From: Fred Camper (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Mar 26 2009 - 07:35:00 PDT
I posted an opinion of a film, just a few sentences, and got ensnared in
yet another "meta" thread. As malgosia so clearly pointed out, if
stating an opinion of a film is going to lead, as it did here and for me
too, to "being attacked, disrespected, patronized, required to provide
credentials, inducted into a group-therapy session, bored to death,"
then we are in big trouble.
Cari, I have some questions for you. Where and in what year did you see
"Gabriel," and in what format? And have we actually met, and where and
in what year and in what city? I have a terrible memory for faces and
for social encounters, but you write as if we are online and offline
pals. We are not. And if "i have actually seen freds actual body and
have experienced his writing many times," what and where were those
times you saw my "body"? As for the "many times" you have experienced my
writing, I'd question that too, because you didn't seem to know that
I've written on many avant-garde, Hollywood, and other filmmakers.
If you are also saying that my status as an "authority" in your mind
makes me less eligible to express my opinions, then I beg to differ.
Frankly, if, say, P. Adams Sitney expresses reservations about a film I
love, or love for a film I dislike, I will take that more seriously than
the opinion of someone from whom I have learned nothing.
Let me again point out that this all started because you responded to my
criticism of a film not with comments on the film but with a personal
attack on me.
Fred Camper
Chicago
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