Do Film Critics Have a Future? Who Cares?

You know film criticism is in trouble when its own publishers start wondering if it has a future. "Who needs critics?" inquires the October cover of Sight and Sound magazine. "Film Criticism in Crisis?" is the less panicky query of Film Comment, which organized a Lincoln Center panel to discuss the matter. "In recent months," write the editors of Cineaste, "American critics, having been fired, downsized, or bought out by a host of publications, are realizing that even making compromises with their corporate employers does not guarantee them a job."

I can testify to that last point. As chairman of the National Society of Film Critics for several years, I've seen the number of real journalistic jobs held by our members drop at an alarming rate. Among those who've recently left their posts are Newsweek's David Ansen, Salon's Charles Taylor, the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington, the New York Daily News's Jami Bernard, and the Village Voice's Dennis Lim, all of whom had earned their readers' trust and loyalty through years of savvy reviewing. It often seems that the smarter, more articulate, and more independent-minded a critic is, the more I can expect an e-mail starting, "As of [insert date] I'll be leaving [insert publication] to spend more time with my family...."

Oops, it's politicians who use the time-with-my-family line; with critics it's usually ""to put more work into my website." Websites are the godsend that lets unemployed critics keep on being critics -- possibly better ones than before, now that corporate compromises are out of the picture. The problem is that many websites don't pay for what they publish. And even if they did, critics who earned their cred in newspapers and magazines are far from unanimous about the virtues of Internet criticism, which many see as a domain of egotistical hacks whose main motivation is to get quoted in an ad someday. Returning the cynicism in kind, some Internet critics see their print counterparts as outdated elitists too intoxicated with their paychecks to realize they're a dying breed.

It's too soon to tell how the web wars will play out, but as Film Comment's Kent Jones has observed, the Internet has vastly widened the critical field by blurring the distinctions between writers and readers. It also blurs the differences between "experts" and "amateurs," which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The latter term, from the Latin for "lover" and "love," can signify a passion for film that print reviewers sometimes run short of - an occupational hazard for people forced to sit through the likes of Saw V and Beverly Hills Chihuahua and then think up something, anything, to say about them.

When I took early retirement from the Christian Science Monitor in 2005, I knew my more skeptical colleagues would hear those words in quotes: "early retirement," yeah, sure, wanna write for free on my website? But honest, folks, I stepped down on my own schedule, and with the Saw V circuit happily behind me, I now get to write about film-related subjects I actually find interesting. I also have more time for reading about movies, and this has renewed my respect for the unexpected insights that eagle-eyed critics can bring, even to a frazzled old cinephile like me.

One of my recent projects has been co-editing The B List: The National Society of Film Critics on the Low-Budget Beauties, Genre-Bending Mavericks, and Cult Classics We Love, just out from Da Capo. It's a book of essays by NSFC members about B movies of every ilk, and working on it brought one revelation after another. A piece about The Rage: Carrie 2 made me realize it's not only spookier than Carrie, it's also 20 times more intelligent. It hadn't occurred to me that the right-wing space opera Red Planet Mars can be read as an allegory of the Rosenberg spy case, and I'd forgotten that Nicolas Cage actually eats that cockroach in Vampire's Kiss! In print or online, it takes a natural-born critic to dig out the overlooked facts and ingenious interpretations that my B List colleagues have surprised me with time and again. So who needs critics? I do. And so does everyone who cares about movies.

Comments

[rjmiller]

Film critics are unnecessary for most Hollywood films. Everyone knows they're crap. Everyone saw the preview with the shaking camera and random explosions, or the smirking actress trading quips and innuendo with her British costar, or the dedicated coach leading his racially downtrodden team to victory against all odds. We all know they're not good movies, but since anything is better than sitting around at home again on a Friday night we'll keep picking the least terrible one to throw $10 at.

In contrast, there are the indie films, the foreign films, and those few Hollywood gems that slip through the marketing department. These rare treasures that never see the light of blanket marketing, never get the multi-million dollar commercials and bus posters. That is where the film critics are still vital.

People going to see "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" aren't interested in what Ebert has to say, they want to see a cute dog getting into zany hijinks (I've never heard of this movie but I assume that's what it is). The people that regularly read Ebert want to find this year's "In the Valley of Elah" or "La Vie en Rose."

[Jelperman]

Critics losing their jobs? Who cares? While some literary critics (Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Ezra Pound) were successful writers in their own right, movie critics are nothing more than parasites and at best, a minor nuisance to the host.

Thanks to user reviews on the internet, they are also obsolete.

[ArtBase js]

Blogging, user reviews, and on-line feedback have made it so that just about everything on the Web is accompanied by a star rating -- from an eBay seller's trustworthiness to the consumer-satisfaction index of light bulbs. David Sterritt's article is no exception: how widely-read it is will be determined by its popularity, a relative value derived in no small part from the number (not content) of comments posted here. So, if an article's (and its author's) quality is going to be thus quantified, I post this comment in the tradition of the snobs and off-topic, ranting loudmouths who went before me. If it's good for Mr Sterritt, count me in!

[smiling dog]

The problem is quite simple. The movies coming out these days are so shallow and poorly written that it is absurd to even have a professional film critic review them. The few serious movies worthy of real film criticism are only seen by a small percentage of people. You may as well have a Joe the Plumber review Joe the Plumber type movies.

[Jamesdean]

The best critic in the world is British critic Derek Malcolm, the rest do not even come close to him.

[rzan1]

It is so expensive to go the movies these days, that I have to pick very carefully if I go at all. I look to film critics to help me make that decision.

[MikeMiley]

Thank you so much for this thoughtful piece. You really articulate the idea well that most critics actually DO like films, a fact that should be obvious but needs to be stated. Further, you show (rather than tell) the function (and necessity) of criticism of any sort--film, book, music, art, etc.--in our culture. It's not about being mean and superior but rather about being generous and curious, inclusive rather than exclusive.

I wish there was a better answer for what can be done to save film criticism (and good critics), but I guess the only answer is to write good criticism.

Again, thank you.

PS -- Your Godard book and commentaries on his films are some of the best out there.

[Tonya Plank - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree. Great post. The same can be said of all arts criticism.

There are definitely bloggers / amateurs out there who look at and think very carefully about a piece of art and offer good insights. But there are also some of the kind you mentioned (the egotistical, wanting to see their name in ads). It's not always easy for the reading public to tell the difference. I also think perhaps bloggers can more easily be taken advantage of by angry artists, publicists, etc.

I don't know what the future holds, but the arts -- democracy really -- will suffer without professional critics.

[djsterritt]

Thanks for your insightful comment. You're right, similar things go for all forms of arts criticism, although I don't think the blogways are quite so crowded with amateur architecture "critics" or medieval-music "critics" et cetera! In any case, it is indeed a matter of democracy in the better senses of the word. Thanks again!

[djsterritt]

Many thanks for your kind words, especially about my modest Godard efforts. As for criticism, you use exactly the right words -- generous, curious, inclusive -- for what everyone who loves the arts should try to be. Thanks again!