Review

Author(s): Lawrence Shaffer

Review by: Lawrence Shaffer
Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 54-60
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211443
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54

Oh,
Oh, no!
no! There's
There'sa anotable
notable
difference.
difference.
I think
I think
Buddhism
Buddhismisisa agiving
givingup.
up.
Certainly.
Certainly.I Iam,
am,ininfact,
fact,
ferociously
ferociously
against
against
all
all that,
that, all
allthis
thisnonsense
nonsense
ofof
India
India
andand
Nepal
Nepal
and and
all that. Those are renunciations. I won't re-

Reviews
THE CONVERSATION

Written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Director

nounce. Maybe we can agree on something,

after all.

of Photography: Bill Butler. Music: David Shire. Editor: Richard

Chew. Paramount.

Yes, except that I don't think that the cinema

is useful as a medium for expressing oneself or
With The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola
for talking to anybody about these ideas. Even
managed to avoid a single moment that could
this conversation we are having seems more usereally be called "bad"-bad technically, bad
ful to me. We can have one each day, and maybe
visually, bad conceptually. But, formally speaksay something radically different each day. With
ing, there isn't a single memorable moment in
cinema it would take me half a year to say what
the film either, not a single moment, when you
I've said to you this afternoon.
feel the medium is being used. Obviously CopThat is true, but I am not young enough. Ipola was not about to lose sleep thinking up
have done many things, but all useless.
epiphanies for a story such as Puzo's. In fact

I wouldn't say that. Your work has givenafter

a
The Conversation it's difficult to imagine
sense of identity to many people. I don't know
Coppola stretching himself for anyone's story
whether it will reach as many people as you hope
but his own. The place to look in The Godfather
it will, but that creative circle that every artist
is always screen-center. Search your memory
attempts in the form of a bridge between himself
for peripheral details, the kind of details that

and his interlocutor, you are closing it with hope.

mean a fully rounded world is going on, and
It becomes part of your creation itself.
you won't find them. It's not that the screen isn't

That's very beautiful. I hope it's true. The

crowded. It is-the way naturalistic stage set-

fact is that I am in crisis. Why don't I really tings

do
are. And for the same reason: to establish
other things? Like cooking, for example. Finda convincingly illusionistic milieu for the prining physical relationships, more direct relationcipals. In The Godfather nothing apart from
ships. Expressing oneself in a relationship with
the central characters and events has a life of

one other person. I've tried to go along these

its own.

lines; I've recently directed two small plays. In

The Conversation stewed in Coppola's mind
Hungary, one after Confrontations and one after
for seven years before he completed a screen
Red Psalm. Plays give me another way of conplay and directed what is unmistakably his own
tacting people. I stay in the theater when they
bad dream. Instead of a competent but obvious
are given, and it gives me a physical contact, piece
an of archaeological reconstruction, we have
immediate connection. It's in a small studio
a here-and-now world with lots of incidental,
theater in Budapest, with about 80 seats, the
unpieced-together detail. The real-life subtext
actors are nonprofessionals, friends. The conof the film is contemporary man's devotion to

tacts are not cold as in the cinema.

media-his loving manipulation of switches,

Do I understand you correctly to be saying, knobs, and buttons-in contrast to his Martian
in response to my question, that the reason you
estrangement from both other people's bodies
are continuing with cinema is that you are notand, even more frightening, his own. The film
sure you can do anything else, but that you are, could be titled The Hard Skin. The Truffaut

at least, trying?

film's concentration on switches, buttons, zippers, etc. vis-a-vis soft body contact is a psycho-

Exactly.
Copyright ? 1974 by Gideon Bachmann

logical anatomy lesson. Coppola enlarges the

schism into social psychosis.

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REVIEWS RVIW

55
55
--

The
p
manistic message of its later sequences,
essen-

as tially "We must

Co
all become involved," through

Blowits McLuhanesque preoccupation with medium.

