how fully I might have concentrated on
questions of technique.
I then became interested in the fact
that Rossellini's virtues seemed to be
closely connected with certain consid–
erable vices, and I tried to analyze this
connection in terms of attitudes that I
found expressed (both overtly and im–
plicitly) in the film and that seemed
characteristic of other Italian films as
well and possibly of Italian intellectual
life as a whole. (I found some con–
firmation of my observations, after I
had seen
Paisan,
in Guido Piovene's
article in
H ori;:on.)
This problem nat–
urally led me beyond questions of tech–
nique, but not, I think, beyond the
legitimate framework of art criticism:
sentimentality and vulgarity in a work
of art are aesthetic defects. It is not
my fault that Mr. Barbarow finds my
objections to the film not thoroughly
believable; I thought them rather strong
(I wrote of one episode that it is "so
outrageously vulgar that it must surely
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1148
be the product of a calculated dishon–
esty"). It is true that "the great Grif–
fith" is "also sentimental, also weak in
ideas, and .... also lacking in taste."
I must speak of Griffith with some dif–
fidence because I have never seen
The
Birth of a Nation,
but, with that very
important reservation, I should say that
Griffith's genius as a moviemaker was
combined with limitations of mind and
sensibility that kept him from being a
truly great artist. Here, I think, it is
Mr. Barbarow who fails to respect the
medium; if the films are an art among
the other arts, then a great film artist
must have something like the stature of
a great novelist or a great dramatist,
and Griffith is not to be excused for
his sentimentality (or John Huston for
his intellectual shallowness) because of
his genius in "workmanship."
Robert Warshow
New York City
ATONALITY AND OBSCURANTISM
Mr. Rene Leibowitz has honored my
article "The Atonal Trail" (PR, May,
1948), with a reply printed in the
August issue. Much as I dislike to enter
into polemics with as dogmatic an ob–
scurantist as Mr. Leibowitz, I feel that
certain of his remarks need clarifica–
tion.
I will confine my answer to his most
important objections:
a) Mr. Leibowitz fails to understand
my statement that "Stravinsky is con–
cerned with the problem of musical
time and its measurement." He should
know that the term "musical time" ap–
plies to music as an instrument of time
measurement, and of representation (in
terms of sound structures) of time
flow. Stravinsky, and some other con–
temporary composers are, I believe,
concerned with this particular faculty
(and function) of the art of music in
a more conscious way than were, for
example, the composers of the late nine-
