Andrew Sarris works at his typewriter in "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism."

January 24, 2010

by Joel Crary

There was no lineup to get in to the Canadian Film Institute’s screening of Gerald Peary’s “For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism” on Saturday night, and about eight people were in the crowd. No one cares about film critics. We aren’t that interesting. I include myself as part of that group, though a lot of professional film critics wouldn’t have me. To those critics, I’m a blogger. They’re right, too.

Peary’s documentary serves as a swell, if truncated, history lesson about film criticism in America. I was particularly intrigued by his presentation of the intellectual battle waged between critics Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, who in the 60s and 70s were able to take advantage of the cult of personality typically enjoyed by artists rather than those who write about art. I have read very little of both critics, though I thoroughly enjoyed Kael’s “On the Future of Movies” essay and more than one of Sarris’s looks at American directors. Regarding my own stance on auteurism, after seeing “For the Love of Movies,” I should doubt very much that anyone cares in this climate.

The documentary tracks film criticism up to the mid-2000s and features no less than AICN’s Harry Knowles arguing that the Internet’s democratization of opinion actually spreads critical thought, rather than smashing it to near transparency. I read Knowles’s weekly DVD columns and shills for Amazon. The guy can’t write. Arguments against his being a film critic seem superfluous, given that his reviews typically amount to ellipses- and capital-letter-ridden rants about how great it was to be on the set of the latest McG travesty.

“For the Love of Movies” posits that all modern film critics who use the Internet as their primary (and in most cases only) means of generating their columns/rambling diatribes are little more than quote whores striving to get their names on DVD covers. It also illustrates the generational divide in place between the older critics who grew up making painstaking efforts to become journalists and those of today, who publish with ease and have the potential to reach even greater audiences with no formal training required.

Roger Ebert, undeniably the most popular of the modern film critics, is excited about what the Internet offers, but then he has little to worry about. More and more critics have been losing their jobs, finding themselves axed from print publications that face either staff reductions or the obliteration of their medium. Revenue brought in by print is being terminated by users choosing to view columns online and thereby pay only for Internet service fees. Reputations are being sacrificed over the culture’s preference for whatever is quick, easy and free – the New Yorker may continue to run on loyalty, prestige and quality, but ComingSoon.net will never need to think about instituting a subscription fee.

Like many younger filmgoers, I was first turned on to film criticism through Siskel and Ebert’s weekly show, and became more entranced with film criticism’s power through Ebert’s Chicago Sun-Times columns, which have been available for online access these last ten years. Reading the columns opened my eyes to the necessity of differing opinions in critical thinking. For any true fan of film, the act of comparison is vital; it ensures that what we get from a film is “correct,” and not simply the intended result of a well-oiled marketing machine. Moreover, film criticism conditions us to question our reactions as a film plays out in front of us. Once we lose sight of our own biases in the darkened theatre, we know that a film is working.

The idea of becoming a paid film critic has never seemed more ludicrous. For any critic who has long ago accepted (and I am late to the party) that he or she will never be paid to write about the movies, perhaps the grander vision to keep in mind is that a nation of bloggers who are vocal about their interests in film wouldn’t be a bad thing. For the critic, the dream audience is one composed of critical thinkers, at least in principle. If everyone everywhere were to financially back up their opinion that “Mary and Max” was more deserving of the type of box office garnered by “Transformers 2,” the industry would be a lot more supportive of the Adam Elliots of this world, while the Michael Bays would take their rightful place on the fringes of substance and vision.

The generational conflict in film criticism brings to mind the seemingly tireless argument that Generation X has been unable to wrest control of the culture from the Baby Boomers, most recently seen by some bloggers in the Leno vs. Conan NBC debacle. I’d say it’s more a case of the dying print industry forcing critics to fight for their jobs. But debasing bloggers isn’t the answer, no matter how much some may deserve it. Yes, critical thought has been proliferated to the point of being worthless, and yes, the Internet has largely devalued the currency of opinion. Does this make critical thought, even when it applies to big, swinging metal robot testicles or glittering emo vampires, any less worthwhile?

I was most intrigued by an interview snippet in Peary’s film featuring Karina Longworth, ex-Cinematical co-helmer and newly appointed film editor for the LA Weekly. While difficult to distill her belief in its entirety based on the footage presented, she mentions that, despite a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies and a committed work ethic, more often than not self-imposed, some blogger who lacks the knowledge to upload a userpic yet can string together a few sentences on “Avatar” still has an equal shot at using the Internet to its full potential as a means for relating criticism to a mass audience.

I’m paraphrasing, but I hope she doesn’t believe that. Longworth’s work is outstanding, her drive to write about film even more so. It bugs me that those who pan Internet writers from the get-go rarely investigate what the medium has both produced and made possible (Longworth had her own bit of slander forthcoming from resident critical troll Armond White). To hold the almighty publication as a chief indicator of a film critic’s worth is both elitist and contradictory to the technological momentum that has already swept some established critics under the rug. Of course, I say this as a blogger trying to make an impact in a dying field, while living in Canada, where the publication field is but a foundering dinghy to American print journalism’s Titanic.

The one saving grace I’ve noticed, both in Peary’s film and in the published opinions of Longworth and others, is that the potential for something new remains. Just as auteur theory captivated the minds of critics and critical filmgoers in the 1960s, so can a new observation about a still youthful medium be made, promoted and spread with relative ease. What it requires most is good writing, and that’s not something that can simply be scraped off the virtual sidewalk. With job losses rising, publication staffs shrinking and more money being spent on garbage at the box office, there is much to complain about in the current state of film criticism. Those who complain that no one cares about film critics should find the solution simple: Make people care.