. Night Shamalyan?

(I hate him, btw)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

he's somewhere between low middlebrow and high lowbrow.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

(i started to say x-post but hey it works for truffaut, allen AND shy-whatsisname!)

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

I should add: Truffaut was always a middlebrow with highbrow aspirations (his essential conservatism eventually alienated his good friend Godard). His first film was The 400 Blows, for crissakes! Shoot the Piano Player and Jules et Jim were aberrations.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Lot of New York filmmakers on this thread...

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

did anyone ever incorporate animation into adult movies before annie hall? or talking across the split-screen? or all that fourth-wall breaking? he's definitely not middlebrow by morbs' description. but maybe that description is flawed...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:38 (nineteen years ago)

zelig too!

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

Post-The Story of Adele H he did nothing of interest.

My dander is arisen! The Green Room.

Funny no one is offering up lowbrows -- too much consensus? Michael Bay, John Guillermin, Jules White?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

I should add: Truffaut was always a middlebrow with highbrow aspirations

sure it's not the other way around?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

Where does Paul Verhoeven go?

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, I think Allen fucks with formal conventions more often than he's given credit for (Deconstructing Harry, Purple Rose of Cairo, Zelig, the weirdly "wrong" musical Everyone Says I Love You, etc.)

tho I think my favorite camera trope of his is one he used a couple times in Match Point - where the camera is held stationary on a character who suddenly notices another character off-screen and begins talking to them. (I'm not describing this well...)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

is Lynch middlebrow?

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

Allen fucks with conventions in a middlebrow way i think.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

Lynch is highbrow. Verhoeven is lowbrow.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

may as well throw Cronenberg out there...? He seems pretty middlebrow to me - tries to deal with "big" ideas, but uses lots of genre conventions and structures (also one of my favorites, btw)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:46 (nineteen years ago)

I can see that trope you describe, Shakey.

The 400 Blows was reasonably highbrow to US audiences, I'd say. What was Jean Vigo?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:46 (nineteen years ago)

Jean Vigo? No way! L'Atalante is like Murnau crossed with what would become classic Renoir (the dream sequence; the long takes with the couple just talking).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:50 (nineteen years ago)

I think the Fly--Dead Ringers era marks DC as highbrow ... well, Crash too.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

well i certainly never want to see another movie again

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:56 (nineteen years ago)

Film's too easy, let's do abstract expressionists:

Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still - highbrow
Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock - middlebrow
Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman - lowbrow

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 22:57 (nineteen years ago)

What's you guys' take on Polanski?

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:00 (nineteen years ago)

i love you gear

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

lotsa high-minded genre stuff with "names"--he's middlebrow

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

actually, Renoir had definite middlebrow tendencies - humanism is v. middlebrow

― jean roberto, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

how long before this thread becomes just more lame ilx iconoclasm

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

middlebro

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

"we'd better stop the germans before it's too late" - roosevelt, dec. '41

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

"middlebrow" hmmm. i don't like the term, but i still think it applies fairly to many of my favorite films. i mean movies with cultural capital (not "genre" films) and a certain awards-baiting quality but not high (modernist) art by any means. stuff like late mizoguchi or middle-period ford. or powell and pressburger ! although i'm not entirely sure about that last; were p&p too weird to be middlebrow?

i don't think this term makes ANY kind of sense for renoir, except (maybe maybe maybe maybe) his postwar films.

― amateurist0, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

a better term for this might be manny farber's "white elephant art," though without the negative connotations that farber implied.

― amateurist0, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:06 (nineteen years ago)

And just whose icons are being clasmed, s1ocki?

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

no one wants to be called middle class either, but

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

PT Anderson!

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

i don't think this term makes ANY kind of sense for renoir, except (maybe maybe maybe maybe) his postwar films

Yeah. Renoir, as always, is his own category.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

i dont think there has been a really hardcore pulp/lobrow director for decades--corman, API, mid70s grindhouse, which i think is a more interesting question then middlebrow, which seems to be both snobbish and dismissive.

(i will take arguments for QT, but his budgets are too high and he cares too much about narrative/charachterzation)

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:11 (nineteen years ago)

QT might be middlebrow, but he seems to piss off so many middlebrow types (no oscars).

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:13 (nineteen years ago)

i dont think there has been a really hardcore pulp/lobrow director for decades

Does the Troma stable merit inclusion here?

― phil d. (Phil D.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

have they done anything worthwhile since the 80s?

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

How about some middlebrow foreign filmmakers?

Haha, every foreign filmmaker that gets regular U.S. distribution!