Of course without
the involvement antithesis
of
us
other
we couldn't have the medium thesis, but the
malad
conflict is made too explicit for comfort, with
audito
Eichmann-like references to "just doing a job"
Skin
and "It's not my responsibility" in case we missa
as
Tru
the point.
rapher
The film begins with some wondrously mymedia
sterious shots of an anonymous lunch-break
so crowd circulating
Co
around San Francisco's Union
covers how hard it is to land without his cusSquare. Coppola moves in slowly from an aerial
tomary instrumentation for guidance. When
view but then lingers awhile somewhat beneath
Harry begins to depend on his own faculties for
the eye of God. The "eye" turns out not to be
navigation, they almost seem vestigial. It's notGod's, however, but a sight used by Harry Caul's
easy to forsake the modern mania for trying to
crew to zero in their recording devices (Copfind things out indirectly. To adapt McLuhan's
pola's problem throughout the film is to make
image to this most McLuhanesque of films, thevisual content out of auditory). But before Cophuman nervous system expresses itself by con-pola picks out the young couple whose conversastructing external analogies of itself-electroniction is the sole raison for all the formalistic fuss
circuity systems-through which it passionof the film, we are given simply the anonymous
ately operates isomorphically. As far as the
flow of the crowd. All options are kept open.
human brain is concerned, there is simply no The suspense is similar to the opening of Psycho,
substitute for gaining knowledge circuitously. where the camera takes its time before offering
The body's needs are another matter. Like most us the particular window on the lives we are to
of us Harry Caul has a mind-body problem. He follow. Strollers come and go. Who are our
abortively makes love in a raincoat. His bodycharacters? The only focal point, in the lower
and lower brain crave immediate access, but
left corner of the screen, is a sidewalk mime in
his cerebral cortex cherishes the medium game. whiteface who mimics the gaits, postures, and
The conflict erupts in the later sequences, where gestures of those around him. Coppola's camera
it is not so much resolved as exhausted.
doesn't insist on him the way Antonioni insists
The Conversation is far more successful in
on his mimes in Blow-Up, but he serves a metathe first half when it focuses on the operational phoric function just as vital-the parasitic intruworkings of bugging than later when it gets into sion into others' lives, the anonymous recorder.
psychoanalysis. Just as Harry Caul is more sucThis little symbolic prologue to the film finally
cessful at manipulation-at being a ghost in his gives way to shots of a young couple in desultory
machine-than at "being in the world." In other conversation, intercut with shots of Harry Caul,
words the film, like its hero, is more at ease with his bugging crew, and various tracking devices.
the mechanical apparatus of remote sensing than Like the mirror image in Picasso's Girl Before
with the flesh-and-blood of INVOLVEMENT. What a Mirror, Harry and his associates look quite

else would you expect from a film-maker so distinct from their subject but function strictly
much more obviously captivated by means than as a tautology. A more debased image of huby ends? Just as Frankenheimer's The Train
manity would be hard to imagine. Harry then
managed to survive the lofty moral conflict be-goes to his workshop in a deserted warehouse
tween Lancaster and Scofield by devoting mostto check and synthesize the day's work. Content
of its footage to the operational working ofis irrelevant. Formal matters, such as tonal and
trains, so The Conversation overcomes the hu- volumetric consistency, need only be spot-

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REVIEWS

near zero distortion. Clearly, Coppola has gone

to school on Blow-Up. We really begin to sens
the debt when Harry, despite himself, begins
attend to the content of the conversation, repla
ing certain parts which now take on suggesti
overtones. The couple, at first seemingly inno
cent and unguarded, becomes increasingly pro
lematic. Ultimately we fall down the Nixon-in
Wonderland hole: the couple knew they were
being taped! So everything we've heard must
now be fitted into another framework; for what

purpose, knowing they were being taped, did

the lovers say this or that? The plot twists,
whereby the apparently designated murderees
become the murderers, are too holey to merit
attention.

Compared to Blow-Up Coppola's film fails in

two major respects. For a man so interested in
epistemological turns of the screw, Coppola resolves the enigma of the conversation too definitively. The couple in Blow-Up retain their
mystery. The ambiguity of appearances is Antonioni's theme, and he stays with it rather than
delving into the photographer's psyche. But
Coppola reveals the true state of affairs because
he then wants to explore the effect this revelation has on Harry's psyche. We have already

