----------------------------Original message---------------------------- From: Tony Williams English SIUC continued - far outweigh charges of "academic arrogance" and"nitpicking". Imagine the response of a history professor to a series on the Civil War which got a number of dates wrong (cf CITIZEN KANE's date) and only used a small proportion of the available material. As one correspondent has pointed out, many films from the teens and twenties (as well as the 60s- 70s era) were not used as important extracts. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill produced film history series in the past that were both well-researched and accessible to a mass audience. Just because a series is aimed towards that market, we should not allow its errors and flaws to pass unchallenged. The better works of popular culture survive because they stand up to criticism and pass the test. This writer is proposing a false dichotomy contrasting well-researched works appealing to "academic arrogance" with mass-produced works of a sloppy and incoherent nature. This distinction does not work. An introduction can be well-informed, thoroughly researched, and capable of appealing to a mass audience. The appalling AMERICAN CINEMA audience has none of these qualities. Because correspondents pick out "flaws" does not necessarily mean they are engaging in elitist, arbitrary judgements. Like any work, AMERICAN CINEMA should be open to criticism and not viewed in the light of being a mass audience introduction and excused from making errors because of its market constituency.