Camera And Action, page 42
40. Corliss, "I Admit It, I Didn't Like `M*A*S*H."
41. Klemesrud, "Feminist Goal."
42. Harmetz, "The 15th Man who Was Asked."
43. Guy Flatley, "So Truffaut Decided to Work his Own Miracle," The New York Times, 27 Sep. 1970.
44. Stanley Penn, "Focusing on Youth: A New Breed of Movie Attracts the Young, Shakes up Hollywood," The Wall Streetjournal, 4 Nov. 1969.
45. Klemesrud, "Feminist Goal."
46. Judy Gerstel, "Robert Altman a Misogynist? He Just Tells the Truth About Women," Knight Rider/Tribune News Service, 11 Nov. 1993.
47. Penelope Mortimer, "A Lovable Satire," The Observer Review, 17 May 1970.
48. Denver Rocky Mountain News, 9 Nov. 1997.
49. Pauline Jelinek, "Army Closes MASH," The Outlook, 12 June 1997, World Section.
50. Melody Parker, "Korean War Vets Lend Authenticity to `M*A*S*H Production," Waterloo Courier, 29 Sep. 2006.
51. Diane Jacobs, Hollywood Renaissance (London, Brunswick, and New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1977).
52. Ira Mothner, "Now Faces," Look 3 (Nov. 1970): 77.
53. Jacobs, Hollywood Renaissance, 67, 68.
54. Ibid., 70.
55. Since then films such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, and Full Metal jacket have shaped the dominant discourse on Vietnam. War representation for that period through these films fostered a new war veteran genre that highlights the experimentalist skeptic.
56. Editor's note, New Guard 10.8 (Oct. 1970): 3; Ronald Docksai, "George S. Patton: A Magnificent Anachronism," New Guard x, no. 8 (Oct. 1970): 7.
Chapter VIII
1. "Hollywood: The Year You Almost Couldn't Find It," Look 3 (Nov.1970): 40, 51, 52. Fletcher Kriebel, "Hollywood: Broke and Getting Rich," Look 3 (Nov. 1970): 50.
2. Production notes, Core Collection, Margaret Herrick Academy of Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
3. "The After M*A*S*H of Robert Altman," Where Its At (Aug. 1971): 12, 13. His studio biography officially described him as such. At the time, Altman's production company operated out of an apartment building near UCLA.
4. Page 1 of production notes, Core Collection, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
5. Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots oftee Women Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage Books, 1979); toward the end of the decade, Sara Evans published her findings about radical women's experience in Personal Politics. As she noted, even in organizations such as the New Left, many female activists played waitresses and secretaries throughout the Civil Rights movement.
6. Daniel Yankelovich, The New Morality: A Profile of American Youth in the 70s (New York: McGraw Hill, 1974). The CBS survey taken in 1969, "Generations Apart," supplied Yankelovich with the information about sixteen- to twenty-five-year-olds. Yankelovich conjectured that once the non-college sector converted political resistance into personalized forms of lifestyle changes, rebellion marked the 1970s as the time of integration of the new morality. Yankelovich noted that "sweeping changes in sexual morality, work-related values, a changing climate of mistrust of our basic institutions, and other challenges to traditional beliefs and values" were common thoughts among young people, but the 1970s also witnessed a "gap within the generation" with cultural issues overshadowing radical politics for many young people. Ibid., v-vii, 3-4.
7. By this time African-American women protested against feminism as a "white women's movement" with the publication of Toni Morrison's criticism in the New York Times. Control of a woman's body became the central issue for many in the 1970s wave of women's liberation. On the
radical side were women who believed that reproduction was a fundamental right of women; birth and abortion were exclusively up to women to decide. On the conservative side, organizers in 1970 led the protest against abortion with the National Right to Life group. The duration of the debate attests to the complexity of the issues and the multivoiced nature of women's liberation. What seemed to be about women in the 1970s has evolved into cross-gender issues, involving economics, class, race, religion, and popular culture.
8. Beth Bailey, Sex in the Heartland (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1999), 8, 9; and Beth Bailey, "Sexual Revolution(s)," in The Sixties: From Memory to History, ed. David Farber (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 254-255.