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:18 (nineteen years ago)

no. Tromeo and Juliet was horrible.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:18 (nineteen years ago)

C0L1N otm

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:19 (nineteen years ago)

How about some middlebrow foreign filmmakers?

C0L1N is right, Alejandro Amenábar and Walter Salles come to mind.

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

Or Charles Band if we're counting DTV stuff? He's still cranking out lowbrow by the pound.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

Next to, like, Kubelka and Watkins and Brakhage and Marker, everything is pretty middlebrow. So yay middlebrow! And highbrow! And especially lowbrow!

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

U2 is the most middlebrow band.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

which means that Wim Wenders is also waaay middlebrow

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

Note the rapid shift away from discussing the meaning, aptness or legitimacy of the term "middlebrow" (mittelbrauenheit) when applied to films and the substitution of quibbling over which films or filmmakers are or are not middlebrow.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure 'white elephant art' covers the whole spectrum of 'middlebrow'. There are plenty of American indies and bland Euro/Latin American stuff (movies that would play at the Angelika or the Quad, for example)that could be called middlebrow but not white elephant art.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

Aimless otm (and beat me to teh Mittelbrau gag)

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

ahem i think i raised this point already

" how long before this thread becomes just more lame ilx iconoclasm

-- s1ocki (slytus...), Today 6:03 PM. (slutsky) (later)"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not positive that white elephant art, as per Farber, really exists today.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:29 (nineteen years ago)

and if we are playing the abex game, barnett newman is highbrow, and joan mitchell would be low brow

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

I'm a middlebrow filmmaker.

― Adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:32 (nineteen years ago)

s1ocki otm

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:32 (nineteen years ago)

is someone going to justify the use of the term "middlebrow"? what does it get you?

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know, a lot of the stuff on this thread strikes me as pretty highbrow, although maybe it's a question of when you're seeing it -- i.e. who watches Truffaut these days except people that are serious about movies? (Whereas in the '60s, watching Truffaut was probably more of a thing that people of a certain sociocultural class just sort of did.) Today, I think of something like The Motorcycle Diaries -- a foreign film marketed to Utne Reader subscribers -- as middlebrow. (Which is maybe why the characters in Match Point go to see it.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:34 (nineteen years ago)

i'd use the word 'middlebrow' for a movie more so than a filmmaker, but even then its contextual.

― ant@work, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

s1ocki otm

-- Dayglo Redd (louder...), March 8th, 2006 6:32 PM.

― Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

well really the only point that interests me as far its being a useful term is to what degree the breaking of formal conventions has to do with it (ie, "innovations" in film grammar being an indicator of "highbrow")

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:40 (nineteen years ago)

but the language of "brow" is more a matter of the sociology of taste rather than naming any particular formal features of art.

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

so its more about the audience/who a film appeals to...?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

THANK YOU HORSESHOE

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, the use of the word is, I think, usually a veiled assessment of the audience moreso than the work. That's why it's essentially suspect as a descriptor.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

Read one Herbert Gans.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:50 (nineteen years ago)

honestly, I think it's more about the audience a certain cast of critic fears a film/novel/whatever might appeal to. but maybe I'm revealing my kneejerk irritation at the term. it's also got a specific history in the American 1950s, hasn't it?

I can see how it's useful for some kinds of criticism. a professor of mine in college was working on a book about the American musical as the quintessence of the notion of "middlebrow." But he wasn't taking middlebrowness for granted, he was assuming it was a problematic term. and he loves the American musical. his argument was about class and tastemaking, I think.

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 23:52 (nineteen years ago)

rrrrobyn: i'm not sure i understand what "middlebrow" is meant to mean
i mean, in the ile context

me: yeah, i think i must be misunderstanding it, b/c as i use it, it has way more to do with marketing and demographics and communities of taste

rrrrobyn: yeah, that's what i was thinking
but it seems they're using it in a more "film" sense
as in, comparing to other films
rather than broader socialcultural contexts

me: right. yeah. to me, middlebrow = NPR types of things .... things that are designed to appeal to a class that considers itself more intellectual or more cultured, but the actual work isn't necessarily all that challenging -- but it rewards their sense of superiority, maybe

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:02 (nineteen years ago)

I would like to read that book, Horseshoe.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:04 (nineteen years ago)

the thread made it this far without mention of Chocolat/Lasse Hallstrom?????

― nile robeks, Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:07 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, that's a good example.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

i mean on some level it's just meant to identify a work whose audience is middle-class, right? its function usually seems to be to construct an aristocracy of taste which includes the person-who-identifies-x-work-as-middlebrow. the reason I connect it with the '50s is because wasn't there a bit of hysteria around then on the part of some cultural critics that the middlebrowization of taste was weakening America? i can see how it's seductive as a term, because everyone wants to have good taste, but it's ultimately just epithet-hurling, right?

