Posted on 07/27/2010 11:38:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When you love a given film and the guy next to you doesn’t, what do you think? Who cares, right? After all, taste is subjective. Newsreal Blog managing editor David Swindle and I often discuss and debate films we’ve seen. Now, I’ve studied film formally for years. Does this make my opinion more important? Perhaps for some academics, but does this make Swindle’s opinion useless? Most certainly not.
My view of film is often based in academia and film history while Swindle’s is based in the comparison to other contemporary films. Both views are justified and have their place. We represent two different possible approaches to film criticism. There can be scholarly/historical criticism as well as journalistic/populist criticism. The latter is a much more useful approach when it comes to mainstream film criticism. The fact is anyone who takes their film viewing experience seriously is capable of having a voice as a critic. However, for some people like New York film critic Armond White, it is not that simple. For White, if a critic disagrees with him (especially if they don’t have a PhD in film studies) they are likely not very smart and should not continue writing criticism. White’s elitism has provoked him to attack fellow critic Roger Ebert, mostly because he doesn’t have a PhD in film studies. What White fails to recognize is that Ebert is writing film criticism for a newspaper, not submitting to a film journal. Ebert’s audience is not looking for the ideas presented in a doctoral thesis.
White attacks Ebert :
"I do think it is fair to say that Roger Ebert destroyed film criticism. Because of the wide and far reach of television, he became an example of what a film critic does for too many people. And what he did simply was not criticism. It was simply blather. And it was a kind of purposefully dishonest enthusiasm for product, not real criticism at all…I think he does NOT have the training. I think he simply had the position. I think he does NOT have the training. I’VE got the training. And frankly, I don’t care how that sounds."
White feels that due to his academic studies in film that he is a pedigreed film critic. This is wrong, he is a pedigreed film scholar, and there is a difference. While I spend a lot of time writing essays for graduate classes, I try to change my tone and focus when writing a film review. People reading film reviews aren’t looking for a journal entry and Ebert knows this. Inside Movies responded to the statements from White and broke down the differences between types of critics:
"The critics may quibble over those labels, but for this discussion, an elitist is a critic who believes his primary responsibility is to educate readers so they may better understand the film medium while a populist, using his knowledge and tastes, sets out to explain his responses to films. One assumes the voice of authority; the other assumes the voice of a confidant."
When we think of the pioneers of today’s film criticism who comes to mind? Certainly Pauline Kael (not a scholar) who was a major inspiration for both Ebert and White. Going further we can find a more scholarly approach to modern film criticism such as the work of Andrew Sarris and Robin Wood, but for most people reading film reviews they prefer the confidant over the elitist academic. Unfortunately, White has neglected the useful purpose of critics like Ebert.
It does not take a PhD to watch or understand a movie. Therefore, why can’t someone passionate about the art comment on it formally? White’s animosity to a less scholarly approach are ironic because many film scholars actually do appreciate the work Ebert has done. It is good to have useful non-academic film writing to balance out all of the dense articles that frequent film journals. For example David Bordwell, Professor Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin who has many influential books in the field of film studies, wrote a forward to Ebert’s 2006 book Awake in the Dark. Bordwell writes:
"Roger Ebert has blended prodigious energy, keen judgment, wide knowledge, probing insights, and a sharp sense of humor into some of the most perceptive commentary on cinema published in our time. In the tradition of George Bernard Shaw and Robert Hughes, he practices graceful and deeply informed art journalism. Some pieces he writes are ephemeral, but nothing he writes is trivial."
This is quite a complement coming from a scholar like Bordwell. One can also look at the blurbs on the back of this book from filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Robert Atlman to see that Ebert has certainly earned his platform as a film critic (whether you like him or not). Sure, in recent years his politics have become more of a threat to his credibility as a journalist, but not as a film critic. However, those movie buffs that don’t align with Ebert’s politics still have one thing in common – a deep love of film (it is this shared love that has allowed me to get along with even the most Leftist of film professors).
Just like I don’t attack Swindle’s outlook on certain films because he lacks a film degree, White shouldn’t discredit Ebert either. If someone is a good writer and serious film lover, they deserve a seat at the table. What can it hurt? Film critics are not tenured professors, who still have their journals and graduate seminars where the semantic debates rage on. If all reviews were written by snobby academics, no one would read them except other snobby academics. People like Ebert have helped bring film discussions into the mainstream for everyone to enjoy, we should at least be grateful for that.
Without the TV show, Ebert wouldn't be known by 99% of those who know him. If that's not his "true work" then the phrase is meaningless. And if he never liked the thumbs thing, sure seems odd of him to copyright it.
I heard that kind of thing was acceptable on JOURNOLIST (or their new 'replacement' secure website).
He copyrighted it because he wanted to make money. Who’s to blame him? You can’t really do truly in-depth film criticism on a tv show like that. I can’t imagine it being done better than Siskel and Ebert did it in a half hour format.
Ebert’s reviews of An Inconvenient Truth and Fahrenheit 911 did not mention the credibility issues that surrounded both films. Ebert is a simply a cheerleader for the movies he likes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
White’s take on ‘The Squid and the Whale’ was strange as the film was deeply critical of the milieu he thinks it was exalting. Is it that that milieu was dealt with at all? An roundabout sort of populism (the common can’t related to these characters...).
