Madam, - There is not enough space in a short letter to refute all the rebarbative assertions in John Banville's uncritical review of David Thomson's Film Dictionary (July 26th).
Confining myself to a few points, Banville quotes with approval Thomson's belief that "art should insist that people are all the same size".
But why? It is not the artist's job to insist on anything other than artistic freedom.
And one should beware of the critic who rabbits on about democracy in relation to art. One sniffs the faint aroma of the party line.
Perhaps in the hope of stirring controversy or at least provoking a letter such as this (bingo), Banville dwells with glee on David the Giant Killer.
The blunt axe is taken to Fellini, Chaplin, Ford, Wilder and, in particular, Kubrick; and all in the space of a short review. Talk about power without responsibility.
If I may just refute Banville's assertion that the Strauss waltz in 2001: A Space Odyssey is "incongruous".
I turn to a book about another journey: Danube, by Claudio Magris. A book which, in the edition I possess, has in its fly-leaf a paean of praise from the very same John Banville.
Magris recognises that Kubrick's film is as much about time as it is about space:
"In the ceaseless iteration of the waltz there is something of the eternal and not only an echo of the past - but the unending projection of that past into the future.
"Kubrick was clever enough to realise that the whirling of the waltz keeps in time with the rhythm and breathings of the worlds".
Given the central role of the computer HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Claudio Magris discovered an astonishing fact. In a building on the banks of the Danube in Vienna is the IBM Centre.
It stands on the exact site where, in 1867, Johann Strauss for the very first time performed The Blue Danube.
It is one of those sonorescent ripples that spread out from Kubrick's films for those whose ears - and eyes - are wide open. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL BUTLER,
Neagh Road,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.