The thing is carney doesn't critize them for being mainstream artists. He critizes them for lacking real depth. He has written about franz capra after all. Carney is one of those art for the sake of truth types.
I'm not saying that there aren't any great independent film-makers or great independent films, but the reality is that art has always followed money and commercial success is no proof that an artist has sold out (Shakespeare anyone?). I'm also highly suspicious of any critic who suggests that all that you know is wrong... the best art is this sh** that only I know about. It's usually just an attempt to raise the critic's own status (if only in his own mind) by trying to appear as the lone visionary not taken in by the system. I'm always reminded of a high-school friend who brags of having known Trent Reznor before he had a contract with Nine Inch Nails, but declared he was all washed up and had sold out the moment he got the recording contract. After all... at that point he was no longer the unknown "genius" that only he knew about.
Dismissing the best big name film-makers in favor of the independents is commonly based either in resentment ("The guys I admire aren't as well known as they should be.") or a sad attempt to make oneself appear far more sophisticated than the rest of the peons ("You've never heard of X? He's far better than all the big names.") You get the same this in all the arts. Critics who would dismiss the bigger named classical composers (new or old) for some little-known figure sometimes not even available in commercial recording ("J.S. Bach? Ha! You should hear Zelenka! Penderecki's a sell-out. eRikm is the real sh**!")... and you get the same in literature and the visual arts. continued...
What about the great independent filmmakers who are even greater than big hollywood filmmakers like kubrick or hitchcock? I;m not just talking smack, there are actualy scholars who would most of the hollywood directors regarded as great aren't as good as some say they are. http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/aboutrc/letters.shtml This partcular scholar has facisnating view not just on film but art as well. In fact he is a multi-disciplinary scholar.
I do watch classic films... Kubrick, Hitchcock, John Huston, Tarkovsky, Bergman, etc... although I don't follow them to the extent that I do literature, painting, or music. I'm slowly building up my DVD collection. I picked up a couple of classics over the holidays: The Maltese Falcon, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu (I'm a big fan of German Expressionism) The Manchurian Candidate, Casablanca, and a few others.
John cassevettes, mike leigh, and Andrei Tarvosky?
Are you aware of the art of Film? Do you know of the true great filmmakers like
In fact, when I learned you were married, I thought you were a lesbian.
For a while ther, I thought you were a woman. I got more of that when I had a Rubens paintings of his sister-in-law as my avatar. I had one guy write me that I had dashed his sexual fantasies when he discovered I wasn't some passionate female academic.
For a while ther, I thought you were a woman.
