April
1
Film Critics: State of Play
As the film critic species looks more and more endangered--with the recent departures, for various reasons, of Gene Seymour and Jan Stuart of Newsday, Jack Mathews of The New York Daily News, Nathan Lee of The Village Voice, and David Ansen of Newsweek--folks are weighing in.
I'm collecting string on this topic, so let me know what you think. Do we need film critics? What is their purpose? Is it being served by something else? As aging film critics retire and move on, who will replace them? Are there some younger leading lights? What will replace print film criticism? Should every print critic with a job build a blog following ASAP? If the younger generation doesn't read newspapers and doesn't seek out that one person who reflects their taste online, where will they get their information on what to see? What is the impact on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic on film criticism? Positive or negative?
And sadly, at age 60, brainy film critic Paul Arthur has died. Manohla Dargis wrote his NYT obit. And here's what may be his last piece in print, for Art Forum, on Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure.
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Do we *NEED* them? Not really. But then we don't need a sports column or a home and garden section either. I think they add value to periodicals, cinema, and life in general though.
I think we all need to look to the Ebert to see a hopefully successful model of film criticism in the future.
1) At his peak, he reviewed far more films than most reviewers. Most of the big critics seemed to review one or two a week and then farmed out the rest to the 2nd stringers.
2) He does more than review movies. He writes about film and educates his readers. Rather than trying to remain above them, he tries to pull them up to his level of appreciation of film.
3) He interacts with his readers.
4) He likes the art pictures but likes to have fun as well. He gives positive reviews to comedies and action films that many critics dismiss.
5) Whatever he writes, we know it's his opinion. He doesn't seem to follow what the critics are saying when he writes a review. He's praised some turkeys and hated some great films but whatever his opinion is, you know it's actually what he feels.
It's sad to see all these guys be forced into retirement but some of them were a little too aloof for their own good and I don't know that the general public will miss them all that much.
Posted by: Vaughan Johnson | April 01, 2008 at 01:47 PM
To many, film critics are hugely important. Unfortunately, many of them are film critics themselves.
On the same day Nathan Lee was let go, a dance critic was also fired from the Voice. Was there the same uproar? Were dance bloggers as outraged? Do people outside of the dance world even know that there is such a job as a dance critic?
People who go to movies on a casual basis may just pick up the paper, remember the TV ad, see who is in it, maybe see an anonymous blurb in a print ad saying that such and such a film is "The Best Film Of The Year!" and go see it. They have no use for 1,000 words on a certain film.
These days, many films are being released without being screened for critics. There aren't even any reviews for a viewer, if they wanted them.
The days of the critical battles of Pauline Kale and Andrew Sarris are long gone. Pauline Kael is forgotten by the larger public, if they ever knew who she was in the first place. We are living in a star rating or thumb rating world. "Tell us if it is good or not, then don't tell us any more"
Yet to film bloggers or critics like myself it is a loss.
Posted by: Moviezzz | April 01, 2008 at 03:49 PM
Since killing trees and recycling newsprint is over, there is a low-cost digital subscription-based newspaper of the future. It's a news clearinghouse for all news content providers that want to provide a service to readers, and it reduces the practice and dependence of news on free links via free web content. With the emphasis on free, no wonder everything is downsizing. The digital newspaper clearinghouse works like Google, but it's designed as an elegant, efficient, highly searchable and continuously updated database that users can interface with and pull reports from to appear on their computer screen in any number of formats. As much as I like everything for free, my time isn't, so I'd gladly sign up to pay for a subscription to this service.
Posted by: T. Holly | April 02, 2008 at 02:20 PM
On Dave Kehr's blog, the comments about film criticism have been voluminous in the last week, with many extolling the blogs and the Internet as the new forums by which film criticism will continue. Yet Dave Kehr has pointed out one (very real) flaw in the argument: there is the assumption that the Internet will provide the sum of all knowledge. If it's not on the Net, then it must be either irrelevant or unimportant. Just as with the proliferation of DVD culture: there is the assumption that if it is not on DVD, it is "obscure", which distorts film history no end, since the silent films of King Vidor, all of the major works of Frank Borzage, a large part of the films of Josef von Sternberg, von Stroheim's GREED, the films of Victor Sjostrom, Jean Vigo's ZERO DE CONDUITE are not available on DVD in the US, yet these films were acknowledged as part of the foundation for genuine film history.
But i would like to point out some important distinctions. Deborah Jowitt's firing from The Village Voice really is a major blow to arts coverage, not just in New York City, but in the entire country: she remains one of the only critics who has covered all the developments in dance since the mid-1960s, she is a veritable encyclopedia of dance history, yet this is now deemed unimportant to the bottom line, which is that the dance pages of most publications do not generate major ad revenues.
Since the demise of my tenure as an editor for an arts journal for a university press, i've maintained a blog. I don't pretend that my blog is the same as a reasoned critical essay: it combines diaristic entries with opinions on events and film. I always mean to write a longer, more considered entry about particular films, but somehow that rarely happens, because a blog is usually tossed off in a short period of time and then it's onto the next few days. A blog is an immediate jotting; usually, i would spend anywhere from a few days to a few months on a long essay.
But the situation of The Village Voice is dire, because in New York City now, there are any number of venues which have tried to continue the tradition of alternative cinema, to show small, independent, and foreign releases. Some of these venues include Cinema Village, the Sunshine Cinema, the Quad Cinema, the Pioneer Theater, as well as The Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, the Walter Reade Theater of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Museum of the Moving Image. For these venues, some notice from The Village Voice was crucial; of the daily newspapers, The New York Times has expanded its film coverage, and The New York Sun has shown itself to be responsive, but this leaves so many festivals and limited releases which just have no opportunity to find critical notice. And for many of these films, critical notice takes the place of paid advertising. Without it, films such as the just-released FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON by Hou Hsaio-Hsien would have no chance of getting even the sliver of the audience it might get. And the weekly per-screen revenues as recorded on IndieWire (which do show the effect of critical attention on small releases) would be nonexistent.
