Hollywood and the 21st Century

I read with interest “Hollywood’s Millennium People” (By Patrick Goldstein, March 24). Mark Dippe’s statement: “When I go to an art museum, I feel like I’m in the hallowed halls of dead men. When art gets codified and deified, it loses its edge.” That is how he says he feels. Sounds like a thought to me, but OK.

I wonder if, after Dippe is dead, any of his art will have the effect of, say, Michelangelo’s “David” or even his unfinished work, “The Apostles.” The first time I was in the presence of these two works of art, I had to take to my bed, because the “edge” was too much for a mere mortal being.

Maybe Dippe lacks the ability to perceive the edge he claims is missing from the art that he “feels” is codified and deified.

Jacqueline Dorfman

Encino

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James Cameron may be spending fistfuls of money on high-tech filmmaking, but he’s not nearly as quick with a buck where labor is concerned. In the article, no reference was made to Cameron’s [mid-1994] anti-union statements, which discriminated against the skilled and experienced professional film worker/technicians who actually make his movies.

By publicly vowing to make his next picture outside of the country in order to avoid union workers, Cameron, like his anti-union colleagues, is begrudging American film workers--the best in the world--their compensation and small benefits. (The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees recently ratified an admittedly concessionary contract that provides for health insurance and an inadequate retirement plan.)

Cameron’s business practices mar his image as a visionary for the next millennium.

Michael Katz

Santa Monica

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* Editor’s note: IATSE sources say that concessions in the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers contract were designed to induce filmmakers operating on a nonunion basis outside of the country to return to the fold. *

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The profile of Stacey Sher included a flip, pejorative comparison between Eddie Albert and Buddy Ebsen in which it was asserted that Albert flunked the necessary “cool” test because he was remembered only for “Green Acres.” In response, here’s an incomplete--and, evidently, “uncool”--list of films in which Albert starred: “The Heartbreak Kid” (nominated for an Academy Award), “Carrie” (as in “Sister Carrie”), “Attack,” “Brother Rat,” “I’ll Cry Tomorrow,” “Captain Newman, M.D.,” “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Longest Yard.” While I’m sure that Sher meant no disrespect, I’m equally certain that the vagaries of fashion are more ephemeral than just plain good work. And for almost 60 years, that’s all Eddie Albert’s been about--”cool” or not.

David Manson

Los Angeles