In a message dated 11/24/99 6:57:47 PM, you wrote:
 
<<I admire the film writer David
Thomson, who knocks Eisenstein's writing as dogmatic and instead quotes
Alexandre Astruc, embracing montage as only one element in how a film works.
Under this approach to film criticism, also shared by Manny Farber, it is
crucial to The Big Sleep that Bogart happens to pause for a fraction of a
second while crossing the street. A detail like this, and not the idea of
montage, is what Pound was keen on, if what he admired in a film was its
"enormous correlation of particulars".>>
 
I agree entirely with Astruc and Farber, though I think it's important to
understand that montage (editing) has a privileged place among the many arts
(and their various multitudinous particulars) contributing to the cinematic
effect.
The other arts that go into cinema -literary, musical, purely pictorial,
vocal/dramatic, and photographic all come from other places until they are
joined together in the one art in the mix that is essential and exclusive to
cinema - editing.
On the Disney question - I believe that the organizational structure of the
Walt Disney company was not unique in Hollywood, it was just the Animation
and Children's Animal Story Division of the factory system in place at the
time.
 
What I don't understand is how the treacly  look and the sentiment of Disney
could appeal to the man who picked Henri Gaudier out of the crowd.  Maybe I'm
missing something in Disney that others, including my children (though they
will watch anything drawn), see.
 
I still don't know who are the 'metaphysicals' he is comparing so unfavorably
to Disney.  Any guidance on that would be greatly appreciated.
 
best wishes, Jay Anania