eluding Butiuel and Trufiaut, a mannequinesquenrock star, and an actressnwhose performances in MaHe’s AtlanticnCity and Mazursky’s Tempest are overshadowednby her ample anatomy. In ThenHunger they are not players. They arenobjects. The three are on the screen tonattract viewers (demisophisticates, rocknfans, voyeurs). They are null ciphersnwho never act but are simply manipulatednas required.nNot one of the vampire movies maden—including Browning’s—^is great cinema.nHowever, most—including Polanski’snThe Fearless Vampire Killers—cannbe granted a minuscule amount of respectnfor acknowledging that there arenmoral norms, that there are good andnevil. This is not the case in The Hunger.nEvil is all pervasive; the ecology is rotten.nThe viewer is to feel sorry for a murder­nFrom FrancenThe Work of Alget: The Art of OldnParis; The Museum of Modem Art;nNew York.nThe Work ofAtget: Old France; ThenMuseum of Modem Art; New York.nMasterpieces front the PompidounCenter; Thames and Hudson; NewnYork.nThe Work ofAtget, by now a sacrednphrase among the cognoscenti, standsnfor a collection of pictures by a Frenchnphotographer, Eugene Atget (1857-n1927). Photography was a French invention,nso it seems fair to remember—nwhenever there is a debate about the artnof picture-taking—that it was the Frenchnwho also endowed photography withnthose intangibles that transform craftninto art. Thus, though photography isnperhaps the most advanced method ofnregistering the visible facts—^not truth,nmind you—^its realism hardly relates tonARIning monster who doesn’t die but simplynbecomes ancient in a matter of hours;nthe viewer is to watch a graphic lesbiannlovemaking scene as if it is a matter ofnconvention, not perversion. It is vile,ndamned. Evil is seductive; it is not chic.nEvil is to be opposed, not embraced.nCertainly all civilized people know thesenthings. Knowledge, however, impliesnthinking. Those operating in Hollywoodntoday are not inclined to use their headsn(with few exceptions); they are happilynsatisfied with using the talents of techniciansnwho can generate special effectsnwith no strings showing and the abilitiesnof those who have mastered the trick ofngaining maximum publicity throughnpandering to base tastes. Perhaps thenmovie industry in 1983 is not unlike thencreature in TheHungerwho doesn’t die,njust progressively rots. (SM ) Dnmetaphysics, art’s principal protein. Yetnthe faded sepia of old French daguerreotypesnand plates gives us a sti-ange feelingnthat we are facing art.nEnter an unassuming silent genius, M.nAtget, who called himself a professionalnphotographer and who, instead of producingncommemorative portraits, thoughnhe probably did that as well (“Oh, anyonenwho’s ready to sacrifice for mankindnnnshould stop in front of a small-townnphotographer’s display window!” exclaimedna Russian novelist) also producednsomething which he modestlyncalled “documentatiotis.” From that grewnan almost-monumental but also poignantnvisual record of Frenchness fixednin imi^es of landscapes, vegetation, architecture,nboats, bridges, etc. Togethernthey constitute a unique reflection ofnthe rapport that exists between the naturenof a nation and its place on earth. Ifncivilizations have spiritual fragrances, ifnculture can be put into fragmentednimages, and if both can materialize in anvisual mood transfixed on a photographicnplate—M. Atget captured them all.nThere’s something inexplicably rich innthe evocations that M. Atget’s portraiturenof Frenchness (as it is determined bynboth geography and history) brings tonour sensitivities. This wealth of associationsnmay also stem from the power ofnFrench literature: after all, how many intimatelynknown characters inhabitednthese villages, streets, palaces, Parisianncarrefours; how many roamed throughnM. Atget’s meadows, mused under hisntrees, sat on the banks of his placid riversnand serene ponds; how many unforgettablenliterary scenes were situated in hisnsettings; how many ideas that are nownintegral parts of the Western mind floatednfreely in his air, precisely clear or wiselynmisty, but always superbly subservientnto M. Atget’s magic camera?nThe beautifiiUy reproduced masterpiecesnfrom France’s most modem (andnlately most discussed) shrine of contemporarynart, the Pompidou Center in Paris,nare masterpieces only if we agree thatnthey are just that. They certainly representna distinguished coUection. Whatnhovers over them, however, is the legitimatenand never-ending dispute aboutnthe criteria that are valid and relevant tonestablishing what a masterpiece is in thenvortex of the cultural phenomenon callednavant-garde—^which, for nearly a centurynhas never shed its youthful pretensions,nyet which has done nothing tonpersuade us that its sense and nature isnAugust 1983n