The greatest of all film critics has died. Let’s celebrate some of his wit and wisdom:

“Masterpiece art, reminiscent of the enameled tobacco humidors and wooden lawn ponies bought at white elephant auctions decades ago, has come to dominate the overpopulated arts of TV and movies. The three sins of white elephant art (1) frame the action with an overall pattern, (2) install every event, character, situation in a frieze of continuities, and (3) treat every inch of the screen and film as potential area for prizeworthy creativity.”

- from “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art”

“While Widmark’s Skip character goes to work in crowded subway car, there is this light touch and satisfying balance between build-up and attention to the moment. Bresson in his own Pickpocket film doesn’t get close this directness or the freshness: the ability to keep a scene going without cuts or camera tricks, fastening on enormously pungent faces, Widmark’s fine-boned and tight-skinned youthfulness, the way he moves through the car, approaching the victim, Jean Peters, and, in one of the most unexpected detail shots, his hand becomes like a seal’s sensitive flipper, dropping down below a newspaper and into a pocketbook.”

- from “Samuel Fuller,” writing about Pickup on South Street.

“One reason for the brightness of Merrie Melodies and for their superiority over Disney’s product is that Jones is out to make you laugh, bluntly, and, as it turns out, cold-bloodedly. This runs him against the grain of the sever well-worked grooves down which the animated cartoon has traveled under the belief these grooves will never wear through. However it no longer seems funny to see animals who talk and act like human beings, who do all sorts of ingenious tricks - most of them superhuman - who go through lives of the highest excitement and reward, but have no inner, or mental, life. The complex emotional life and three-dimensional nature of Jones-McKimson characters allow their makers to poke fun at everything in sight, or out of sight - especially if its is something familiar and well loved, like McKimson’s Hiawatha, a kind person, or any bad actress’s great moments. It is an illusion of most cartoon-makers that they must have a moral, or do good, if it means only killing the villain; Warner’s crew isn’t under this illusion. The masterpiece, Inki and the Lion, is also a masterpiece of amorality - so far the other side of goodness that is is a parody of Bambi. In this version of forest life, man is the likable spear-thrower, preyed on by animals, and the king of the forest is a supernatural horror called the Myna bird, who hates man and beast alike.”

-from “Short and Happy”

RIP, Manny.

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