9. Beth Bailey observes that "portraying the sexual revolution as the product of a few extremists, somehow unattached to the world the rest of us lived in, is a political act." Bailey argues that "while the revolution was built of purposeful assertions and acts, often on the part of self-proclaimed outsiders, it was possible because of the recasting of American society during and after World War II." Through "national media," for example, American citizens negotiated that change. Film was part of that forum of debate among the generations. "This," as Bailey claimed, "was not a foreign `national' culture. It was their culture.... The sexual revolution was not a simple, two-sided contest between the proponents of freedom and the forces of repression." She explained that "the set of changes we call the sexual revolution was thoroughly part of American culture, born of widely shared values and beliefs and of major transformations in the structure of American society." Bailey, Sex in the Heartland, 5-10.
10. Allan Fromme, "Masturbation, A Doctor's Report," Cosmopolitan 169.6 (Dec. 1970): 98.
11. Helen Gurley Brown, "Step into My Parlor," Cosmopolitan 168.5 (May 1970): 6.
12. Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London: Harper and Row, 1975), 30.
13. Production notes, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
14. McCabe and Mrs. Miller Script and production notes, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 2, 5, 2.
17. Ibid., 2.
18. Marty Weisman Collection, Special Collections, no date; Margaret Herrick Academy of Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA. Letter from Kevin Genther, Studio Publicity Director for Warner Brothers Studios in Pasadena, California 91505 in production notes, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
19. Gerald A. Browne, "The She-Man-Today's Erotic Hero," Cosmopolitan 168.3 (Mar. 1970): 50.
20. Letter to publication editors from Kevin Genther, Studio Publicity Director for Warner Brothers Studios in Pasadena, CA, 91505, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
21. McCabe andMrs. Miller Script, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.T
22. Squamish is the setting for Bear Paw, the mining company town.
23. Lakoff, Language and Woman I Place, 27.
24. Production notes, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
25. Joan Wallach Scott, Feminism and History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 2.
26. Page 37 of McCabe and Mrs. Miller Script, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
27. Anne Koedt, "Politics of the Ego: A Manifesto for N.Y. Radical Feminists," in Radical Feminism, ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen Levin, and Anita Rapone (New York: Quadrangle Books/The New York Times Book Co., 1973), 379, 381.
28. Ibid., 383.
29. Lakoff, Language and Woman Place, 7, 5, 9, 11, 28.
30. Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), 2-3.
31. Robert Merrill, "Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller as a Classic Western," New Orleans Review (1990): 84.
32. Page 3 of production notes, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
33. Robert Warshow quoted in Merrill, "Altman's McCabe," 85; second quote is Robert Merrill's in ibid.
34. Diane Jacobs, Hollywood Renaissance (London, Brunswick, and New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1977), 80.
35. Ibid., 82.
36. As Laura Mulvey has argued, "It is also important to acknowledge that negative aesthetics can act as a motor force in the early phases of a movement, initiating and expressing the desire for change." Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 164.
37. Ibid. The shift from the West of wide open spaces to the rainy climate of the Northwest "initiate[d]" the conversation about the Western genre. Likewise, Mrs. Miller's positive portrayal is the motor force for change, but the shift from her to McCabe as the narrative's "controlling figure" suggests the limits to her as a propelling force for the narrative. See also Christine Gledhill, "Genre and Gender," in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997), especially 380385.
38. In his words, "What is visually produced, by the practices of representation, is only half the story. The other half- the deeper meaning - lies in what is not being said, but is being fantasized, what is implied but cannot be shown" (Hall's italics). Hall, Representation, 263. While reversing the Western by replacing a male protagonist with a female, the film appears to present a positive portrayal of women. Yet, as Hall points out about reversing stereotypes, it does "not necessarily overturn or subvert it" but could also "mean being trapped in its stereotypical `other."' Many critics applauded the reversal, of course, but the reversal did not necessarily "unlock ... the complex dialectics of power and subordination," nor did the portrayal of a strong business woman who runs a prostitution house displace the history of objectification of women. Hall, Representation, 274. Laura Mulvey explains that negating expectations "depend [s] on acknowledging the dominant codes in the very act of negation itself." Thus, Altman's intent to undercut the Western depended on the audience's knowledge of the genre. That knowledge allowed the counterargument to work and fail at the same time. In Mulvey's words, "It could only be through an audience's knowledge of the dominant that the avant-garde could acquire meaning and significance. A negative aesthetic can produce an inversion of the meanings and pleasures it confronts, but
it risks remaining locked in a dialogue with its adversary. Counter-aesthetics, too, can harden into a system of dualistic opposition." Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, 164.
