Film Banished, Print Film Critics
posted by on February 19 at 14:44 PM
Banished has played in Seattle twice in recent months—once with the director in attendance—and I’ve missed it both times. But I won’t be missing it tonight, because it’s coming to my TV: KCTS, 10 pm. Here’s a bit of Manohla Dargis’s review:
There are ghosts haunting Marco Williams’s quietly sorrowful documentary “Banished,” about the forced expulsion of black Southerners from their homes in the troubled and violent decades after the Civil War. Dressed in what looks like their Sunday best, in dark suits and high-collar dresses, they stare solemnly into an unwelcoming world. A couple ride in a cart along a pretty country road, and others stand awkwardly before houses with peeling paint. There are few smiles. Photography was then a serious business, though being a black landowner, part of a fragile, nascent Southern middle class, was more serious still.It’s stunning how loudly the dead can speak, and with such eloquence.
Marco Williams previously directed the excellent Two Towns of Jasper, which played SIFF in 2002 and also landed on PBS eventually. I love public television. Charles McGrath can suck it.
Also tonight: Our very own Charles Mudede holds forth at a roundtable discussion on the future of print film criticism, along with upstart critics from the likes of SIFFblog and Greencine. That’s at Northwest Film Forum, 8 pm, and it’s 5 bucks for non-members.
Charles McGrath IS an ass...though I would agree that PBS could use a little livening up.
Yes, McGrath can suck it.
Maybe PBS is so dull because they have no choice? If they go out on a limb, they'll get smacked down? (Why do you think those Republicans were inserted into the process?) Well, that's just one theory. My other theory (more strongly held) is that PBS & NPR are just staffed by dull, timid people.
I have cable, and I love the hell of out of Discovery, History, and NatGeo channels, but there's a problem here: ratings. Selling ad space.
I don't see much of anything on these channels that's historical, needs to be told, but painful and depressing, like "Banished", or the recent profile on Dr. Walter Freeman, the roving lobotomizer. Such things aren't good for ratings!
Also nice to see some member of the elite sniff about how cable TV takes care of these things nowadays, as if everybody has cable, can afford cable, should have cable. I don't have to swing a cat very far to find a you a Bill Bennett conservative who will put his poker chips down for a minute to pontificate about how the poor shouldn't be paying money on cable TV or satellite TV.
McGrath also pisses on earnestness & handwringing, a la Moyers. Oh, hurray for sophistication and cynicism, while we all snooze through telecom immunity, and a zillion other scams being perpretrated of late.
History Chanel potrays aerial dogfights like a kewl video game. Ken Burns "The War" showed more real, bleeding, dying teenaged boys than I've ever seen on any TV show, and I only watched about 45 minutes of it.
Grumble grumble...
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).