Riled

I had a pretty terrible day dealing with a few unruly shithead kids, so I'm not in the best of mind to pick up the boxing gloves. I feel like I already went 10 rounds. I'll try to do a better response post tomorrow for you Brandon. For now, I'll just say that I wasn't mad by your post. I was just peeved by it, but in an obviously friendly way. I'd probably never get truly angry at you or anyone in film club. I seriously just thought of John the moment I finished reading what you wrote. He would never take you blowing his question completely out of proportion lightly, so I thought I shouldn't either.

Anyway, I think what irked me was your insistence that I was somehow creating a canon of intellectual filmmakers. Saying things like "your dubious list" provoked me into feeling like you had just turned a simple question for discussion's sake into a diatribe about how snobby I am over loving foreign directors and thinking American directors are philistines. I definitely was not trying to create a list of the ultimate film intellectuals. I was just trying to think about classic foreign directors you like and classic foreign directors you don't like. Purely off the top of my head without much forethought. I just limited it to foreign guys because I've never really heard you criticize any American auteurs from the Golden Age. I used guys like Bergman and Bresson as examples of foreign intellectual filmmakers you like merely as foils against what I assumed was your dislike of two big foreign intellectuals in Fellini and Antonioni (you did call them hipsters before, and not in an affectionate way). I was really just trying to root at why you could get down with Bergman's intellectualizing in THE SILENCE but not Fellini's in 8 1/2. I assumed you were just writing 8 1/2 and Fellini off as "pretentious."

To be clear: I was not trying to make a statement about foreign directors vs. American directors. That is what ticked me off. I don't like having my words distorted, and I wasn't aware that it was 100% sarcastic. I'm allowed to defend myself after such an attack, right you big meathead bully? :)

And to be even more clear: I was not and am not mad by your post. I said it riled me up, but I didn't mean it that it did in an aggressive way. It mostly just astonished me, like hearing someone tell you that you're wrong for wanting to confront PROMETHEUS with a brain. :) ;) : *