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

i'm going to try to find out if he ever wrote the book, jaymc. if so, I shall return. (he taught a great class on the American musical. one of my favorites).

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

it's middlebrow to be concerned about what is middlebrow and what isn't middlebrow. hence woody allen = middlebrow. also, me.

― fauxhemian (fauxhemian), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think "the upper class" is really that high-minded when it comes to culture.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:50 (nineteen years ago)

OK, so then where are we then?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:55 (nineteen years ago)

I'm more interested in Morbs proposed re-casting of the term than all this meaningless class bullshit.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:58 (nineteen years ago)

but couldn't you just say "conventional" instead of "middlebrow"?

― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 9 March 2006 04:43 (nineteen years ago)

how about Baz Luhrmann? Is he a middlebrow who tries to achieve "art" or something "highbrow" through lowbrow means/methods/references. Or is he just plain tacky (campy low)???

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:10 (nineteen years ago)

i just sold all my dvds and drilled into the part of my brain that receives and comprehends cinema.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:10 (nineteen years ago)

ALTMAN

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:25 (nineteen years ago)

haha otm!!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:33 (nineteen years ago)

MIKE LEIGH

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:36 (nineteen years ago)

i kind of want to say 'BARRY LEVINSON'

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:37 (nineteen years ago)

everyone in the history of the cinema is a card-carrying middlebrower except the following ppl:

1) lars von trier
2) d w griffith
3) danny kaye
4) lassie

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:41 (nineteen years ago)

VON TRIER IS THE MAYOR ORF MIDDLEBROW

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:47 (nineteen years ago)

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:02 (nineteen years ago)

oh, i don't know, von trier is pretty much the pioneer of the GET ORF MOI LARND school of suprarealist film-making, no? radio 4 should give him a few episodes of the archers to do.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:05 (nineteen years ago)

he would do it using just the one microphone, to demonstrate something or other.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:10 (nineteen years ago)

The problem with the term, which I think was identified above is that the "middle" bit is clearly linked with middle-class, when actually what it means is some sort of middle-intellect, which is a dangerous thing to consider. The question might be to what extent is this an audience identification issue rather than anything tot do with the films at all? (Except of course that films are made, marketed and aimed at a particular audience). Is it in the end about claiming some sort of cultural pretensions.

I don't like the term and wouldn't use it as it doesn't seem to have any useful purpose. I think where we got to on the Cache(Hidden) thread identified it as middlebrow - but we could happily do it without use of the term and with a much better identification of what it meant (something that flatters you intellectually but actually ain't all that seems to be the most adequate summary).

Are we dissing some good directors who have a great grasp of narrative but bonkers ideal/politics/stories (hello Lars).

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:37 (nineteen years ago)

"something that flatters you intellectually but actually ain't all that seems to be the most adequate summary"

is it, yeah, it's what i mean by von trier anyway.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

I agree its common usage is all about the audience.

frequently top-shelf middlebrow of '70s and '80s= Paul Mazursky

Barry Levinson was the geographic center of '80s middlebrow.

contemptible Euro highbrows = Noe and Breillat, von Trier moving up

QT might be middlebrow, but he seems to piss off so many middlebrow types (no oscars).

Best screenplay for Pulp Fiction.

recent Oscar-winning lowbrows: Benigni, Haggis

I'd like to say the most popular current lowbrows are the Stiller-O. Wilson-Vaughn-Ferrell frat pack, but I'd hafta see one of those films to be sure.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 14:53 (nineteen years ago)

'melinda and melinda' or 'the royal tenenbaums' -- i'm sure you could stomach them.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:01 (nineteen years ago)

I mean films where two or more of those guys are the exclusive draw, obv.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:11 (nineteen years ago)

I guess you could make an argument for Gene Hackman as the "exclusive draw" of the Tenenbaums but Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller pretty much make the movie for me. Also the fact that Owen wrote the thing probably helps power up his draw status in the Wes Anderson filmography...

I mean, you're right, Wilson-Vaughn-Stiller are the top of the lowbrow comedy by a long shot but the way you phrased that was rather unsneakily dismissive.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

i think part of the 'thing' with the frat pack is they obviously aren't 'just' 'lowbrow'; i mean, as allyzay said wilson co-wrote on wes anderson's first three films; i doubt you'd get rob schneider guesting on 'curb'; and vince vaughn's doing a movie with david o. russell.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:19 (nineteen years ago)

Wes Anderson is the primary draw for his films, which is why he's had no big hits.

fer Chrissake, I'm talking about the FRAT PACK FILMS, ie the ones that are marketed as HEY, STRAIGHT (MOSTLY) GUYS -- BEER, TITS AND DICK JOKES!

