Welcome back to The Pilgrim’s Petulance. I had to put this chronicle aside for awhile in order to concentrate on making a living, but of course that’s no excuse. I promise to turn over a new leaf and be a more diligent correspondent.

 

Are you as annoyed as I am by the way in which blameless do-gooders of yore – who really did some good – are co-opted by feminists who do no good at all? I love the dedication in Peggy Noonan’s The Case Against Hillary Clinton: “To Eleanor Roosevelt.” Which I take to mean: Stop the wrongheaded invocation of a woman with set of late-Victorian tastes and values in an attempt to legitimize an ugly ‘70s ideology that insulted all normal women. (Remember when Betty Friedan – one of the three original founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League – referred to housewives, now called stay-at-home mothers, as “little household drudges”?)

 

The title of Elizabeth Powers’s review of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (“Liberalism’s Little Women,” National Review May 28, 2007) is charming, but I gasped at the last sentence in which she equates the mentality of Louisa May Alcott with that of Hillary Clinton. Miss Alcott’s approach brings to mind G.K. Chesterton’s aphorism that it is useless “to speak of reform without reference to form.” Louisa Alcott was shaped by a post-Puritan milieu that had “form” coming out its ears, whereas Mrs. Clinton, product of the 1960s and disciple of Saul Alinsky, is a stranger to the concept of duty that informed Miss Alcott.

 

Stephen W. Hines is one commentator who understands what Alcott was all about. He writes: “Louisa May Alcott would have found it strange indeed if anyone had suggested to her that there could be a general scheme for helping all in need regardless of an individual’s efforts and personal morality. … In all her writing, Louisa’s characters exhibit virtue and vice within a context of personal responsibility. … [Today] all too often we are told there is no limit to what we can do and what satisfaction we may achieve – if only hindrances to opportunity could be swept from our path, perhaps by the mercy of government itself, regardless of whether we are worthy of the opportunity or not. But for Louisa, moral character cannot be excluded as a factor in our own well-being and in what we make of ourselves and our opportunities. As we awaken morally to what is charitable, truthful, and good, we awaken our own souls to moral transformation. If we have been dealt a bad hand by life, the virtue of accepting what has been dealt to us strengthens us to our challenge. Others have overcome through worthy endeavors; so can we.” – The Quiet Little Woman, Tulsa, OK: Honor Books, 1999

 

If liberals are allowed to incorporate softhearted ladies from earlier eras in order to claim respectability for their schemes, then we conservatives should cite the pantheon of curmudgeons. Recently, I discovered an author I never thought I would like, but to my great surprise, she turned out to be something of an ally. If I can make a judgment based on The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and Old New York, Edith Wharton is no Louisa May Alcott, but her heart is most definitely in the right place. In Brooke Allen’s review of Hermione Lee’s Edith Wharton: A Biography (The Weekly Standard, June 25/July 2, 2007) Mrs. Wharton “was old-fashioned, and openly disliked – this is Lee’s list – lesbianism, feminism, bad manners, obscenity, socialism and ‘Bolshevism,’ exhibitionism, and experimental art.” Well, that’s darned near everything I openly dislike, so it looks as though I might be in talented company.

 

 

Welcome back. So sorry to take so long between postings, but sometimes life interferes. Well, to explain further the purpose of “The Pilgrim’s Petulance,” here is a quote from Ben Stein, one of my favorite writers, in a recent interview (Libertas, the publication of Young America’s Foundation, Spring 2006) in which he enumerated the issues which most concern him. By a not-so-strange coincidence, these are also the issues which contribute most to your correspondent’s usual foul mood: “1.) Abortion, the mass murder of the most innocent among us; 2.) the contempt our intellectuals have for the men and women who fight for us in our military services; 3.) the tragic fact that America’s schools teach hatred of America and disdain for freedom and dignity and human life; and 4.) the collapse of mass culture into a lewd kaleidoscope of pornography, sex, and violence.”

Regarding the fourth point, here is an editorial that appeared in Films of the Golden Age, Spring 2006, reprinted here with the permission of the author.

