Developments re: Carney, Rappaport, Jost

Filmmaker Jon Jost -whose work, it happens, I first heard about through Ray Carney - has posted an update re: the attempts to restore to filmmaker Mark Rappaport various films that are in the possession of Carney. I've weighed in on this a couple of times, in a comment on Jost's previous post and on the Mubi thread, trying to urge third parties to be at least somewhat cautious in how they characterize Carney (cf. David Ehrenstein's "Stop, Thief!" post, which describes him as a "parasitic carbon-based life form"), but indeed, things do look very, very bad for Carney. I find the whole situation highly unfortunate, because a) I have greatly valued some of Carney's writing, and been introduced to many interesting films and filmmakers by him; and b) I have at times defended Carney in the past - it's been fashionable to abuse him in certain quarters for a few years now, at least some of which he has brought on himself, but which, until now, has often seemed cruel, ad hominem, and excessive. To some extent, I'm probably guilty of throwing good money after bad, here, but I haven't wanted to believe the worst. The longer he maintains public silence (while refusing to return Rappaport's materials), the harder this gets.

Those interested in some background on Carney and Cassavetes scholarship, in part involving the Vancity Theatre's Tom Charity - himself an author of an excellent book about Cassavetes - should read this Jonathan Rosenbaum article...