checked. Thus Harry's check, intercut with

close-ups of the speakers, is extremely fragmen- been treated to some contrived nonsense-flashtary. And for an audaciously long stretch the backs, nightmares, etc.-about how Harry's
film remains an unassembled puzzle. It's up to snooping had once been responsible for three
murders. Granted that we should be given
us to surmise connections. The film's mosaic
glimpses
of Harry's private face behind his proform follows Harry's piecemeal functioning,
and
fessional
mask. The appearance-reality conunboth are its content. We deduce that Harry
has
drum should not apply only to Harry's profesbeen assigned "surveillance" of what are apparsional situation but to his character and personal
ently a couple of young lovers-why he knows
identity within that situation as well. But innot nor does he care. He is a technician, from
stead of spurious psyche-diving it would have
the same breed as the photographer in Blow-Up,
been enough for Coppola to develop further
subsisting on stolen feedback, adept at picking
Harry's interpersonal scenes in the film, perhaps
up signs, untroubled by significations. Emotion
bringing him into eventual contact with the
is bric-a-brac with which other people clutter
their lives. For Harry there is no existentialcouple and to certain realizations that way
(which would also enrich the levels-of-reality
problem of "the other," only the technical problem of other voices. Andy Warhol once specu-theme). We do want to see Harry's real face,
lated on how nice it would be to be a machine.
but not his mythical psyche. That ordinary social exposure is the way to "get at" Harry is
Harry Caul has achieved Warhol's dream. The
by Coppola's success with Harry's
scientist's nightmare is the distortion the demonstrated
obface-to-face scenes, especially those with his girlserver's point of view imposes on the observed.
friend, with a prostitute, and with his assistant,
Harry, like his counterpart in Blow-Up, achieves
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nie'Loselas

micv E=rM

I--

Stan. In these scenes we see Harry struggling

-sweating-in utter contrast to his effortless

conduct of his business. With the women we

C
.J

In an interview Coppola has said that he expects

the audience to find progressively new mean-

ings and overtones in the tape and the visual

can often barely hear him, an audibility problem

footage that goes with it, as both, separately or
that never occurs in the media scenes (the one
in concert, are repeated eight times in the film.
But since the conversation as it is constituted
instance when something can't be heard on the
tape is due to competing noise, which Harrysimply doesn't contain the rich ambiguities for
efficiently removes). One reason Harry is so such a progressively varied reaction, it's unfair
secretive in personal conversation is that he has
of Coppola to impose such a burden on the
starved his private life for so long he has noviewer. Doubtless Coppola shied away from
secrets. Instead he has professional stories, demaking the conversation more complex to avoid
tails of operations, which he begrudgingly disa verbal challenge rarely asked of filmgoers.
closes to fellow professionals. Another reason
Footage of the speakers with facial expressions,
is that he has spent so much of his life monitoretc. to correspond with new verbal implications
ing the results of other people's expressiveness
could have been a helpful visual aid. But Copthat he has no expressive "apparatus" of his
pola said that he already was afraid the whole
own. His voice is a monotone; he has difficulty business was too "boring," too sheerly repetitive,
in moving the parts of his face. Other people and so he was hardly prepared to make it even
and their needs bug Harry because they place more demanding. Thus, where Antonioni sucdemands on his mechanisms of response, which ceeds in developing clues from the blow-up
have rusted from disuse. All this has point and sequence while at the same time not spoiling
is pointedly exposed. But then Coppola gives everything by letting the clues add up to a soluHarry a heavy psyche to bear, a guilty past that tion, Coppola fails to find a way for Harry, and
catches up with him. Where Blow-Up ends with us, to progressively discover clues in the tape
the photographer's breakdown as an acknowl(we are abruptly hit over the head with the
edgment of the uncertainties of human knowl- word "kill" when we hear it for the first time
edge and perception, The Conversation ends
together with a reference to a place and time
with Harry's breakdown. Of course his break- that has obvious significance) while at the same
down might be his breakthrough. His psychoti- time spoiling the mystery of the conversation by
cally neat apartment has been stripped in his explicitly resolving it.
vain search for a bug (he has been warned he
The parallels with Blow-Up extend from the
is being "listened to"), and after failing to find title-focus on a single piece of sensory inforthe bug perhaps his imagination, like Hem- mation-to the final scene. In both films the
mings', has been liberated from the literalist technicians do a lot of living (sleeping, even
fallacy of media. Playing his saxophone for the partying) in their labs. (The most phantasmafirst time in the film without the mechanical goric sequence in The Conservation is an imaccompaniment of a recording into which his promptu wingding in Harry's workshop, during
solos had always been fitted, he too has been which colleagues depressingly trade inside jokes
stripped. Without recorded applause, perhaps and references, a brash competitor without even
he will now be able to hear the sound of one
Harry's aborted soul plants a bugged fountain
hand clapping. But the breakdown is solipsistic. pen on Harry, everyone seems separated by
The public world of The Conversation has not
interstellar distances, and lovemaking seems as
been well-lost for Harry's psyche.
natural as in a monastery, or a hospital). In

Coppola's other major failure vis-a vis An- The Conversation candid tape (perhaps not so
tonioni is Harry's "blow-up" sequence. His candid) seems as apropos now as candid camera

obsessive monitoring of the tape does not yield did when Blow-Up first came out. In each case
the thematic intensification, the progressive in- "contact" is made through media while direct
sight of the comparable sequence in Blow-Up. confrontations are strained, halting, stillborn.