I was being dismissive only in that it's the kind of stuff I'm not interested in (as Will Ferrell's '04 Bush ad parody is the ONLY time he's ever made me laugh). The first film of that pile I will probably end up seeing is Zoolander.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

morbius how could you say haggis is a lowbrow when he clearly fits almost everyone's description of middlebrow in this thread?

i think morbs' narrowish definition of MB at the top maybe has some merit (as applies to lumet, levinson etc). but over the course of this thread the term, and pretty much everything else in this poor world, has lost all meaning.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

The homo-scared LA crowd THINK Haggis is a middlebrow; like their '50s equivalents probly thought Sirk was a borderline lowbrow.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

HEY, STRAIGHT (MOSTLY) GUYS -- BEER, TITS AND DICK JOKES!

yeah that's the sum total of the appeal of 'dodgeball', 'forty-year-old virgin', etc.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

Owen Wilson's career is too much of conceptual prank on the industry to really be low brow.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:38 (nineteen years ago)

or he's just, you know, a talented comic actor who doesn't get too hung up shit.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

or he just plays Dignan over and over. I know, there are many worse things.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

he doesn't really...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

i mean, he has more or less the same "presence" in most roles but so do most comic actors. or most successful actors. i feel like i've said this on ilx at least 2382392 times right now (not specifically about owen wilson mind).

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

recent Oscar-winning lowbrows: Benigni, Haggis

See, these don't make sense to me, either. Benigni is a perfect example of middlebrow, since he's in a Foreign Film about the Holocaust, which lulls upwardly mobile middle-class audiences into thinking they are seeing something Serious and Intellectual and so they profess to love it, when there is really not much going on and it remains perfectly unchallenging. Haggis, too, with his Ensemble Drama about Racism.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

How would you know, Morbius? You just admitted to avoiding 98% of his films. xpost

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

Also the idea that Wes Anderson is the main draw for those films is laughable considering the reception his last film (you know, the one where he decided to "go a different direction" in writing) got...

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

The homo-scared LA crowd THINK Haggis is a middlebrow

No one wants to admit they have middlebrow tastes, do they?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:51 (nineteen years ago)

How would you know, Morbius? You just admitted to avoiding 98% of his films.

98% seems high ... from every clip and trailer of the ones I don't see? Kind of the way you know the tone of the Crash naysayers is "disgusting at best" without seeing that.

Ah, a shitload of work to do today, seeyabye.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

Wes Anderson ...decided to "go a different direction" in writing

I assume the quotes mean Zissou wasn't a different direction, cuz it wasn't. And I'm pretty sure it grossed more than Rushmore if less than TRT.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

Owen Wilson's career is too much of conceptual prank on the industry to really be low brow.

That's the best line I've read this morning.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:03 (nineteen years ago)

Be that as it may, Bill Murray and not Wes Anderson was the draw for The Life Aquatic by any meaningful measure. At least any meaningful measure that translates into $$$.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

I wouldn't label Wes Anderson as middlebrow; does he have a brow at all? He's like failed surrealist Jacques Tati or something.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

can we talk about filmmakers who are JR brow?

http://www.penguinscomedyclub.com/images/jr%20brow.jpg

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

anthony you forget lots of ilx fave lobrow direx -- also the something about mary guys, etc.

i think speaking of bros that the cohens moved into middlebrow somewhere round fargo.

i agree with nrq on wilson tho -- he's just an effortless sort of character actor and he just likes to do that.

truffaut's doinel films are also rilly not that middlebrow as a whole unless you mean like updike middlebrow except with more fourth-wall tomfoolery which makes them covert roth rilly, which is hardly middlebrow at all coz of its risky preachy uneavenness, but truffaut is less uneven which is why they're more crypto-roth than real-roth.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

americanize the brow system:
upper-middlebrow
solidly middlebrow
lower-middlebrow
bluecollarbrow
ghettobrow

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

Morbius, I think saying the tone of someone's actual written posts is "disgusting" is a little different from claiming a film is terrible without having seen it. If you honestly think what was disgusting to me about some of what has been said vis a vis Crash/BBM is some value judgement on either film, you are...what was it...? "Dumber than you appear to be"?

