DISCRIMINATING READERS

To the Editors of The Crimstn:

The title of your review of the new Kubrick film, "The Titanic Sailed at Dawn," is appropriate, since when any film runs into the iceberg of Crimson editorial cynicism, the only survivors will be those who insist on forming their own opinions rather than slavishly following those of a fellow classmate who happens to be able to turn a phrase.

The most annoying thing was not Paul K. Rowe's review itself (everyone is entitled to an opinion, however wrong), but the customary godlike attitude that the Crimson takes toward its readers. Are we really intended to take Jeff Flanders' command to "throw away all the reviews you've seen of it" (Flanders is better equipped to evaluate a film than Reed, Crist, Canby, Kael, et al) seriously, or is it another example of the Crimson's weird, self-serving sense of humor? Are Handel, Bach and Schubert "second-rate music"? Why the duplication of reviews rather than the "dissenting minority opinion" column so thoughtfully given to political issues?

The continuing condescension of the paper toward its supposedly mature, intelligent, discriminating readership is appalling. The Crimson is a capable and influential newspaper which unfortunately is all too prone to occasional depths of literary pretension and tabloid tedium in such innocuous columns as "The Third Page" (I mean, who else would call it "The Third Page.") Your latest diatribe is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle boring. Peter Conolly '78