Rule #1: If you will read Eschaton, everything Simps says is a lie or a distortion in support of a lie. That is if it isn't a repetition of something he's repeating from someone else.
I never said Raymond Chandler would have written better if he came to terms with his latent gayness, though it might have helped. He'd have needed to cut the racism and sexism, and at least half of the gaudy similes and metaphors, the absurd accounts of Philip Marlowe drinking and getting hit. The tough-guy cynicism, what people take to be Marlowe's heroic character. Those are pure comic book unreality.
As he was, Raymond Chandler had obvious sexual issues that led him to be a drunken lout. Not to mention the obvious mommy issues.
Most people know Chandler through movies made of his books, his writing was a range of quality from good to shit. It is kind of an indictment of the allegedly educated class that they took what were, essentially, adolescent male fantasies - commercially cranked out kiddies' books - as great literature. It was easy, in the way of tough-guy fiction, especially the kind that got turned into cookie-cutter noir movies. But he was an entirely inferior writer compared to Dorothy B. Hughes.
Update: You really think that's going to bother me, don't you. If, as you claim, only two people read what I write it's still two more than read what Duncan doesn't write. And more than two people read what I write.
"Most people know Chandler through
ReplyDeletemovies made of his books...[that] were, essentially, adolescent male fantasies -
commercially cranked out kiddies' books... the kind that got
turned into cookie-cutter noir movies."
Ah yes....cookie-cutter noir movies like THE BIG SLEEP, FAREWELL MY LOVELY or Chandler's screenplays for THE BLUE DAHLIA or DOUBLE INDEMNITY.
"But he was an entirely inferior
writer compared to Dorothy B. Hughes."
Sure thing. Particularly the cookie cutter noir made from Hughes' RIDE THE PINK HORSE. I'm totally sure you've seen that one, Sparkles.
The way that "noir" became identified as a type was through the repetitive aspects of those movies, the plots, the characters, the acting, the directing, especially the sets. Essentially how gingerbread men are stamped out with minor variations and, typically, with the same goal, easy consumption by children, often with the real goal being to sell them.
DeleteYou do know your knowing Dorothy Hughes only through a movie (or, knowing you, a quick google or wiki of her name) made of something she wrote rather proves my point, or you would if you could think, which you can't because movies, TV and crappy pop music have formed your mind.
As I've noted, Hollywood had no problem wrecking the point of her best book, In A Lonely Place. I never saw the movie you're talking about but I doubt they treated her book any better. Hollywood almost always knocks a book down in quality to make a movie out of it because Hollywood does that. It's stupid people or smart hacks turning out product for sale, not art.
There’s so much ignorance, snobbery and bullshit in those three paragraphs that it’s probably setting some kind of world record. Kudos, Sparkles !
ReplyDeleteThat's the difference between us, Supy, I understand what Hollywood is, you're caught up in the tinsel and plastic confetti of its PR and the accumulated residuum of that, what's called "cinema history," which is just more of the PR bull shit about it. I'm not caught up in it.
DeleteI enjoyed some of Bogart's movies when I was younger, some of the others, though I didn't see what the point of a not of that noir junk was, it was kind of fun. But I grew up. Now I know all of that cynicism was just a pose of sophistication and honesty instead of honesty. Movies don't do honesty much, with a few exceptions.
When James Agee made his comment about nothing being better than movies, it was one of the stupidest things he ever said. If you go back and look at his movie criticism, some of it is great, lots of it is really awful. That's the way it is with the movies. I go back and look at things like The Front Page or The Maltese Falcon and I find even Bogie gets hard to take after you've seen them several times (though Peter Lore is far more durable and in many ways the far better actor).
They were a commercial product that temporarily pretended to be art but it wasn't often they rose to the level of a good and almost never to the level of a great book. It takes two hours to see a movie. Books, read at far more words per minute than you can get in spoken dialogue take longer to read. They couldn't possibly fit in as much information as a good writer writing a book for an audience of intelligent adults presents into a movie. So even the best intentions of movie makers is an attack on the integrity of a book. They can do comedy well, though, like most comedy, that dates, if anything, even more quickly.
You know, Stups, I could make your head explode if I keep this up. This heresy against pop kulcha.
1. "I go back and look at things like The Front Page or The Maltese Falcon and I find even Bogie gets hard to take after you've seen them several times "
ReplyDeleteBogart was in The Front Page? Who knew? Oh wait, he wasn't.
2. "Peter Lore [sic] is far more durable and in many ways the far better actor)."
Says the man who has obviously never seen Lorre's performances in Roger Corman quickies.
3. "You know, Stups, I could make your head explode if I keep this up."
Delusional as always, Sparkles. You have far more in common with Trump than you realize.
BTW, what you call "cookie-cutter noir movies" (as if THE BIG SLEEP and, say, THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS were remotely the same except for the fact that both of them were in black-and-white) sane people call a genre. Thought you'd like to know.
So, you caught that one thing in my hastily typed comment, I was thinking of Deadline and mixed the titles up, only proves I don't go googling before I comment. Same as misspelling Peter Lorre's name. That a great actor, such as he was, was forced by a taste for luxury to act in crap isn't any great surprise. Few actors manage to get out of being in shit, especially as they get type-cast by the movies, but some of them don't have any choice because they were crappy actors to start with. What is stunning is how many of those get to be in high-budget productions. Especially in the movies.
