The idea of film bloggers feuding publicly with each other is nothing new -- hell, it's practically what Twitter was invented for. Over the last few days, however, a remarkably juicy battle royale has broken out in the comments section of Thompson on Hollywood, and it's populated mostly by an upper echelon of film writers who tend to stay out of the fray, including NYT film critic Manohla Dargis, outgoing LA Weekly scribe Scott Foundas, and Film Comment's Amy Taubin. It's like Super Smash Bros. for people who love the Dardenne brothers!
TOH's Anne Thompson fired the first shot when she wrote the following passages in her innocuously titled NYFF blog entry, "Scott Foundas Joins Film Society as Associate Programmer":
Film criticism is a dying art. As one of the best critics working today, Foundas should be anticipating a long and happy career. He's giving it up to program movies...Unless Foundas screws up (as one-time heir apparent Kent Jones did), down the line he could be in a position to run the New York Film Festival.
The first comment from "Derrin Zikks" brought up the fact that both Foundas and outgoing programmer Jones signed the pro-Polanski petition ("Would signing a petition defending a child-rapist count as 'screwing up'?"), which brought an immediate rebuke from Premiere's Glenn Kenny: "I would suggest that Derrin Zikks go do several unpleasant things, but I know you like to run a civil comments section." Foreshadowing!
Dargis soon leapt in to defend both Jones and the art of film criticism:
Anne,
1. Kent Jones did not screw up at the Film Society and it's disgusting that you would write something so utterly wrong and insulting about him.
2. "Film criticism is a dying art"? Did you write that with a straight face?
3. Scott is giving up on slaving for the LA Weekly (meaning, working for those fuckers at Village Voice Media); he's not giving up on film criticism, which you would know if you actually bothered to talk to Scott - or even read Brian Brooks's indiewire report: http://www.indiewire.com/article/scott_foundas_i_think_any_organization_has_to_change_with_time/
To which Thompson directly responded:
There are still many top practitioners of the art of film criticism, obviously, like you, but their numbers are dwindling and you can't deny that the profession is under severe duress. [...] I appreciate your desire to stand up for your friend Kent Jones, but clearly, the Film Society and Richard Pena had hopes for him that he did not fulfill. So he "screwed up" in the sense that he did not mesh with that organization's needs. They did not sync up. And he moved on. I wish him well.
And I look forward to reading your artful criticism every week in the NYT.
But it was not settled yet -- no, not by a long shot. Then Jones himself got involved. Yay!
Dear Anne,
Thanks so much for the well-wishing. It just means so much to me.
And thanks for checking in to see if your characterization of my time at Lincoln Center seemed accurate. I guess I must have missed that call.
i was probably signing another pro-child rape petition, which takes up most of my time these days.
Awesome callback! Taubin then joined the pile-on:
Anne: As you often say, you are not a critic, although that hasn't stopped you from trashing some very innovative AmerIndies. And as your inaccurate comments about Kent Jones, Gavin Smith, Manohla Dargis and little old me (a literal description) over the past several months suggest, you aren't much of a reporter either. Scott Foundas is an immensely promising programmer but Kent Jones has qualities that are irreplaceable and his former colleagues at the Film Society know what they've lost. As for Kent "not meshing," it's your situation at Indiewire that you describe. yrs., amy taubin
And finally, Foundas responded:
Given how quickly this comments section devolved into a backbiting cesspool, I had hoped to avoid entering into the fray. I do so now only to clarify a couple of key points: One, despite Anne Thompson's claim to have spoken to me "at length," that conversation consisted almost exclusively of Ms. Thompson attempting to confirm rumors about my contention for various jobs and to extract other confidential information, all of which I refused to comment upon. Two, while the reading comprehension skills of several posters here seem cause for concern, I take particular exception to Brynne Damon's intimation that, in my recent Indiewire interview, I cited an interview I had conducted with Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux as evidence of my "programming experience." Rather, as the Indiewire interview makes perfectly clear, I referred to my conversation with Fremaux as an example of a programming philosophy--that, whereas a critic writes from the perspective of personal taste, a programmer must take into consideration the broader interests of an audience and a programming institution. For evidence of my own programming activities, in addition to the New York Film Festival there is the long-running Films That Got Away series in Los Angeles, and multiple programs I have coordinated with the Telluride Film Festival (including a highly successful retrospective of French filmmaker Eugène Green) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. On the other hand, if we are to discuss "on the job" learning (to borrow another of Ms. Damon's choice phrases), I had never edited the film section of a newspaper before when I came on board at the LA Weekly and...well, at the risk of sounding immodest, I'll just let that speak for itself.
Of course, nothing can speak for itself on the internet, and once you join the fray, you can't get out. Foundas was immediately provoked by the next commenter: "Well, Scott, considering that you helped block A Serious Man from the NYFF, a now legendary rejection, I'd say it's not on the job training you require so much as a developed sense of taste." To which Foundas replied:
And Sundance rejected One False Move and The Daytrippers and Spellbound, and Cannes rejected Brokeback Mountain and Vera Drake and Lebanon, and the first performance of The Rite of Spring caused a riot and...well, to quote the immortal Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot, "Nobody's perfect!"
Except for that entire comments section, maybe. A-plus work, everyone!
Scott Foundas Joins Film Society as Associate Programmer [Thompson on Hollywood]