One of my professors at Stony Brook was Louis Peterson, who taught me that it was okay to hate bad shit. Even the bad shit people insist is good.
He was a screenwriter as well as a playwright, and had some small involvement in Academy politics. Large enough that he got to go to the Oscars, small enough that he was a seat-filler. In 1990, he went to fill a seat when a very special film director won the lifetime achievement award. He was one of the seminal directors of action films and sequences, a major influence on every big-time action director working today. All around Mr. Peterson, the seat-fillers and Academy members were getting all excited. This was back when Schwarzenegger was the biggest movie star in the world and Steven Seagal movies premiered in theaters instead of discount bins, after all. This lifetime achievement award winner was famous worldwide and had been for decades; his films were as artful as they were bloody, epic as they were human, etcetera etcetera.
The whole auditorium was a-quiver. Validation for bloody hackery, it sounded like! Yes! Then the winner's name was announced.
"Akira Kurosawa!"
And a thousand necks snapped to the left and right as everyone mouthed the same question to their immediate seatmates: "WHO IS THAT?"
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He was a screenwriter as well as a playwright, and had some small involvement in Academy politics. Large enough that he got to go to the Oscars, small enough that he was a seat-filler. In 1990, he went to fill a seat when a very special film director won the lifetime achievement award. He was one of the seminal directors of action films and sequences, a major influence on every big-time action director working today. All around Mr. Peterson, the seat-fillers and Academy members were getting all excited. This was back when Schwarzenegger was the biggest movie star in the world and Steven Seagal movies premiered in theaters instead of discount bins, after all. This lifetime achievement award winner was famous worldwide and had been for decades; his films were as artful as they were bloody, epic as they were human, etcetera etcetera.
The whole auditorium was a-quiver. Validation for bloody hackery, it sounded like! Yes! Then the winner's name was announced.
"Akira Kurosawa!"
And a thousand necks snapped to the left and right as everyone mouthed the same question to their immediate seatmates: "WHO IS THAT?"