DeleteI notice you haven't cited any books, not even those the movies which were the only versions of anything you've known about them. Maybe given your stupidity it's wise to not try the books. A. you couldn't get through one, B. they might, possibly, I'd give it about a 3% chance of spoiling the movies for you. Same reason for both, your stupidity.
I think I'll stop this now, I'm beginning to feel cheapened with those softballs you're pitching. Kitten ball from the kiddie korner of Eschaton. I wonder what that great reader, Duncan thinks of your claims.
"I'd give it about a 3% chance of spoiling the movies for you. Same reason for both, your stupidity."
ReplyDeleteBTW, speaking of spoilers, have you ever seen the Rene Clair version of Christie's "And Then There Were None?" In case not, in the film, as in the novel, the judge did it. Sorry. :-)
I was talking about superior books, not the cosies. You've got to have something to spoil to spoil something. I can imagine you slipping into your dowager drag watching Murder She Wrote now, I can't say having that image of your guilty secret is pleasant but, hey, life's a bitch.
DeleteThat's funny, I can see you slipping into Margaret Rutherford drag while you're typing your responses to me.
DeleteI'm not surprised someone who was educated by Hollywood and he crap music industry would have your limited resources to construct an imagination with. No doubt you got her down while watching her as Miss Marple. Do you collect spoons?
DeleteSomeone who knows me once compared my speaking style with Walter Matthau's, what he'd sound like if he had a Maine accent.
Right. Walter Matthau didn't make movies in Hollywood. You're really reaching.
ReplyDeleteOh, and BTW -- I mostly know Margaret Rutherford from BLITHE SPIRIT, not those crappy Marple films.
"Right. Walter Matthau didn't make movies in Hollywood. You're really reaching."
DeleteExplain how that coheres with the context of the conversation, Stupy, because yours is a Trumpian level of throwing everything against the wall and hoping something sticks.
Admittedly Noel Coward was a few steps above your heroine, Dame Agatha but not that many steps above. Margaret Rutherford's role in that movie is nothing like me. You, on the other hand, I'm increasingly seeing as more than a bit Nellie.
"Explain how that coheres with the context of the conversation"
ReplyDeleteEvery time I think you can't possibly be as thick as I already think you are, you prove me wrong.
Also -- that Nellie comment is really cute. Gay-baiting me again; how un-bigoted of you.
First, gay men are the ones who invented the term "Nellie". I didn't hear a straight person use it until I'd heard gay men use it for years. Often to describe themselves. So, Simps, you don't know beans about gay culture.
DeleteSecond, you obviously can't explain why you pulled that sentence out of the place all of your thoughts come from. You are an idiot who doesn't think, he deflects. As I said, you and Trump have a lot in common.
"Simps, you don't know beans about gay culture."
ReplyDeleteThat's so true, Sparkles. I lived in Greenwich Village in the 70s and 80s -- I couldn't possibly have known any gay people.
:-)
The operative word in that claim is, coming from you "I". It being you, you could have grown up anywhere and avoided learning anything because, like Donald Trump, you are totally fixated on yourself. If I had the time I'd make a list of people who had lived in Greenwich Village and were total idiots and assholes, like you, only not posing as someone of the left. I'm sure quite a list could be complied, especially of those who evidenced a total ignorance of gay culture. You were probably too busy watching cosy mystery movies to notice. I'll bet you thought Murder By Death was just such a ripping good show, didn't you. It was the movie that convinced me to stop watching movies much because it was so incredibly bad.
DeleteOf course you hate MURDER BY DEATH. You haven’t gotten a joke in your entire joyless life.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thought that movie was funny has to be an idiot. It was stupid, tedious and embarrassingly bad. Just the kind of thing I'd expect you to pretend to have found funny. Oh, let me guess, it's because Neil Simon wrote it, isn't it. One of the officially declared geniuses of comedy. His best stuff was OK, that wasn't his best stuff. Not by a long shot. If Truman Capote hadn't been in it during the terminal stages of his decline I doubt anyone would have bothered to make it. It was a cruel freak show.
DeleteThe entire concept of humor is demonstrably alien to you. You’re a very sad emotionally crippled person, and I feel sorry for you. Barely.
ReplyDeleteIf you knew how I was laughing at your absurdly disingenuous pose of sympathy you'd know that wasn't true.
DeleteBy humor you mean stuff that's officially approved by the right publications and the right people as being officially sanctioned as humorous, to which I say "nuts".
Anyone who thought that dreary movie was funny was faking it. Neil Simon, some of his stuff was all right but that movie was a waste of celebrity on total crap.
But, then, you're a guy who pretended to find Lenny Bruce funny. He wasn't. He was as tedious as George Carlin got when he turned into a ranting, scolding, snobbish professional atheist who got his fellow snobbish atheists to applaud when he told them how much smarter they were than most people. He was a total jerk and asshole who had a very, very minor talent which he stretched into a really undistinguished career.