39. Pauline Kael, "The Current Cinema, Pipe Dreams," The New Yorker (July 3, 1971): 41.
40. De Lauretis, Technologies of Gender, 3, 130. As Emanuel Levy writes, "Gainfully employed screen women [in Oscar-winning films] are confined to ... two most prominent professions ... [as] actresses and prostitutes. Emanuel Levy, AllAbout Oscar: The History and Politics of theAcademy Awards (New York and London: Continuum, 2003), 225. Molly Haskell has remarked, "Prostitution, in which she is remunerated for giving sexual pleasure, and acting, a variant on natural role-playing" shows the hold on women's role as "adapting to others, aiming to please." Molly Haskell quoted in Levy, AllAbout Oscar, 225.
41. As historian Beth Bailey has argued, "Who we are became determined less by our geographic communities and more by other sorts of identities ... from cultural categories and institutions of national scope." Film works culturally and nationally as a product and process, an assertion and transformation of identity construction and social relations. Bailey, Sex in the Heartland, 6.
Chapter IX
1. "Geniuses at Work," File 7, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection, Library of Congress. Note: all references in this chapter to the Jules Feiffer Collection are at the Library of Congress.
2. Hollis Alpert, "Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things About Us?" Saturday Review 54.27 (3 July 1971): 18.
3. Jules Feiffer, notes in Folder 10, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
4. Jules Feiffer notes on speech about "Bernard the Loser," in Folder 9, Box 55, Jules Feiffer Collection, 6-10. Speech entitled "THE SUNDANCE KID 1965," Folder 9, Box 55, Jules Feiffer Collection, 6-7. Jules Feiffer notes, Folder 10, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
5. Jules Feiffer, "Writing and Drawing for Fun and Profit," speech given by Jules Feiffer on Jan. 18, 1971, at the 92nd Street YMHA. Box 55, Folder 11, 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
6. Jules Feiffer, "THE SUNDANCE KID, 1965," Folder 9, Box 55, Jules Feiffer Collection, 6-7. As Feiffer wrote in his notes on page 2, "we numb ourselves to the crises around us" and "we deaden the issues by discussing them" away.
7. Bosley Crowther, "Carnal Knowledge," The New York Times, 1 July 1971.
8. "Writing and Drawing for Fun and Profit," speech given by Jules Feiffer on Jan. 18, 1971, at the 92nd Street YMHA. Box 55, Folder 11, Jules Feiffer Collection, 12.
9. Norma Lee Browning, "A Plum for Annie," Chicago Tribune, 9 July 1970.
10. "Carnal Knowledge Hailed as a Picture Whose Time Has Come," Publicity Department Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation, Margaret Herrick Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
11. Arthur Thirkell, "Sins and Lovers..." Daily Mirror, 17 Sep. 1971.
12. Michelene Victor to Jules Feiffer, n. d., Folder 4, Box 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
13. Jules Feiffer, "True Confessions," Folder 13, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection. Jules Feiffer notes, Box 33, Folder 10, Jules Feiffer Collection.
