I have both those books and I need to actually read them.
I like LaSalle. I don't agree with his every assessment of an actor or a film, but who expects to? He's smart and nuanced about screen personae in a way that makes me wish he would just write a biography of Richard Barthelmess or Ann Harding and I believe him to be the person who validated my growing impression (now an active hobbyhorse) that while it's easy to think of the pre-Code era in terms of the sexual agency afforded its female characters, it's just as important to consider it in terms of the emotional range permitted its male characters. I would like to have inherited its continuity of culture rather than having to rediscover it as though it came from the hell of a universe next door.
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Date: 2022-10-21 12:59 am (UTC)I like LaSalle. I don't agree with his every assessment of an actor or a film, but who expects to? He's smart and nuanced about screen personae in a way that makes me wish he would just write a biography of Richard Barthelmess or Ann Harding and I believe him to be the person who validated my growing impression (now an active hobbyhorse) that while it's easy to think of the pre-Code era in terms of the sexual agency afforded its female characters, it's just as important to consider it in terms of the emotional range permitted its male characters. I would like to have inherited its continuity of culture rather than having to rediscover it as though it came from the hell of a universe next door.