2—
Nine Years of Film Criticism

On a certain level, it all comes down to an observation made to me by the scriptwriter Marilyn Goldin, in the process of making another point that I can no longer remember. This was in Paris, rue de Dragon, circa 1972 or 1973,

sometime after I'd lent her my disintegrating paperback copy of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest for the script adaptation she was writing for Bertolucci at the Hôtel Veneuil, and she had since moved up in the world: about half a dozen long blocks south, to be precise, just past boulevard Saint-Germain into one of my favorite streets in Paris, a narrow, slightly crooked passageway that suggests a baby dragon's tail. It was there that Marilyn remarked, "The point is, it's more important to Joan Crawford that you admit that she's great than it is to you to refute it."