Andrew Sarris Likes to Watch

We know Andrew Sarris can be wanting for inspiration periodically, borrowing liberally from either his own previous work or that of others. In the end, however, I think I might prefer a lazy Sarris to a prurient one; to wit, in my yawning scroll through Andrew Sarris's Observer piece this week about The Earrings of Madame De... and the regurgitated rest of "the greatest films of all time," I overlooked a key passage that Jim Emerson brought to my attention only yesterday:

Even among my contemporaries, I have become notorious over the years for my ecstatic -- to the point of orgasmic -- addiction to camera movement as an expression of the tyranny of time in the drama of human life.

Memo to shuddering self: Do not sit in front of Sarris at an Orson Welles film.

Posted at March 13, 2007 9:39 AM