14. First quote from Marta Orbach in letter to Jules Feiffer, June 20, 1971; second quote from Ellis Amburn in letter to Jules Feiffer, June 23, 1971; third quote from Samuel W. Gelfman to Jules Feiffer, June 24, 1971; fourth quote from Bernard Drew, "Review," July 1, 1971; all in Folder 4, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
15. First quote from Lee Philips, letter to Jules Feiffer, July 2, 1971; second quote from Philip Roth, letter to Jules Feiffer, July 2, 1971; third quote from Ned Rorem, letter to Jules Feiffer, July 27, 1971; last quote from Lewis Allen, letter to Jules Feiffer, Sep. 28, 1971; all in Folder 4, Box 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
16. First quote from Marta Orbach, letter to Jules Feiffer, June 19, 1971; second quote from Marta Orbach, letter to Jules Feiffer, June 20, 1971; both in Folder 4, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
17. Letter to Jules Feiffer, Aug. 26, 1971 in Folder 4, Box 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
18. Gerald Weales, English Department, University of Pennsylvania, letter to Jules Feiffer, Oct. 4, 1971 in Folder 4, Box 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
19. Kristin Linklater, "Demeaning," Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, 14 Nov. 1971. As Laura Mulvey writes, realism in film also evokes a new "fetishism" where "the fetishist becomes fixated on an object in order to avoid knowledge." Like Jonathan who fetishized the women through the slideshow, there is a certain sensual satisfaction in reducing experience and women to labels. Mulvey continues, "The fetishist ... has to abandon the desire to know the true nature of sexual difference in order to avoid castration anxiety." Thus, "the fetish' provides stability and the slideshow turns a threat into an artifact, an object again. Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), xii.
20. Roslyn Drexler, "Do Men Really Hate Women?" The New York Times, 5 Sep. 1971.
21. Jude Pease, Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, 3 -Oct. 1971.
22. Marcia Cooper, "Glib?" Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, 3 Oct. 1971.
23. Steven Kovaks, "Misplaced Concern," Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, 3 Oct. 1971.
24. Jack C. Rossetter, "Feiffer's Answer?" The New York Times, 3 Oct. 1971.
25. Tony Mastoianni, "Sensationalism Obscures Point of `Carnal Knowledge,"' Cleveland Press, 3 July 1971.
26. Charles Champlin, "`Carnal' Indicts Sexual Patterns."
27. Michelene Victor, letter to Jules Feiffer, n. d., in Folder 4, Box 12, Jules Feiffer Collection.
28. Fergus Cashin, "Beastly Men Give Ann Her Chance," The Sun, 16 Sep. 1971, in Folder 7, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
29. Jules Feiffer, "Geniuses at work." Jules Feiffer Collection.
30. Louis Botto, "They Shoot Dirty Movies, Don't They?" Look 3 (Nov. 1970): 59.
31. As David F. Friedman of the Adult Film Association explained, "Generally, it begins with the successful run of a sexy, foreign film. Then the theater brings in a foreign picture with no sex in it, and it falls flat on its face." An Oregon theater owner had the same experience. "When we played `The Battle of Algiers' to almost no business, and followed it with Brigitte Bardot in `Mademoiselle Striptease' and practically filled the place, we began to see the light." Arthur Knight, "Adult Film Group in Quest to Gain Respect," Los Angeles Times, 17 Feb. 1974.
32. Judge William J. Rehnquist, "Jenkins v. Georgia," Supreme Court of the United States, 418 U. S. 153, June 24, 1974.
33. Botto, "They Shoot Dirty Movies, Don't They?" 60.
34. Don Shirley, "A Plan to `Erase Confusion,"' The Washington Post, Times Herald, 2 Aug. 1973. Last quote from Gregg Kilday, "`Knowledge' Obscenity Ruling to be Appealed," Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 1973. See also The Authors League of America, Inc., press release and statement of support in Folder 9, Box 33, Jules Feiffer Collection.
35. Linda Matthews, "Court May Refine Ruling on Obscenity," Los Angeles Times, 11 Dec. 1973.
36. As Judge Rehnquist wrote, "It would be a serious misreading of Miller [Miller P. California, 1973] to conclude that juries have unbridled discretion to determining what is `patently offensive"' under the document." Rehnquist, "Jenkins v. Georgia."
37. Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London: Harper and Row, 1975), 9.
38. Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place; Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987); Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures.
39. Hillary Collins, "The New Puritanism," Cosmopolitan 168.3 (Mar. 1970): 50.
