"Leibovitz... is worshipful. Riesman is relentlessly debunking, if not desecrating. Leibovitz credits [Stan] Lee with reawakening 'America’s moral imagination.'"

"Riesman hammers on the notion of Lee as a credit thief. Published as part of Yale’s Jewish Lives series, Leibovitz’s book presents Lee as the contemporary equivalent of Harold Bloom’s J: Spider-Man is 'a direct descendant' of Cain, Mr. Fantastic is 'a nuclear age Hasid,' Iron Man embodies 'a stern reminder, drawn from the core of Jewish theology, that redemption comes only when human beings get together and pursue common goals.' With regard to The Fantastic Four, Leibovitz writes, 'anyone with even a hint of familiarity with the Bible would recognize the pattern of the flawed and conflicted leaders wrestling with their stiff-necked people.' Lee’s comic books are like Bob Dylan’s songs, 'an ongoing dialogue with the artist that mirrors the ancient Talmudic logic of constant conversation.' Riesman makes no such elevated claims, although he may be said to contribute to the conversation when he notes that, while Lee’s immigrant parents were observant Jews, Lee himself 'felt no kinship with the Jewish community and was allergic to the very idea of religion.' Riesman is most insistent in questioning Lee’s integrity, specifically with regard to [Jack] Kirby, considering it 'very possible, maybe even probable, that the characters and plots Stan was famous for all sprang from the brain and pen of Kirby,' adding that 'it’s already provable that Stan lied blatantly and often about Kirby’s contribution to their comics together.'"

From "Marvel’s Ringmaster/Under Stan Lee’s guidance, Marvel marketed not only its characters but also the men who created them" by J. Hoberman (NYRB), which reviewers "True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee" by Abraham Riesman and  "Stan Lee: A Life in Comics" by Liel Leibovitz.

I didn't blog the death of Stan Lee, so why am I blogging the death of William Goldman?

Both were important writers in American popular culture whose work did not reach out to me personally. But I will link to the Goldman obituary (WaPo), because I have consumed his work. It loomed large in the part of the culture where I lived. I've never had any interest in superhero comics. Never read them. Never cared. Have no opinion other than it's something I see other people like. Those other people can talk about the meaning of Stan Lee. But Goldman is another story.

IMDB lists 34 movies he wrote. I've seen:

1990 Misery (screenplay)
1987 The Princess Bride (book) / (screenplay)
1976 All the President's Men (screenplay)
1966 Harper (screenplay)

Big Goldman films I avoided (and these are all films from the 1970s, when I would go to see every well-reviewed movie unless I actively avoided it):

1976 Marathon Man (from: his novel) / (screenplay)
1975 The Stepford Wives (screenplay)
1973 Papillon (contributing writer - uncredited)
1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (written by)

Looking at that, I have 3 thoughts: 1. "The Princess Bride" was great, 2. I must have really not wanted to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to have never — in all these years — happened into watching it, 3. Goldman seems to have been a competent, successful, mainstream writer, and good for him, but I have no sense of him as original, profound, or speaking to me.

Now, let me read the long WaPo obituary and see what I'm missing:

Mr. Goldman, who learned his trade from a screenwriting guidebook he bought in 1964 at an all-night bookstore in Times Square, abhorred film schools and auteur theory. In profanity-laced interviews, he repeated his mantras: “Screenplays are structure,” “stories are everything.”

“It’s not like writing a book,” he said to the publication Creative Screenwriting in 2015. “It’s not like a play. You’re writing for camera and audiences. One of the things which I tell young people is, when you’re starting up, go to see a movie all day long. By the time the 8:00 show comes.... you’ll hate the movie so much you won’t pay much attention to it. But you’ll pay attention to the audience. The great thing about audiences is, I believe they react exactly the same around the world at the same places in movies. They laugh, and they scream, and they’re bored. And when they’re bored it’s the writer’s fault.”

And that's the attitude about movies that has taken over in the last 40 years and why I'm not interested in movies anymore. This grand effort to preemptively stomp out all boredom bores me.