What can you say about awards shows that hasn’t already been said? After watching part of You’d think TV criticism — from a newspaper no less — would offer little to hold <\/P> <\/P> Which sounds strangely like the current Bush administration, but never mind. The <\/P> To apply James’s point to last night’s Emmys would be cruel. I’m not thinking about the What can you say about awards shows that hasn’t already been said? After watching part of the Emmys last night, I decided the best way to enjoy my TV was to turn it off and open a book called “The Crystal Bucket,” a collection of British TV reviews of the 1970s by Clive James. You’d think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-5Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nEmmys<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/EM><\/A> last night, I decided the best way to enjoy my TV was
\nto turn it off and open a book called
\ncollection of British TV reviews of the 1970s by Clive James. <\/P>
\n
\nanyone’s interest beyond the short lifespan, days perhaps or a week at most, of the shows under
\nreview. But then you probably haven’t read James. This, for instance, is how he launched a review
\nof a 1976 production of the Tennessee Williams play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which was part of
\na Granada Television series called “The Best Play of 19–“:<\/P>
\n
\nHere was the main action, with a meaty part for Olivier as a southern fried
\npatriarch. Southern frard<\/EM> patriarch. The accent gets into your head. Whether the
\nplay itself does any more than get on your nerves is another question. I can remember being
\nyoung enough, long enough ago, to believe that in Tennessee Williams the giant themes of
\nGreek tragedy had returned, all hung about with magnolias. Ignorance of Greek tragedy helped in
\nthis view. This was the 1950s, when a lot of intentions were being taken for
\ndeeds.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\n
\nreview goes on to dissect the play and the performances, and it’s hilarious. You might think you
\nunderstand why just by imagining Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy, Natalie Wood as Maggie the
\nCat and Robert Wagner as Brick the Thick (James’s mot juste<\/EM> for the role). But
\n“they weren’t all that bad,” James says. What actually makes the review so useful and
\nfunny is its insight into the workings of a play with a reputation for
\nexposing the wounds and torturing the nerves of its characters:<\/P>
\n
\nEven in this television production the actors had to shout as loudly as they
\nwould have had to do on stage, since if they lapsed even briefly into normal tones it would
\nbecome apparent that every character in the play is doing all the time what normal human beings
\ndo only in rare moments of passion — i.e., say exactly what’s on their minds. The convention of
\nraw frankness can only be sustained if all concerned are in a permanent wax. So the actors rant.
\nRant on stage can look like powerful acting to the uninitiated, but on TV it looks like tat even to a
\ndunce.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nOlympian shouting match in
\nwhich (all the experts seem to agree) earned
\nJames Gandolfini<\/STRONG><\/EM><\/FONT><\/A> their awards for outstanding lead
\nactress and actor in a dramatic series. I turned off the awards show before it got that far.
\nBut thank God for Ellen DeGeneres, whom I did manage to catch. Her little monologue was
\npriceless.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"