For him it's more about maintaining standards of quality.
In particular he doesn’t seem to like Christopher Nolan movies. Weird as they have been pretty big critical successes.
His criticism of Nolan is that his characters, rather than being finished individuals, all seem designed to create an atmosphere conducive to the jaded, post-moral worldview of the cultural elite.
Coastal, urban liberals love Nolan films because he reinforces their prejudices, while creating an edgy visual sheen to conceal the woodenness of the writing.
To White, this seems to be a self-congratulatory exercise.
White, by the way, loves the films of Whit Stillman.
Wow I had some major grammatical gaffes in that last post...
I pay no attention to the critics whatever. I know what I like, and I know why I like it.
Other people’s opinions are useless to me except in that by examining their own opinions, I can come to an idea if I will enjoy the film.
To make it simple, if I want to be educated, I’ll read a book. Films are for entertainment only as far as I’m concerned. Others are entitled to their own opinions, of course.
Films are too much of an investment of both time and money for me if I am going to come away disturbed.
A good film has a good guy, a bad guy, and a girl. At the end of the movie, the good guy has the girl, and the bad guy is dead. The more a film deviates from this, the less I tend to like it, although I could name numerous exceptions.
The main thing for me, as far as criticism is concerned, is not the plot (you know my preferred plot), and not the character development, and a social message just gains minus points. I don’t like to be preached at, either.
No, the main thing is how well it’s put together, overall, how much I would enjoy watching it again. Timing, clever dialogue, and ease of suspension of disbelief are also positives
Interesting. White, like Kael, is one of those writers I can read without agreeing with. I haven’t read a lot of White’s work, but I enjoyed WHY he came to the conclusions he did.
It’s part of the weaponry against Kael to say that she tried to claim Orson Welles had nothing or little to do with Citizen Kane (she did no such thing) and that her overblown praise for Last Tango in Paris somehow marked her forever. In fact, her original point of view made her far more interesting than the more respected critics of her time whose reviews are landfill.
I don’t read a critic to tell me to go see something—how the hell would they know what I like? I choose movies based on some factors I might not even be able to quantify properly, and I bet most real movie lovers do the same. So the idea Ebert has made popular—that a good critic is one who sends you to movies you like—works only to those with the dullest, most whitebread tastes. Ebert’s writing reflects his tastes, which to me are dull as dirt, as is his writing.
So I prefer critics who may not like what I like, but whose writing makes me think. Ebert’s stuff is almost self-parody now, and has always been just pushing the accepted wisdom of a PC mindset. No thanks.
Kinda like holding up Pauline Kael's review for Last Tango in Paris as an example of her entire body of work.
Back in the day, Ebert could be rather eccentric...look at his Best of Year lists...
http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/ebert.html
I used to like Siskel and Ebert on PBS. They had a “dog of the week” where a dog jumped on Siskel’s lap and they would discuss the worst film released.
I totally agree -- after watching several episodes of their reviews (I wasn't living in the Chicago area to read the newspaper reviews), matching my take to one or the other's opinion, I got to know their tastes and could gauge accordingly whether or not I was going to find the latest release worthy of my attention, more importantly, because they were giving their opinions for so long, I was also able to decide that I know what I like better than they do and would see something regardless they don't think it worth my time.
This White guy comes across as a pretentious snob.
Yes.
Entertainment, directing you where to spend your money for entertainment. On TV. Public TV. Syndicated (my how fast our country has forgotten what THE SYNDICATE meant) by DISNEY (Hollywood), which makes entertainment.
Any sort of aesthetic criticism directs you about something. The fact that this particular brand was on tv doesn’t change anything.
It's what I call FPD, Freeper Posting Disability.
Seems to affect jsut about everone (see).
Cause: The brain works much faster than the fingers.
Cure: None.
I "blame him"--the first thought I had when I heard they'd copyrighted the phrase, which they didn't even invent, was "What a couple of dicks!" It doesn't sound like he "hates" it (where's the evidence for that?).
You can’t really do truly in-depth film criticism on a tv show like that.
Of course not. Where did I say you could? But you keep defending this as not his "true work" and that he brought Murnau to the masses, and then saying you can't bring in-depth criticism to the masses--so what's your point?
I can’t imagine it being done better than Siskel and Ebert did it in a half hour format.
That's your limit. I don't see the point in praising someone who's helped ruin high standards, which he has.
“The media’s attempt to control mass opinion was a cultural catastrophe from which we have not yet recovered. The arrogance has only gotten worse.””
Kind of have to go with Armond here folks. When was the last time you saw a movie that really made you think as well as feel? Today’s movies are all just “feel good” undertakings, reinforcing the tribal vibe established by the coastal elites. Outside of “The Unforgiven” I cannot remember a recent movie that took on the bigotry and assumptions of the “pretty people”. Everything out of hollyweird is formulaic, predictable, and pedistrian. I cannot remember any notable films from the last 20 years. Shocking, they are all just adult cartoons.
Wonder if he just 'got' that way, or if it was 'job pressure'?
Seems like everything in entertainment went 'political' about 10 years ago.
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