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efb

rbW%#1W%A#e

nE

Telephoto lenses and long-distance mikes produce an instantaneous, if only one-way, bridge

It also attests to the fullness of the film, the

way in which Coppola was overpowered by a

in contrast to hands and mouths that seem in the
concept so compelling that myriad details pop
grip of Zeno's paradox. But media are ultimately up which, as in a Brueghel or Bosch landscape,
shown to be impotent. They attempt to get
may not all have the same thematic transparence
"inside" but are hopelessly restricted to surfaces. but obviously occupy the same universe. "Please
Motives, feelings, real knowledge eludes them. turn lights out" somehow connects with a little
And this is the main parallel between the two vignette of Harry on a bus whose lights temfilms. In each a spied-on couple receives a porarily go out. Harry, programmed to detect
"media fix," but the fix turns out to be fluid.
the slightest technological variance from the
Intense examinations of the components of thenorm, is ill at ease until the lights come back on.

fix, instead of yielding more precise information,The film is filled with such subterranean tie-ins.

dissolve a finite sensory event into the general The telescopic sighting device seen in the openmysteries of images and words. Look at some-ing sequence has a near relative in front of the
thing, listen to something, repeat something Assistant Director's desk, which Harry simply
long enough and the object or event blurs, be-can't help looking through. A scale model of
Union Square mysteriously appears at a surcomes meaningless-meaningless in a specific
sense but meaningful in a general, formal sense. veillance convention attended by Harry and his
The problem is not so much the metaphysical associates. Harry flushes a toilet in the hotel
one of "what's real?" but the phenomenological room to cover the sound of drilling preparatory
one of "what's really going on here?" Snatches to planting a bug and is later seen flushing the
of reality are recorded and made to cohere, only toilet in the adjoining room on an intuition
to mislead. The question in both films is, "What which, shockingly, is confirmed. The only
can we know and how can we know it?" This
nature in this technological horror film, aside
is the great visual motif of Blow-Up. The Confrom a dream flashback, is a banal seascape in
versation uses the word "know" as a recurrent
Harry's apartment, which is later echoed by an
verbal motif. Harry's girlfriend asks him quesequally banal mural of San Francisco Bay in a
hotel room (one of a number of reminders of
tions because "I want to know you." Harry asks
a prostitute if she were his girlfriend and he had
Vertigo). The appalling absence of the sensual
left her, would she take him back if he loved
world from the film, defined by these widely
her, and she answers: "How would I know that
separated, sparse representations of nature, is
you loved me?" And Harry, the inaudible man,
capsulized by a cookie on the Assistant Direcmumbles, "You'd have no way of knowing." Intor's desk, which Harry picks up, inspects-and
his room Harry is called on his unlisted phonerejects. The moment makes one freshly aware
and told "We know that you know, Mr. Caul. that there isn't a single instant in the film when
We'll be listening."
anyone is shown enjoying a natural pleasure.
Coppola's attention to verbal texture extends The Conversation is like those problem propfrom such obvious references as "Private" on
ositions in philosophy that are paradoxical: "I
the door of the "Director," the man who has
always lie" or "I know that I know nothing."
hired Harry for reasons unknown to both himThe film is a rich use of media to show how
and us (we never know more than Harry at any empty media are. Just as Antonioni's darkroom
point), and "Do Not Disturb" (murder taking revealed the ultimate truth that darkrooms replace) on the young couple's hotel room door veal no ultimate truths, so Coppola's recording
to the more subtle "Please turn lights out" on a devices demonstrate that recording devices demtag suspended from the ceiling in Harry's work-onstrate nothing. Harry rips open a telephone
shop. This last little signmarker attests to the to find only circuitry. All technicians, the brain
neat, orderly world Harry is comfortable in surgeon included, are condemned to the same
which finally disintegrates.
nonrevelations. Coppola shows just how far the

