Ask Mick LaSalle:
Does LaSalle like the Little Man system?
Dear Professor LaSalle: The New York Times has no rating system at all. You have to read the review to see what they think. You, on the other hand, have a five-man rating system. Do you prefer it that way? Byron Nevins, Pacifica Dear Professor Nevins: There are times when a critic would prefer to equivocate, and the benefit of a rating system is that it makes equivocation impossible. In newspapers and magazines that don’t use a rating system, you will sometimes see equivocating reviews — not subtle reviews, not complex reviews, but obfuscating, ambiguous reviews. That is not a good thing. So I like working within a rating system.
I know some critics who don’t feel that way. They feel that the opinion should be contained entirely in the review, that the review expresses the true, complete and nuanced opinion, and that the rating is just a crude shorthand. Some also worry that a rating makes people feel it unnecessary to read the review at all. I respect these lines of thinking, but I disagree. Yes, of course, the full opinion is the truest opinion, but let’s not be precious about this. People are busy, and we’re not writing Shakespearean sonnets over here. Besides, a rating can serve as a neon sign for a review, particularly when the rating is extreme. As for the fear that no one will read the review if they know what it’s going to say, well, they’ll know soon enough, anyway.
By the first, second or third paragraph, the reader is going to get the gist, unless the critic adopts the bizarre strategy of keeping his or her opinion a mystery until the end — and even that strategy can only work once (at most), because people will adapt and start skipping to the last paragraph. In the end, the task of the critic is no different than the task of any writer, which is to somehow do enough tap dancing and keep enough plates in the air so that people keep reading. If the main thing a review has going for it is the yes or no opinion buried within it, that opinion isn’t worth excavating. Dear Mick: I seem to remember your once mentioning in passing that you disliked Laurence Olivier’s 1983 “King Lear.” I’m curious to hear more about your thoughts on that version.
Michael Frisbie, San Francisco Dear Michael: I remember not liking it very much, but I couldn’t remember why, and so to get an answer for you, I went on YouTube and started watching it again. I can’t pronounce on the entire production, because this time I skipped around a bit, but I found Olivier remarkable and quite moving. And just as it’s a rare advantage to have a teenage Romeo and Juliet, it’s a rare thing to see an actor close to Lear’s age (Olivier was 76) taking on the role. This last point I couldn’t possibly appreciate in my early 20s, because at that age I saw 55 and 80 as both in the category of old, so a robust actor in his 50s, wearing a white wig, would seem just as ancient as a genuinely old actor with snow-white hair. There’s something to be said for life experience.
I first read “King Lear” when I was 12 and had a profound reaction to it. I remember when I finished it, I sat on the back porch — it was at night, and about 90 degrees outside — and it felt as if the Earth had literally moved, like something had physically shifted in the world. But even with that, I couldn’t know what it was like to be around someone with dementia. I didn’t know what it was like to see a dazzling, brilliant, powerful man reduced to helplessness by age and illness. Those were mere ideas to me then, but now those are things that I’ve actually seen, and so I can recognize and respond to their shadows in art. In the end, that’s the great advantage of the classics. They stay the same, and we grow into them.
Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.