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July 25, 2006

The Problem with Criticism

Russell Brown explains why film criticism is lacking in today's media in The Simon:

Great film criticism has been devoured by its ugly kid sister, the film review. I personally find it so dull to read what some guy sitting in an office thinks of this performance or that performance, this screenplay or that one -- it all seems dreadfully irrelevant to me. What turned me on about John Simon or Pauline Kael was how they brought films into their own philosophy of life and art -- how it was placed into a larger context. And in doing so, they were as vulnerable as the artists putting their work onscreen, and demanded the same respect. The film review, on the other hand, is simply the process of providing a cursory "authoritative" explanation for an argument (is it "good or bad") that is pretty pointless. There's nothing personal about it -- no glimpse into the soul of the person writing -- just a dashing off of "what I liked and what I didn't." There's rarely any comparison to other art forms or placing of the film in a social or political context. It's as colorless as a studio coverage form, a checklist of "what worked and what didn't" with a few snarky turns of phrase tossed in the mix. They never really "say" anything, and it's hard to imagine any critic writing today publishing a compilation of their work 20 years from now, because their writing is only about the movie.

Methinks it wouldn't be a stretch to replace "film" with "music."

Posted by timothompson at July 25, 2006 01:16 PM