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REVIEWS
REVIEWS

5,
59
-

inspired
occurs in one of the film's early sequences. Two
picting nihilism can save us from nihilism.
women check their make-up against a pair of
Though some of his ironies are too facileone-way mirrors set into one of the sides of
Harry, master bugger, is himself bugged; Harry
Harry's van. As Harry and this assistant canniconfesses and we dimly perceive the priest's ear
balistically watch, the mirrors look like televithrough the screen-others reverberate. On
sion screens and the women objects of male
Harry's birthday a bottle of wine left in his phantasizing in a lipstick commercial. The sadapartment by his landlady becomes the occasion
dest thing about Harry and his associates is that
for the obsessively secretive Harry to wonder
their "business" is also their only pleasure. The
how the hell she got in. As far as Harry is confilm makes it clear that the problem with voycerned there's no need for the landlady to beeurism is not only the reduction of the observed
able to get in, in case of an emergency, because
to an object but also of the observer, whose pashe has "nothing personal, nothing of valuesive monitoring blocks self-awareness and selfexcept my keys." Harry then takes the unwel- activation. Perhaps the cruelest frame is the
comed bottle to his girlfriend's apartment for telescopic sighting device which initially picks
whatever meager celebration the paucity of his out for us the subjects of the conversation, and
spirit will permit. He wouldn't have thought of which at first seems, certainly for anyone who
buying a bottle, himself, but the landlady's gift has lived through the 1960's, to be an assassin's

will do just as well and he carts it along as a rifle (an instantaneous converter of subjects
second thought. Such tokens have absolutely into objects). At the surveillance convention,
no value for him, as indeed nothing "personal" first Harry and then the Director's assistant
has. Or, again, Harry is a Catholic with a

appear on closed circuit television. Television

(shaky) belief in the moral neutrality of his

screens in Harry's van, workshop, and motel
room capture people's heads like trophies.
work. If his belief is correct, his job may not

certify his virtue but it shouldn't improve his

Though films like A Hard Day's Night, Seven
chances for damnation, either. The objects and
Days in May, The Best Man, and The Candirituals of orthodox religion are the only thing
date certainly made extensive use of television,
other than the objects and rituals of "surThe Conversation is the first to interrelate a
veillance" that he has to hold on to. It is with
whole galaxy of monitoring devices in such a
great reluctance, then, that (in a moment some-way that the entire film seems like closed-circuit
what distractingly reminiscent of The Maltese television. There are so many framing devices
Falcon) he smashes open an icon of the Virgin within the film that Coppola's over-riding
Mary to see if it's been bugged. The sacrilege frames-his own cameras and editing machine
offers no compensation. Like the dismembered-are not that noticeable. The general effect
telephone that revealed nothing but circuitry, theis that people never seem organically related.
icon too is empty. Like the dynamo, the VirginGroups-in Union Square, at the party in
also seems to hold no answers.
Harry's workshop, at the convention -are
But Coppola's finest device is his consistent groups of loners. Coppola reserves most of his
use of explicit framing, whereby subjects are own explicit framing for Harry, isolating him
turned into objects, and, related but not quite within his own room, along a hall, on his way to
the same thing, the notions of subjectivity and see the Director. In the final scene in which a
objectivity are made problematic. Explicit fram- Harry stripped of his professional facade deing isolates, therefore distances. At times Cop- molishes his apartment in a vain effort to locate
pola does it himself but often, and more appro- a bug, Harry moves in and out of the frame of
priately in terms of his theme, he employs a static camera, as if he is being studied by an
structures and mechanisms within the film to
electronic eye.
delimit people, converting them into objects.
One result of all the framing is to make the
The tape itself is a prime example. Another terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" lose their