“Blaze Your Own Trail, and Be Sure to Take Someone With You,” by Bob King.

Nobody can tell you which films you should like or which films you should dislike, unless you let them. Naturally, there are a lot of people who share their opinions of certain films, and some of them may even tell you, “don’t see this” or “do see that” but they can’t really make you do either, unless you let them.

We classic film buffs have a special problem in this respect. Most people don’t even like old movies. Sure, they might watch a few classics here and there, the usual handful of films, but mostly they avoid the old stuff, and sometimes give the impression that anyone who is serious about classics is a bit odd.

The “sophisticated” types are the worst; unless the film is a masterpiece, they turn up their noses and look down on anyone who watches “inferior” films. Long ago I learned to ignore such people. Their sophistication is usually more like prejudice than anything else. Their minds are closed, and their thinking is narrow. No genuine classic film lover ever should let the sophisticates sway him. If we listened to them, we would be doomed to watching only a few films. The vast majority of titles, especially the ones we love, would be consigned to the “do not watch” category.

The worst thing about the sophisticates, is that, in fact, pretty much every film earns their censure. Take Citizen Kane, for instance. Kane has to be one of the best movies ever made, but did that save it from the critics? No. Those oh so sophisticated New York Times readers learned this about Kane from Bosley Crowther: “This picture is not truly great, for its theme is basically vague …” And Otis Ferguson of The New Republic wrote: “What goes on is talk and more talk. And while the stage may stand for this, the movies don’t” (You should have opened your eyes, Otis.) Famed author Jorge Luis Borges wrote of Kane: “It suffers from grossness, pedantry, dullness. It is not intelligent, it is genial in the somberest and most Germanic sense of the word.”

An even worse example of the threat posed by irresponsible critics can be found in Jean Paul Sartre’s writing on Kane. The philosopher’s verdict was that in Kane “everything is dead.” He comes to this conclusion mainly because the story is told mostly in flashback, “a story constructed in the past tense.” He tried to convince us that the difference between telling a story in the present tense and telling it in the past tense is the same as the difference between being and nothingness. We can only be grateful that filmmakers have ignored Sartre’s phony rule. The use of flashbacks has enriched films. Bad critics like Sartre, if the had their way, would cripple filmmakers and impoverish our film experience.

Sartre also attacked Hollywood films in general: “Orson Welles’s oeuvre well illustrated the drama of the American intelligentsia which is rootless and totally cut off from the masses. The film of the masses, that sort of films which drives the Texas or New Mexico bobbysoxers wild, is completely ignorant of the subtleties of art. Unfortunately, it has no social or cultural intentions. It wants to be ‘the opium of the people.’ But it suffocates them.”

So, do you really think M. Sartre was worried about people being drugged of suffocated by films? More likely he was upset because he couldn’t control what people watch. Like so many others who have pretended to be serving the masses, he was really the enemy of the masses. Fortunately, people like Sartre lost their war against us, and though others now are trying to follow in their footsteps, we have the freedom to watch thousands and thousands of different films. Despite the inroads of a few who still try to ban certain films, like the Fox Chans,*we can see more classic films today than ever before. And if the new medium of recording and transmission remains mostly free from the interference of those who hope to micromanage our lives, the future looks even brighter.

The moral of our story is that we need to blaze our own trails into film heritage. Don’t let others control which classics you watch. Don’t let anyone convince you that the films you love are worthless. The experts are often wrong, and the best and the brightest minds sometimes operate from sinister motives.

Watch more classics, and different kinds of classics. Explore in every direction. Expand your tastes and look into genres that you’ve ignored before. Push open those doors that others have tried to shut in our faces. Remember, everywhere we step, we shine a light on a neglected corner of our film heritage.

And don’t just watch these films. Read about them. Talk about them. Share them with others. Keep them alive.

There is an intrinsic value in each film, just as there is an intrinsic value in each one of us. The very process of discovering, appreciating, and explaining these films adds a special layer of meaning and value to each one of them. In this special layer there exists something vital that no one can measure or put a price on. Your freedom to express yourself in the choices you make is precious beyond words. Never let anyone diminish it or take it from you.

