Vulgar auteurism

September 4, 2015 7:20 AM

Vulgar auteurism “is a loosely affiliated group of young cinephiles and critics. In Sarrisite terms, it’s more concerned with Expressive Esoterica than the Pantheon ... the bulk of VA activity actually focuses on directors like Paul W.S. Anderson, Jon M. Chu, John Hyams, Nimrod Antal, Isaac Florentine, Roel Reine, the Farrelly brothers, Neveldine & Taylor, and Russell Mulcahy. VA is also interested in performance, especially when it’s applied to action stars. VA has two missions. The first is to mount convincing arguments in favor of figures it sees at major but undervalued: John McTiernan, Abel Ferrara, Walter Hill, etc. The second, larger mission involves exploring and analyzing [these] directors" (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky).

It all kind of blew up in the summer of 2013. Calum Marsh at the Village Voice praised Justin Lin and other vulgar auteurs in May. Peter Labuza outlined a theory of vulgar auteurism at his blog in early June. Former Village Voice writer Nick Pinkerton wrote a scornful takedown at Sundance Now. Richard Brody at the New Yorker expressed his skepticism and Landon Palmer at Film School Rejects offered a more balanced criticism. Girish Shambu gave an overview, and the comments section (as always) was a super valuable source of debate and links. Blogger Outlaw Vern says "what kind of a fuckin fuddy duddy doesn’t appreciate Justin Lin?"

There's a Vulgar Cinema website. There's so much more. Google it.

posted by goatdog (11 comments total)

This feels very much like a way to recast the allure of the spectacle as "pure expressionism," and like Landon Palmer I am not convinced that there is anything "new" other than the terminology. And it seems as if the critic has to actively ignore the economics or the cultural context around the film to make this claim. It's a critic arguing, ultimately, about how and why it's okay to suspend or bracket critical analysis int he name of pleasure. It's more a critique of film criticism than a critique of film itself; it's film criticism as an autonomous sphere, independent even of the wider context of film itself.

But in practice it's a way to consume the 21st century's cinema of attractions without critically reflecting on the nature, function, or context of attraction itself. Is this just the rationalization of what would otherwise be guilty pleasures? Is enjoyment the same thing as appreciation, and is all appreciation the same? Like a lot of bad attempts at postmodernism, it aims to demolish supposedly snooty hierarchies but really just reinforces the narrative of the critic as master reader, a narrative that hardly diminishes the sort of snooty hierarchy that most benefits the critics themselves.
posted by kewb at 8:02 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't know how they got here, but this is a delicious plate of beans before me.
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:11 AM on September 4, 2015

this is a delicious plate of beans before me.
Welcome to film crit, I hope you enjoy your stay.

Is this just the rationalization of what would otherwise be guilty pleasures?
Looks like. I was gonna say this looks like an attempt to take films that the Vulgar Auteurists like and then reverse engineer some intellectual justification for that like. Which is fine, I guess. Certainly not a new thing in film crit. The deliberate focus on action films and "American Cinema" makes it sound like some nascent offshoot of the fedora wearing MRA manly man things for manly men crowd. Not sure that's their intention but that seems to be where their focus lies.
posted by davros42 at 8:27 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Film criticism could use some reinvigorating, so I don't want to hate on something just getting out of the gate, but I'm having trouble distinguishing this from every film school dude who wants to lecture you about Michael Mann being the greatest filmmaker ever but can't muster much more than "um, masculinity."
posted by thetortoise at 9:30 AM on September 4, 2015

This comment on Girish Shambu's post is great:

On the other hand, we could do with some work on definitely not-vulgar arthouse auteurs like Bela Tarr and Haneke that treats their films as industrial generic products in relation to particular audiences rather than as works of art. That would be fun.
posted by thetortoise at 10:10 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

like Paul W.S. Anderson, Jon M. Chu, John Hyams, Nimrod Antal, Isaac Florentine, Roel Reine, the Farrelly brothers, Neveldine & Taylor, and Russell Mulcahy.

John Hyams? I think you mean Peter Hyams. I mean, I known John Hyams is a person who is the son of Peter Hyams, but one of these men directed Outland and Timecop and one didn't.

Also, there's a huge difference between someone like Paul WS Anderson (who seems like kind of a seatwarmer even in his more inspired moments), and John McTiernan, who I don't think is "undervalued" inasmuch as most people understand the level of craftsmanship in his best films.

I mean, there are "vulgur auteurs" like John Carpenter and Paul Verhoeven, who create or created distinct works of pop art that have an individuality to them, and then there are a bunch of hack directors, and conflating these groups does a disservice to the former.
posted by selfnoise at 10:21 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

I like the aesthetic, and appreciate it, but I get to this point that the politics are kind of ignored, and that makes me sad. Pain and Gain is spectacualry homophobic
posted by PinkMoose at 11:08 AM on September 4, 2015

I was gonna say this looks like an attempt to take films that the Vulgar Auteurists like and then reverse engineer some intellectual justification for that like.

I've never been able to totally shake this exact feeling with a lot of the critics that get grouped into the Vulgar Auteurist school. The movement also comes off as totally reactionary sometimes -- a rebellion against arthouse culture by way of unrestrained and forced populism.

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky gets lumped in with this crew and while I'm not sure that's a totally fair association, I am sure that he's my favorite film critic living or deceased.
posted by dreamlanding at 12:51 PM on September 4, 2015

Another comment from Shambu's post turns up this vulgar auteurism tumblr. Genre neo-formalism makes for very cool screencaps.
posted by Iridic at 1:52 PM on September 4, 2015

I'm all for embracing a wider cinema but this strikes me as a gimmick.

So contemporary directors making sizable budgeted b-films who offer a bit of referential cinematic artistry to their direction? If that's the case then that is a pretty safe group of directors there. Nothing challenging in their discussions of these guys. My question though is why not embrace a wider range of filmmakers? Juan Piquer Simón or Brian Trenchard-Smith for instance. Or even someone like Renny Harlin, Michael Winner or William Friedkin - all of which I'd think would be in their wheelhouse. Since they seem to be ignoring the economics of these big budget works then why not look at the lower budgeted & idiosyncratic if not out right vulgar filmmakers like Doris Wishman, Russ Meyer, Don Dohler, and Michael & Roberta Findlay?

Perhaps I'm missing something.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:30 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

John Hyams? I think you mean Peter Hyams. I mean, I known John Hyams is a person who is the son of Peter Hyams, but one of these men directed Outland and Timecop and one didn't.

John has gotten a lot of attention for his Universal Soldier DTV sequels. I know that Peter has DPed at least one of them, actually.
posted by brundlefly at 9:08 PM on September 19, 2015