August 7, 2009

  • Annals of Aesthetics, continued:

    Angel and Beast

    Screenwriter Frank Pierson spoke at
    Chautauqua Institution this morning.

    The gist of his remarks may be found
    in an undated graduation speech
    at WarnerSisters.com.

    His suggested motto for filmmakers:
       "To reach and touch
         the angel in the beast."

    The Chautauquan Daily    ,
    Friday, August 7, 2009
    by Sara Toth, staff writer -- 

    "Pierson listed his favorite movies as
    the Italian and French films that, after
    World War II, captivated him and his
    friends.
    'Those movies were overwhelmingly
    fascinating to us, and changed the way
    in which we saw movies, and the way we
    saw our lives and what we wanted to do
    with ourselves,' he said. 'There were so
    many that were absolutely marvelous.'
    Such movies are not made any
    more, Pierson said, and the quality
    of the movies now pale in comparison
    to those of the 1970s and 1980s.
    About once a year, the Coen brothers
    release a movie, and Woody Allen
    'occasionally' makes a good film,
    Pierson said. But the mainstream movies
    that are shown in the multiplexes now
    are geared toward only one audience:
    young men with disposable incomes.
    'That's really catering so extensively
    to a rather limited audience-- a mentally
    retarded and emotionally stunted
    audience at that-- that there's not a lot left
    over for the rest of us,' Pierson said."