Qualified to criticize?

The quasi-paean, six-column tribute to Edward Norton by Rachel Abramowitz (“He Has a Bigger Picture in Mind,” Dec. 29) was, hopefully, as cautionary as it was disgusting. The constant adulation of these latter-day, strutting popinjays like Norton who just want “to make anything ... the best it can be,” while savaging the work of a film’s writer and director, is still no cover-up for aggressive arrogance, total manipulation and “Look, Ma, I’m a bona fide control freak!” Can you picture Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn putting up with this nonsense?

What dues has Norton paid? What summer stock and regional theater and struggles getting work has he endured? What years of hopes and dreams, setbacks and minor triumphs has he encountered to qualify him to reconstruct a screenwriter’s work or exhaustingly challenge a director’s viewpoint?

Haven’t writers and directors struggled enough getting their work accepted to not need a contemptuous Edward Norton to straighten them out?

Norton should join the Writers Guild of America and sweat out the years of research and writing it takes to create an exciting script. He’s obviously in the Directors Guild but what years of apprenticeship did he offer? How many assistant’s credits did he accumulate before being allowed to direct the $32-million “Keeping the Faith”? Maybe his insights and snobbish erudition (some Yale people are a little more sanguine about it) will have more importance after he’s paid some real dues.

Fredd Wayne

Santa Monica