worse than a home movie
While JH Miller may be worthy of some attention, having played a key role in academia, this amateurish portrait mars his memory with bad camera work, shoddy editing, clueless direction, and an overall drift that is less than aimless. Whoever got funding to do this did not care enough to heed basic workmanship. On a basic grading rubric, I would fail this in several categories - was there even a script, a storyboard, an editing strategy? The haphazard and disjointed way this film lurches through Miller's life and work is deplorable. No amount of spicing it up with anecdotes about well-known figures can save this from being less than one star.
Affirmative, warm, generous film about a great critic and human being
Near the end of the film, Hillis Miller is asked, "will literature save us?" He says no, but every minute of this film affirms the value and pleasure of reading literature in the ways Miller has taught us. This is a beautifully crafted film that tells us volumes about Hillis Miller but also about a mode of reflective living that is all too sadly on the wane. It gives a vivid glimpse into the age when university education and teaching was about just that, not pre-professional training. It also has tremendously funny and witty moments. The director does an astounding job of capturing Hillis Miller's warmth and wit and compassion. But also his deep seriousness, and is comments about the ecological crisis and financical crisis are sharp and compelling. For those of us who know Hillis Miller it's like sitting down and chatting with him; for those who don't, the film is a treasure and a find. I'll show this to all my grad students.
disgraceful
David Palumbo-Liu, because i respect you and the study of literature, I have to differ with your glowing review of this embarrassing and sycophantic piece of home video. Neither insightful nor poetic, although it pretends to be both, Kuzundjic's film is awkward hagiography at best.
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