Thought over gags …

… A Critic and a Poet - Clive James - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Her range of appreciation, however, shows up in its full generosity when she heaps praise on a movie that had less-­prominent initial billing and might have been lost in the shuffle. There are scores of examples. She knew straightaway that The Battle of Algiers was a cinematic masterpiece about which you had to argue the aesthetics as well as the politics, which would have dominated the discussion if she had not stepped in. A movie could go all wrong in most departments and she could still see through to its creative center if it had one: of Lady Sings the Blues, she said, “Factually it’s a fraud, but emotionally it delivers.”