Arrowsmith

Harold Russell and Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Widmark and Donna Reed in Backlash (1956)

I showed this photo to someone and he said "I thought she was on her phone for a second."

Please do. 1. Your first point is a false equivalency, unless these white people have been promoting films by explicitly stating that they are films about white people made for white people, and black people's opinions do not concern them. 2. I don't need to read her mind, she has explicitly stated how race is an important factor: DuVernay is looking forward to audiences discovering 1982′s “Losing Ground” and Kathleen Collins in particular, who she considers on par with any of the white male contemporaries of the time, like, “a Woody Allen, per se.” The film was never released beyond screenings at film festivals and Collins died in 1988 at the young age of 46. “It was just a slice of life from her perspective and yet because she was a woman and because she was black it went nowhere,” DuVernay said. “And now that film has been forgotten by so many — not even forgotten, it’s never been known.” She continued, “That’s one that especially as a black woman filmmaker, I feel so connected to wanting to make sure people know her, know that she existed, know what she said and what she put out in the world and to really appreciate that she just was.” 3. I never stated or implied otherwise. In fact, I stated that I appreciate her bringing films I had not heard of to my attention. Remember, I did not create this thread, I never questioned Duvernay's place as co-host nor did I criticize her film choices. 1. I would say that any pride in race is a character flaw, but that's just me. Not sure what race shunned Ava, I'm guessing it was white people? Is this documented? 2. I don't understand this point. I don't feel any way really, I only posted because there seemed to be some debate about why she made some of her selections. If I feel anything, it is indifference. The defenses being posited for her more questionable comments aren't convincing to me, but oh well.

I chose Gerwig as an example, because she is similar to Ava in certain ways, but she is white. And I have my suspicions on why the double standard exists, though I don't want to explain because it would likely start a debate in which I have no interest in participating.

Imagine Greta Gerwig saying that she doesn't care what black people think, because her film has white people and she made it for white people. Then imagine her expressing explicit shame that she has Africans in her lineage, and celebrating that she is mostly European by declaring "I'm white!" and "This makes me so happy." In today's culture, I can only imagine we wouldn't be hearing from her again for a while, if ever, at least in the mainstream. I'm just clarifying what I meant, by the way, not trying to start a debate.

I want to go back and kiss Myrna Loy good night, then crash in my separate bed.

I was only trying to point out that learning more about Ava made it more clear why the films she selected were important to her. Though the videos I pointed out did make me raise an eyebrow. Reverse the races and you would likely see that person excommunicated from Hollywood.

A quick Google search of Ava Duvernay shows that she spends a large portion of her time focusing on race. Some interesting videos too. One in which she mentions that she doesn't care what white people think of her documentary because "I made it for black people." In another video of her on the show Finding Your Roots, she expresses disappointment when she learns that she has more white people in her lineage than she thought. She is afraid that she may be more than 50% European, but is ecstatic to find out that she is 57% African, exclaiming "I'm black!" in celebration. I had never heard of some of the films she chose for The Essentials, such as Ashes And Embers, so I appreciate that. I may watch them at some point.

There are too many to list all of them, so I'll just list one man and one woman. Ward Bond - Has anyone else been in as many great films as him? He would probably have endless entertaining stories to tell. Myrna Loy - Because she is the greatest.

I would love to be a fly on the wall with these two hanging out.

What people intuitively feel is "objective" tends to still be subjective. I don't see any place for objectivity when discussing film preferences. If someone likes A over B, but feels B is still "better" than A "objectively" (which is how I am understanding you), then I think that person is just confused about objectivity. It sounds more like the person likes A over B, but feels that B is more in line with what they normally (subjectively) prefer.

This reminds me of another unpopular opinion that I have (at least from what I've seen on these boards), that Westerns are my favorite genre of film. Old American Westerns are the pinnacle of escapism.

I'm not sure how many times, but certainly less than fifty. Maybe one day I'll hit that number. Stagecoach is probably my favorite film from the 30s, and the 30s is probably my favorite decade of cinema.

John Wayne was a great actor. Black-and-White in 4:3 aspect ratio is the best format for most films and should not have been all but abandoned after color/widescreen came around. The Hays Code wasn't all bad, and the restrictions catalyzed more creativity and ingenuity in the great filmmakers.