Capturing the Culture

by Richard Grenier

Book Overview

In this series of essays, Grenier seeks to debunk fashionable film portrayals of less-than-saintly historical figures and cultural sacred cows. Mahatma Gandhi, Alice Walker, Isaak Dinesen, the French... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896331490
• ISBN13: 9780896331495
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Ethics and Public Policy Center
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Of all the former CIA agents turned film reviewer...

Of all the former American expatriates turned CIA agents to eventually become nationally syndicated film reviewers, the late Richard Grenier was undoubtly the best. From the late '70s to the early '90s, his reviews and pop cultural musings were often a highlight of each issue of Commentary. Often, Grenier found himself in a lone position of dissent on many films -- this was because of both his conservative politics and his absolute refusal to endorse any form of intellectual dishonesty. Though his writings touched on the very serious subjects of the role of the political in American arts (Grenier largely felt it had no place), his writings were often quite humorous and he had a sardonic wit that truly set him apart from most of the Ebert/Siskel-wannabes of recent years. Though his reviews may have gone against the current trends, history has often shown him to be, more or less, correct. For proof of this, one need only read Capturing the Culture, a collection of Grenier's reviews and essays. Amongst the highlights included in this book are Grenier's sarcastic look at the then-beatification of Ghandi as a result of Attenborough's film, his look at how the self-promoting Donald Woods tried to make himself a martyr by exploiting the murder of Stephen Biko in Cry Freedom, a hilarious essay-length review on Warren Beatty's film Reds and Hollywood's uneasy attempts to make Bolsheviks "cuddly," an attempt to figure out why the characters in the Big Chill were all so shallow, and an imaginative review of the Last Emperor written in the voice of the Last Emperor. Perhaps the two strongest essays both deal with Grenier's observations at two separate PEN conferences in which he presents amusing portraits of such literary lights of Gunther Grass, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Amos Oz, Betty Friedan, Mario Vargas Llosa, and many others attempting to influence U.S. foreign policy through signing petitions and giving pompous speeches about the role of the role of art in politics. Richard Grenier died earlier this year and, unfortunately, the majority of his writings remain uncollected. However, one is thankful that we have at least Capturing the Culture to remember at least one decade of this man's sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-infuriating, always-fascinating critical thoughts.