BUT THAT IS ANOTHER THREAD Let's talk about this JR Brow some more.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

http://xo.typepad.com/blog/skittlebrau%20(Custom).jpg

― phil d. (Phil D.), Thursday, 9 March 2006 16:49 (nineteen years ago)

Here's to good threads
This one is kind of special
The films we adore
Must be something Mor-
Bius
Can scorn
So tonight, tonight
Let it be middlebrow

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Thursday, 9 March 2006 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

Watching this thread is just like watching the Powerball(TM) ping-pong balls bouncing around in their lucite cage and then popping out one by one and rolling slowly to rest so you can read the name of the movie or director written on them. Neat!

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 9 March 2006 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

do you have any of that new beer with skittles in it, you know "Skittlebrau"?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 March 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

eight years pass...

AO Scott thinks the surge in socioeconomic equality is killing middlebrow culture, and we are the poorer for it.

The natural affinity of the high and low, and their mutual suspicion of the middle, has been a remarkably durable idea, though it has never proven to be anything more than an idea, a nostalgic vision of ideal order. At heart it is a fantasy of aesthetic authenticity secured by static and hierarchical social distinctions. A world of landlords and peasants, of masters and servant, of patrons and workers is one in which art and life harmonize. In such a world, the middle will always be a place of vulgarity and ostentation, of the kind of money-grubbing, backslapping, self-conscious display Woolf (or at least her notional duchess) would flee to the basement to avoid....

More does not always mean better, but the years after World War II were a grand era of more. In Pikettian terms, the rate of growth exceeded the rate of return on capital, and the result was a culture as well as a society that became less stratified and more egalitarian.

High culture became more accessible, popular culture became more ambitious, until the distinction between them collapsed altogether. Some of the mixing looks silly or vulgar in retrospect: stiff Hollywood adaptations or comic-book versions of great novels; earnest television broadcasts about social problems; magazines that sandwiched serious fiction in between photographs of naked women. But much of it was glorious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/arts/a-resurgence-in-inequality-and-its-effects-on-culture.html

Not sure I've seen that swell 1949 chart before either.

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 August 2014 18:06 (eleven years ago)

bad post for a day when yr sploojin over a humongous kiddie movie i guess

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 August 2014 23:44 (eleven years ago)

If Judd Hirsch could be successfully expunged from Ordinary People in favor of a tolerable actor, I'd say it deserved its '80 Oscar win over Raging Bull.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 8, 2006 4:29 PM (8 years ago)

Hope you've changed your mind on this.

― clemenza, Monday, 4 August 2014 23:51 (eleven years ago)

"if" mofo

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 August 2014 23:55 (eleven years ago)

Do you think AO Scott actually read Capital

― polyphonic, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:01 (eleven years ago)

I see the "if," but what I'm saying is there's a lot more than Judd Hirsch that separates those two films. Anyway, another thread.

― clemenza, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:03 (eleven years ago)

ive read 120 pages of it, i think he prob did at least that

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:08 (eleven years ago)

anyway

http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/png.png

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:09 (eleven years ago)

shit, not big enough

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:10 (eleven years ago)

if you open it in a browser it looks fine

― polyphonic, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:11 (eleven years ago)

I thought every Brooklyn resident had already downloaded that chart onto a smart phone.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:11 (eleven years ago)

quite a lot of that inverted now i suppose

― go ahead. make vid where u rap about this new TMNT movie. (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:13 (eleven years ago)

as soon as we saw it in Harpers, on the trolley to Ebbets Field

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:14 (eleven years ago)

re: the 1949 chart -

http://crookedtimber.org/2009/10/20/highbrow-lowbrow-middlebrow/
https://web.archive.org/web/20071020152554/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1983/4/1983_4_42.shtml

http://crookedtimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/highbrow20002.jpg http://crookedtimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/highbrow20003.jpg

― etc, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:28 (eleven years ago)

rip Dwight Macdonald

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:29 (eleven years ago)

I love the de-evolution of the Whistler title.

― polyphonic, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 00:31 (eleven years ago)

also if you even refer to me on so much as a film thread i will hunt you down

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius)

― balls, Tuesday, 5 August 2014 01:27 (eleven years ago)

nobody mourning the loss of middlebrow on ilx huh

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 16 August 2014 05:41 (eleven years ago)

I do think the celebration of Boyhood suggests m'brow isnt quite dead yet

but it has to be released like an art film

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 16 August 2014 05:43 (eleven years ago)

that's a bit harsh but i wouldn't exactly fight you over it

― go ahead. make vid where u rap about this new TMNT movie. (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 16 August 2014 05:44 (eleven years ago)

it's not making art-film money!

― I dunno. (amateurist), Saturday, 16 August 2014 08:56 (eleven years ago)

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