by Sam Juliano
One of the greatest honors ever bestowed on a film blogger, was recently afforded our very good friend, Srikanth Srinivasan (Just Another Film Buff) for the incomparable work at his site, The Seventh Art, where his scholarly film criticism is unfailingly, lucid, descriptive and provocative. As many readers know, Srikanth is a master of Asian cinema and those brilliant artists who have not gained to attention of many movie goers worldwide, and some recent posts on the little-known Lisandro Alonso and Lav Diaz have raised the bar on awareness with some of the finest writing ever gifted to movie fans in the blogosphere. A two-part blog post on American icon John Ford, with extraordinary capsules on all his films is really the standard out there for Ford fans and American cinema in general. I say it’s high time this very great writer (and special human being too!) be recognized by the professionals, as his work easily matches the best in the field. Here is what Matt Connelly says in an evaluation where JAFB is sitting with the likes of Jonathan Rosenbaum and Paul Schraeder among other critical luminaries:
And I just cut and pasted the Connelly assessment here:
The Seventh Art
http://theseventhart.info
Print publications these days can barely muster a capsule review for most non-Western films released in the States, and that’s on a good week. Over at The Seventh Art, however, movies elsewhere given the 150-word write-off become the subject of lengthy reflection—the kind that newspapers normally reserve for important stuff like Sex and the City 2. Even better, the impressively prolific Srikanth Srinivasan matches quantity with quality. Alternating between directorial profiles, reviews of new releases, and reconsiderations of older works, Srinivasan’s posts are erudite yet accessible, displaying astute formal analysis and a deep knowledge of film history (a recent post on Lisandro Alonso persuasively connected his oeuvre to those of Tsai Ming-Liang, Robert Bresson, and the Italian Neorealists). Srinivasan’s expansive view doesn’t ignore U.S. cinema; the blog’s coverage of Inglourious Basterds remains among the most densely packed and satisfying on the Web. But this is a place where “American movies” tend to mean Bush Mama and Los Angeles Plays Itself rather than Avatar and its ilk. That a stinging pan of Cameron’s blockbuster gets roughly half the space of an appreciative look back at Lav Diaz’s filmography is enough to give the most despairing cinephile reason to hope.—Matthew Connolly
Here is the link to the full piece, found by Johnny-on-the-Spot Movie Man yesterday: http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ja10/filmcritusersguide.htm
And here is the beginning of JAFB’s latest post at The Seventh Art:
Xi Qu: West Of The Tracks (2003)
Wang Bing
Mandarin
“We have to leave sooner or later anyway. Can’t hold back the tides of progress.”
I’d so far thought that it was Jia’s The World (2004) that truly summed up the state of the third world in the first decade of the new century. While I’ve not changed my opinion entirely, Wang Bing’s phenomenal DV work Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2003) forces me to. Epic in scope and size, West of the Tracks is divided into three films subtitled Rust, Remnants and Rails. Between 1999 and 2001, when China had embarked on a mission of mass privatization of the country, Bing lived and shot this film in the district of Shenyang located in the city of Tie Xi in northeastern China where smelting and electrical industries were to be closed down. These industries were purportedly established by the Japanese to help them produce ammunitions for the war, but were nationalized after Japanese retreat. Although these factories were doing well till about the eighties, the profits started waning by the mid-nineties (due to bad management, some workers say) and, by the end of the decade, the factories had filed for bankruptcy resulting in mass layoffs and appalling cuts in pay of the workers. The film is a Herculean effort by a single man, who is credited as the producer, director, cinematographer and the editor of the film (which is ironical considering that this is the kind of film that tries to….
(continued at The Seventh Art)
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Wonders in the Dark 
I have been saying for many months that this wonderful guy is one of the best out there, and proof that the term ‘Gentleman and a Scholar’ has a real-life presence. Luckily he’s here with us in the blogosphere.
Congratlutions to Sirkanth, an honor well deserved for sure.
I just received my copy of FILM COMMENT in the mail yesterday and read the print article (Online Criticism) today written by Paul Brunick which is pretty good. The magazine does not mention the websites but does point to their website for the list.
Thanks John.
John, I thought that print article was great too. Here’s what I wrote over at Glenn Kenny’s blog where I first ran into it:
“I interviewed Gerald Peary, as did David Cairns, and in both cases he was pretty apologetic/defensive about the whole bloggers-are-spawn-of-Satan thing. To be fair, he does include a number of counterpoints in the film, with Ebert and Rosenbaum among others praising the blogosphere. But I think if he made the film again today he’d take a much more favorable approach to online criticism. Then again, it’s the very release of his film (which inevitably led him onto the internet, given the lack of other opportunities to get the word out) which probably helped change his mind…
But the best points Brunick makes have to deal with the idealization of the past: 1) yes, Kael and Sarris had more in common with amateur freelancers (because, basically, they were, at least initially) than latter-day newspaper professionals and 2) For the past 30 years, criticism was hardly thriving. He doesn’t really blame the critics for the latter point, and perhaps it would be a bit unseemly to gently tap in the last nail to their collective coffin, but I’ve been bothered for at least the past 10 years by a number of trends in criticism which blogging seems to be rectifying (albeit without the benefits that do come from editorial oversight, the pressure of deadlines, and the tightness which comes from knowing you’ll be shot down if you don’t meet snuff).
