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PARTISAN REVIEW
'important.' But by the test of time, that flanking movement of the
defenders of hierarchical standards,
Deep Throat
(conceivably) might
prove to be
more
important than
Cries and Whispers
in film history,
and possibly even a 'better' film in some future history of film esthet–
ics."
Rollin might have chosen a worthier example for his "art" film,
since
Cries and Whispers
is much more arty than it is artful and is
among Bergman's least impressive achievements. But we know what he
means. He means that historically
Deep Throat
may be more signifi–
cant (we sense that he
knows
it is) than any acclaimed work of cinema
art because it changed society directly, by moving against the barriers
of censorship, "opening up" the screen, and hence life, to previously
forbidden subjects. Well, that is surely significant and a proper subject
for study. But when Rollin goes on to suggest that
Deep Throat
may
some day be considered to have been a "better" film aesthetically than
acknowledged works of cinema art he is draining the word "bet.ter" of
any meaning we have ever attached to it. He may be right.
It
may some
day come about that all values in culture will have this new quantita–
tive, "practical," and excl usivel y historical meaning, but if such a time
arrives then criticism will have no function whatsoever.
I don 't want to end without mentioning a figure some of you
might have expected me to talk about at some length, and that is
Roland Barthes. Many people consider Barthes
to
have written a type
of criticism of aspects of popular culture that·can be a model for the
future. I don't think so for a number of reasons.
In
the first place I don't
think Barthes is really, or at least not primarily, a critic, but what I
would call a philosopher of the imagination. His theory of literature,
his "methodology," which will be superseded one of these days by
another, seems to me to be far less important than his wit, his
perceptiveness and vigor of mind, qualities that can scarcely be
borrowed by others. Or, if I am wrong, and he is indeed a critic, then I
would say that he is a highl y unreliable one. His famous essay on
wrestling, for example, has a splendor to it but it isn't a splendor of
accurate perception, as anyone who has observed wrestling will know.
He is simply wrong about a lot of what goes on in this species of
entertainment and wrong in his interpretations of what motivates its
audiences. But of course he is not interested in being accurate but in
playing with myths; wrestling was an occasion for his play of mind,
but to treat works of culture as such occasions is a dangerous practice
for a critic, or at least for criticism.
In
any case I think what Barthes did
was not so much criticize popular culture as place it, speak of its
