david denby
Like you, we're always overjoyed when the alternating
New Yorker film critic is
David Denby rather than Anthony Lane; it's one less review we have to read that week. Today's issue, however, produces something of a master class in why Denby is despised by all right-thinking people:
"The New Disorder" is a four thousand word essay in which Denby lets you know that nonlinear narrative (apparently invented by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery in 1994) is difficult to follow. As Denby examines "the overloading, the dislocations and disruptions," you realize that this piece is equally, if not more, difficult. We're not sure what the bigger mistake is here. Is it the sheer pointlessness of attempting to codify narrative techniques that have been in place for at least a century, or the idea of having Denby as the explicator in the first place? In any event, in a fit of postmodernism of our own, we've recut and remixed Denby's essay. If you somehow have the fortitude and the free time, you can read both and decide which makes more sense. Or any sense at all.
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