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6Uou

CONTR3VFRSY

&

ORFSPOhIDEMCF
CONTR5OVERSY & CORPIFPONDENCE

meaning.
meaning.
Everyone is seen "objectively"
Everyone
but across
isthatseen
acrosssosomany
many
circuit
circuit
breakers
breakers
that
its final
its final
from
from
particular viewpoints,
particular
which suggests sub- expression
viewpoints,
w
expression
seems
seems
defused.
defused.
Harry
Harry
is reminiscent
is reminiscent
of Steiger's
Steiger's
pawnbroker,
pawnbroker,
handling
handling
merchandise
merchandise
jectivity.
jectivity.
Harry keeps going over the
Harry
tape, thus of
keeps
going
o
reframing
reframing
the young couple again and again,
the
young
coupl
without
withoutresponding
responding
to his
to his
human
human
significance.
significance.
In both
both
cases
cases
feeling
feeling
isn't
isn't
dead,
dead,
only only
repressed,
repressed,
but
but
the result isthe
not increased result
objectivity but anIn
is
not
increased
increasingly
increasingly
subjective response. In interpreting
subjective
and
and both
bothSteiger
Steiger
andand
Hackman
Hackman
arerespon
brilliant
are brilliant
at
at
suggesting
suggestinghumanistic
humanistic
reserves
reserves
beneath
beneath
zombie
zombieH
rather
rather
than just recording,than
Harry understands
just
recording,
less and less and feels more and more. But
facades.
facades.The
The
pawnbroker's
pawnbroker's
release
release
is a shriek
is a shriek
Harry's new-found subjectivity is not veryof
perof
rage.
rage.Harry's
Harry's
explosion
explosion
is less
is less
sharply
sharply
dedesuasive. Coppola has confessed that The Confined
finedand
andmore
more
strangely
strangely
directed.
directed.
But the
But the
versation is a "concept" film, that he could never
pawnbroker's
pawnbroker's
trauma
trauma
is of
is simpler
of simpler
origin
origin
than than
feel anything for the character of Harry Harry's.
and
Harry's.
Coppola
Coppola
doesn't
doesn't
givegive
us a us
special
a special
case. case.
could only "enrich him from the outside,"
deWe
We
don't
don'tget
get
into
into
how
how
Harry
Harry
got that
got that
way. Harry
way. Harry
pending on Hackman for the rest. (In a sense
is
is seen
seenasasinseparable
inseparable
from
from
a whole
a whole
world,
world,
in
in

which
whichvoyeurism
voyeurism
hashas
replaced
replaced
direct
direct
action,
action,
Coppola is the source of Harry's problem.)
lenses
lenses
andmikes
mikes
direct
direct
contact,
contact,
and switches
and switches
Nevertheless, since subjectivity is a sine
qua and
non of characters, there are moments in the and
film
and buttons
buttons
immediate
immediate
involvement.
involvement.
Harry's
Harry's

when things are seen and heard from an apparpersonal

personalpsychosis
psychosis
is inseparable
is inseparable
fromfrom
the sothe social psychosis around him. In fact what's
ently subjective point of view, mostly Harry's.
But Coppola's emotional (as opposed to cerearound him seems worse. He certainly seems
bral) absence from his work ("There's not a
more salvagable than his would-be partner,
Bernie Moran (Allan Garfield, who seems to be
lot in the movie that I feel viscerally about, except maybe technology. . . . ") tends to obcornering the market on sleezy PR merchanjectify even these moments. The film comesdisers), or his totally out-of-it assistant, Stan
closer than perhaps any other to presenting a (John Cagale), or the enigmatic young couple
world of automata, in which media, a near afwhose ominousness Frederick Forrest and Cindy
fectless hero, and alien "other minds"-appar- Williams build to Pinteresque proportions. One
ently debased, certainly unknowable-interact
might almost say there's more hope for Harry
blindly.
than for his world. But the world of media preCoppola can show Harry cut off from others,
ceded Harry and it is the only world still waiting
but only Hackman can show Harry cut off from
for him the morning after his rampage. It is
our world and The Conversation should be rehimself. Hackman does this by keeping Harry's
emotions in cold storage for most of the film so
membered-amidst a nostalgia bonanza-as the
that in those moments when he expresses feelfirst film since Blow-Up to capture it.
ing it seems to come from miles within and
-LAWRENCE SHAFFER

Controversy & Correspondence

AUTEURISM IS ALIVE AND WELL

petty squabbles
squabbles over
over real
real and
and alleged
allegeddistortions
distortionsof
ofone's
one's
position
position by
by the
the other.
other. In
In the
the process
processof
ofplaying
playingTweedleTweedleThe recent pseudo-controversy over auteurism in the
dum and Tweedledee, however, both Petrie and Hess

hospitable pages of Film Quarterly seems to have colhave completely misstated my own position by first
lapsed of its own weightlessness, and I don't wish to setting up straw men labeled "auteurists," and then
prolong the agony unduly. The dreary "debate" betweenascribing (without quotation marks) to these invented
Graham Petrie and John Hess dwindled inevitably into
imbeciles the most idiotic statements imaginable. Mis-

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