Professor Basinger Quoted in NY Times Magazine

Full credit to my mother for spotting this quote in a lengthy article about writer/director Nancy Meyers (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give, The Parent Trap):

Whether her insistence on “softening the message” through plush surroundings ultimately weakens the films — renders them more glossy and insular than they need be, even for a genre that is inherently fizzy — is a question I have debated with myself and others. Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the film-studies department at Wesleyan University, says that unlike Frank Capra, who believed that victory over something significant was essential for a comedy to be memorable, Meyers’s movies don’t require that you think about them again. “She makes it easy for the actors and the audience,” Basinger says. “They can slip into their parts and be happy, and we can slip into our seats and be happy.”