One bothersome trait is the tendency of critics, despite all their we’re-above-the-mainstream protestations (which even Brunick indulges) to fall in line with popularity. The best signifiers I can think of this phenomenon are the bizarre acclaim which greeted Jackson’s loathsome King Kong, and the tiresome apologia for effects-films penned by Richard Corliss. I think both were sincere, but I also think said sincerity was also influenced by a deep-seated desire to seem “relevant” and not like “old fogeys” (bloggers, who tend to be a younger, seem less worried about being seen as hip and with it). It’s also more than a bit ironic that Corliss, who somewhat pompously took Ebert to task for glossing on blockbusters in the early nineties, would himself do the same in a period where story and real film style (beyond the effects, all we’ve basically got our shaky-cam, whirly-cam, and close-up) arguably matter even less.
Also unfortunate is the loss of confidence in itself and the medium, though this is also a problem of format (the latter not being a fault of critics’). When you have to focus only on individual films, many of them terrible, your work is bound to seem less bold than, say, a polemic by Kael or Sarris. Meanwhile, on the other side of the reviewer/critic bridge, in the quarters which did encourage longer writing and broader views, “deep” criticism seemed to become more like a monastic scholarship, more concerned – rightly or wrong – with cultivating the flickering flame among the converted rather than waving the torch before the masses. Blogs – although they are still largely preach-to-the-converted affairs, seem to be positioned better for the latter position. We’ll see.
At any rate, online work (much of which, contra the Film Comment piece, not criticism but more general “movie talk” – including image-heavy non-writing), with its diversity, shameless enthusiasm, and conversational possibilities, is – I think – a massive improvement on the old film-enthusiast model, and great things COULD come from it; hopefully they do.”
Btw, I loved seeing Erich Kuersten on there too, another great blogger and cool guy who deserved a shout-out.
Sam,
You’re being overly generous. Thanks a zillion for for your kind words and for putting up a plug here.
While I’m very happy to be mentioned alongside those greats, it is also embarrassing to see the top dogs, most of whom are my favorite writers on the web, surprisingly missing. Ed, Joel, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Catherine Grant, Dennis Grunes, Noel Vera, Harry Tuttle and many, many more. And of course, also the sites of intense discussions and debates such as WitD are also curiously absent.
Thanks again, Sam.
Sorry, JAFB – I think I pointed Sam in this direction with my comment over there, ha ha! Unfortunatley I join with him in the chorus here – it was great to see you in that lineup & major congrats!
I missed this, so looks like I’m definitely the culprit: “Here is the link to the full piece, found by Johnny-on-the-Spot Movie Man yesterday: http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ja10/filmcritusersguide.htm”
I have to say it’s a pretty god lineup too; like JAFB there’s a slew of names I’d love to see on there as well but what they’ve got is a really good mix of casual and scholarly bloggers, moonlighting pros and erudite amateurs, with lots of different styles and approaches highlighted between (sometimes when “official” sites or writers praise the blogosphere, they sort of narrowly focus on “elite” blogs like Ebert’s or Bordwell’s, which is utterly fantastic by the way so that’s not a criticism, or poor axed Karina Longworth who was the media darling for a while; this focus seems to miss the point of what makes the blogosphere so refreshing, however).
Thanks once more, MovieMan. BTW, it was you who pointed me towards that site too!
Srikanth aka JAFB, my heartiest congratulations for this wonderful and thoroughly deserved honour. I’ve been of the opinion for a long time that JAFB’s essays rank among the most scholarly in the entire web, and his coverage of directors could easily be compiled into a book – they’re that good.
His film knowledge is truly unparalleled, his film film criticism is overwhelmingly thorough, precise & definitive, and his eye for detail might often leave one stumped. And as Sam mentioned, the best part lies in his ability to express complex critiques in disarmingly lucid language.
Three cheers to JAFB!!!
Thanks a lot, Shubhajit. I hope you are doing great at college.
I’ve missed the site entirely, always trying to read a few, but never having enough time to peruse them all.
Will make a link and follow up.
The writing here is always superb, and certainly, not because it’s here, but in print, it’s a crap shoot finding enough people who can make you want to not only keep reading, but to seek out what they are writing about.
This never happens here, and Cheers to ya’ll for doing it so well!
Me too. There’s a lot of sites on my mind that I’d like to follow. But I just keep forgetting.
This is fantastic for JAFB to get the publicity and he deserves it no question whatsoever, but the article itself is a bit slap-dash.
It pickes the Masters of Cinema site which has ceased to be for several syears, and is now only an advert for the Eureka MoC DVD releases. Where I have to ask did the Lincoln Centre do their research, or did they just seek out recommendations from other sites going back years without checking.
It picks Aint it Cool News and one or two other sites whose critical value is mediocre – that’s for the popcorn crunching masses. I mean, we all use DVDBeaver and Gary Tooze’s efforts are magnificent, but let’s face it, we don’t go for Gary’s wealkth of knowledge or writing – he himself would admit as much – it’s to see the caps of DVD/Blu Ray releases to judge quality.
But no matter, JAFB belongs in with the folks and sites there deservedly honoured. Let’s hope it brings some traffic his way.
Thanks Allan. Yes, the selection is highly puzzling. There are journals, blogs and sites – all thrown in there. That means their sample space should have been pretty large. I’m surprised at the exclusion of many such sites.
More baffled by some of the inclusions, but certainly not yours.
Oh and JAFB, don’t forget to come back tomorrow, I’ll need you… 🙂
Hmm. What’s tomorrow? I’ll be around surely.
The Knowles pick was baffling, though I have to say it’s by reputation only; I’ve never visited the fellow’s site.
Lucky you…
JAFB congrats to you. You have one of the great film blogs out there, and I read it as regularly as I can. Now I just need to start commenting every time I stop by.
A Well deserved honor, I hope you take the minute or two out of your day to take in. Now where is your paypal account so I can wire you 10 bucks so you can go buy a drink on me?
Thanks so much Jamie. I’ve already treated myself to two good movies.