*Recently, 20th Century Fox went to the trouble of restoring their old Charlie Chan films for the purpose of airing them on Fox Movie Channel, only to chicken out thanks to noise made by a few who found it offensive that Warner Oland, who played Chan at Fox, wasn’t Asian. Have they ever heard of “acting”? – G.H.

A word about the name of this blog: Once I confided to a friend that I was worried that I had lost my faith. She said, "You don't sound like an unbeliever; you sound like a Christian who's mad." Hopefully that will change over the years; I was also told by a spiritual adviser that I needed "to bliss out." Well, unless I go to Hawaii where everyone is blissed out all the time, I'm not sure how that will happen. For the present, this pilgrim remains petulant. Years ago I read a book called Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men by G.K. Chesterton, in which he said that Dickens spent his life fighting for what he believed was right, and in that lay his "cheerfulness." Well, I hope to offer glimpses of Dickensian (Chestertonian?) cheerfulness amid the grouching and groaning -- but you, gentle readers, must help me with this!

Here's a characteristic incident that keeps my pilgrimage petulant. A few weeks ago I passed a church in the Fort Hamilton section of Brooklyn with a plaque informing me that this was "The Church of the Generals." Apparently Robert E' Lee was a vestryman there, Stonewall Jackson was baptised there as an adult (no, his Christian name wasn't Stonewall) General Matthew B. Ridgeway was a parishioner, etc. I made the mistake of walking inside where I found (of course) a priest with a little white moustache who told me that "Jesus never excluded anybody," when I brought up the current controversy in the Episcopal Church over whether or not to observe standards clearly stated in Scripture and maintained by 2000 years of Christian tradition. When I mentioned that Jesus said, "Go and sin no more," I was informed that Jesus did not say, "Go and be heterosexual."

The Church of the Generals. Indeed.

(The Church of the Generals, incidentally, is part of the Diocese of Long Island. A few years ago the Bishop of Long Island was arrested  -- I don't remember what for, but I do remember The Weekly Standard reporting that the cops found him "smoking crack and writing his sermon.")

From whence comes the notion of this touchy-feely all-inclusive Jesus? In Matthew 18, Christ offers a clear guideline for dealing with offenders: First, confront them by yourself. If they don't knock it off, bring a couple of friends with you. If they still persist in the offense, bring it up in front of the Church. Then if they don't shape up, treat them, says Christ, the way you would treat "a heathen or a tax collector"!

What most distresses me about modern society is the loss of any sense of manliness or womanliness. The late Pope John Paul II contributed a wonderful reconfiguration of traditional Christian morality (which of course includes this issue) in Theology of the Body, well worth reading for anyone with the patience to slog through it. When I've asked Catholic friends if the Pope's ideas trickle down into everyday parish life, I'm told that the answer, for the most part, is "no." (One friend told me that it can be found at places like Franciscan University of Steubenville ... but do you want to live in Steubenville?)

The Book of Revelation speaks of Him who sits upon a white horse, whose name is Faithful and True. Who today (on earth) has any conception of what those words mean? One of my images of the Anglican Church at the time in which I naively entered it was that of Queen Victoria in her widow's weeds, waiting to join her husband in Heaven. But it finally seeped into my thick skull that her church no longer dwells in the Victorian Age, but in the age of no-fault divorce. Churches are businesses and they are run like businesses, and the way to sell Christianity in an age of no-fault divorce is to dress it up as no-guilt religion. Look at the way Billy Graham gushed over Bill Clinton last year!

Classic orthodox Christianity gave rise to certain constructs that no longer exist. One of them was community. But what community can there be when faithful priests are forced out of pulpits by disgruntled congregations, in concert with liberal bishops, for expounding the very Bible upon which the faith is ostensibly based? (Go to David Virtue's website for horror stories about this.) So much for "father" figures and "church families."

Ah, families. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Who, and where, is Faithful and True?