But books are no longer the same cultural bulwarks they once were: most publishers do not have editors on staff to do the usual tasks such as copyediting and copy correction, so most books will be filled with typos, misplaced words, incorrect punctuation. But that is because publishing houses can no longer afford the costs of editing.
And so we have the Web, in which all manner of "information" (true or not) seems readily available, yet there is no editing, no adjudication, no sense of propriety. But the question will remain: can the Web be a viable source for critical writing? This will only be proven if critics on the Web can influence their readers, that is, can actually help people to seek out small releases. The Web has been able to replace standard modes of advertising: this was proven years ago by THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Can it now replace print criticism?
Posted by: Daryl Chin | April 02, 2008 at 05:14 PM
Daryl, it could if someone aggregated it and I never had to deal with a clumsy, dumb RSS feeder. I'd rather just log onto my subscription, click on movies, new releases, new york city, and pull the content.
Posted by: T. Holly | April 02, 2008 at 08:54 PM
Yeah, I'd like to think that people respond to film critics. I'm sure it still holds true that, in the majority of papers that still employ reviewers, it's one of the first thing people look at in the Friday paper.
But the landscape is changing, and it is going online. Whether there's an infrastructure that carries as much legitimacy as traditional news in the mind of the reader is probably yet to be determined. Do they view my reviews on my site as less worthy than one they'd read by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone or in their local rag?
I think what critics need to do is find other ways to fill the week. You can't just write reviews anymore; you have to contribute interesting ideas and content all the time, particularly as the switch to online media continues to win out. Bloggers provide something immediate, making tomorrow's newspaper yesterday's news by the time it's published.
The critic has to evolve just as the audience has and will.
Posted by: Colin Boyd | April 02, 2008 at 10:18 PM
To answer the questions you raised:
Do we need film critics? Yes, but not just to say what's good and bad.
What is their purpose? Like any good writer they should inform, educate and entertain. Providing context and perspective will increasingly become more important than dishing out 5 stars - but then for the best critics, this has always been the case.
Is it being served by something else? I guess one of the big changes is how criticism has been eroded by buzz. For example, a lot of people have formed opinions on blockbusters like Indy 4 and The Dark Knight from all the production and pre-release chatter, so they will go and see it. In a sense their opinion of the film is almost confirmed by just seeing it. The reviews are merely a footnote in this process. But, to some extent, this has been true for a long time. Check out this ABC News report about the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. There was hype then about what was a huge release, but what's different now is that the web has amplified buzz and chatter to the point where considered reviews by print critics are just a footnote rather than a key aspect in the opening of a film.
With the case of lower grossing awards season movies like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, it gets a little more complex. There's no doubt that a lot of online buzz and writing helped those films but key older outlets (e.g NY Times) still play a big role in framing these debates. In fact, the brilliant job Miramax did marketing NCFOM was in how they cleverly surfed this wave of chatter, to the point where possible negatives (e.g the violence, subtle ending) became reasons to actually see the film rather than avoid it.
As aging film critics retire and move on, who will replace them? Younger ones. Or perhaps film sections in papers and magazines will become more like forums, with established critics acting like moderators. The films sections of The Guardian and the New York Times would appear to be models of what may become the norm. But it could be more of a gradual process than one might think.
Are there some younger leading lights? This is an interesting question as I can't think of many 'established' critics under the age of 40. Is this because you need to build up many years of movie going in order for your opinions to carry weight? I'm not sure, but it seems to be the case. It also depends what you mean by 'younger', as I tend to judge on the quality of opinion rather than the age of a particular critic.
What will replace print film criticism? The web. But I wouldn't declare print dead just yet. Chunks of it will die but in free sheets and magazines it still has a future, albeit one that is tied with an online presence as that's where the advertising bucks will be coming from.
Should every print critic with a job build a blog following ASAP? Sort of. But as long as its done right. I think the print outlet should help their journalists interact with their audience whether it is via a blog, a podcast or even just an email address (e.g. Roger Ebert's letter page). It is the interaction that's important, not necessarily the technology. One thing I think that people underestimate about blogs is that your opinions are spread more efficiently and effectively online and you have a useful archive that anyone can see at anytime. Some traditional outlets have got to seize the opportunity of the web rather than keep moaning about declining sales and standards.
If the younger generation doesn't read newspapers and doesn't seek out that one person who reflects their taste online, where will they get their information on what to see? Can one person truly reflect another's taste? Did they ever? Viewers will still get coverage, as it is just human nature to find out more about something you like. I guess people will just gravitate to sites they like and find helpful. I also think review sites like RT and Metacritic help you get in touch with opinions you disagree with, which is actually healthy and also strangely addictive. Plus, despite what some sceptics might think, debates on blogs aren't always Bourne vs Bond spats or arguments about the latest Iron Man trailer, they can also be intelligent discussions of highbrow films. The beauty of the web is the breadth and depth. A single critic on a newspaper can't compete with this. For myself, I use Netvibes or Google Reader to pull all the feeds of sites I'm interested in - which is a lot - and I just browse and rearrange from there. But I also use essential sites like Google, YouTube, Flickr - and more recently Twitter - for any film related stuff.
What is the impact on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic on film criticism? Overwhelmingly positive as it gives viewers a wider range of opinion. It really is as simple as that. But I don't get why Rotten Tomatoes is always quoted more - Metacritic is actually the more useful site. Maybe it is because RT has been around longer.
Posted by: ambrose heron | April 04, 2008 at 12:18 PM