Renata Adler
Renata Adler
Renata Adleris an American author, journalist, and film critic...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth19 October 1938
CityMilan, Italy
CountryItaly
Renata Adler quotes about
experience generation history pretend simply younger
It is always self-defeating to pretend to a generation younger than your own; it simply erases your own experience in history
bus buy directed jeans six sweater tourist
At six one morning, Will went out in jeans and frayed sweater to buy a quart of milk. A tourist bus went by. The megaphone was directed at him. "There's one," it said. That was in the l960s. Ever since, he's wondered. There's one what?
nice criticism negative
Nice criticism is good when it tells you something. A lot of negative "criticism" isn't criticism at all: it's just nasty, "writerly" cliché and invective.
mean independent thinking
I think maybe writers come from different planets. I mean, not in any sense as extravagant as Baryshnikov. But there are some writers who understand each other this way and others who understand each other that way. Then there's this great herd, the "herd of independent minds."
different coincidence type
There are so many different types of writers. It's just sheer coincidence that they're all called writers.
lying intelligent people
Intelligent people, caught at anything, denied it. Faced with evidence of having denied it falsely, people said they had not done it and had not lied about it, and didn't remember it, but if they had done it, or lied about it, they would have done it and misspoken themselves about it in an interest so much higher as to alter the nature of doing and lying altogether.
real differences feelings
There is a difference, of course, between real sentiment and the trash of shared experience.
strategy linear conversation
A favorite strategy was the paragraph-terminating: Right? Followed immediately by Wrong. This linear invitation to a mugging was considered a strategy of wit.
movie sexy lying
Though films become more daring sexually, they are probably less sexy than they ever were. There haven't been any convincing love scenes or romances in the movies in a while. (Nobody even seems to neck in theaters any more.) ... when the mechanics and sadism quotients go up, the movie love interest goes dead, and the film just lies there, giving a certain amount of offense.
movie people very-good
Most movies are not very good. Most people know it and like to see them anyway.
movie art people
The motion picture is like journalism in that, more than any of the other arts, it confers celebrity. Not just on people - on acts, and objects, and places, and ways of life. The camera brings a kind of stardom to them all. I therefore doubt that film can ever argue effectively against its own material: that a genuine antiwar film, say, can be made on the basis of even the ugliest battle scenes ... No matter what filmmakers intend, film always argues yes.
art competition festivals
the time for prizes and competitions at art festivals is over. Competition is too closely tied to values that are alien to the arts.
uncles cancer grandmother
My grandmother refused to concede that any member of the family died of natural causes. An uncle's cancer in middle age occurred because all the suitcases fell off the luggage rack onto him when he was in his teens, and so forth. Death was an acquired characteristic.
people community quality
Nothing defines the quality of life in a community more clearly than people who regard themselves, or whom the consensus chooses to regard, as mentally unwell.