TALKING DIRTY

Regarding the movie “Shadow of Angels” (based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s play, “Garbage, the City and Death”), I am afraid Dan Sullivan and I do not define a work of art according to the same dictionary or even the same criteria.

There is a world of difference between art as an allegory presented to provoke our consciences into reevaluating our ideas about the world and the deliberate, gratuitous use of controversial subjects for the mere sake of shocking and/or offending our minds.

While the offense is in the eye of the beholder, attacking basic tenets of Western ethics or simple human decency is not identical with spearing sacred cows.

I have not read Fassbinder’s play and I shall reserve my judgment of it until I do, but Sullivan generalizations go beyond merely defending freedom of speech.

MARIE-FRANCOISE MEYLAN

Santa Monica