As someone who’s always harbored an intense interest in film, I’ve spent many a moment wondering what it would’ve been like to have grown up five or six decades ago, when movies were—many would argue—better, and when film culture itself was quite different. I think about those (pre-internet) days when one opened the newspaper and scoured listings to see what was playing that particular week. I picture myself making plans to catch the latest Hitchcock thriller. I imagine the joy of discovering a Kurosawa retrospective at the local arthouse—realizing how essential it was to attend, as years might pass before Rashomon came within a hundred miles of me again. I think about being spellbound by Jaws and wondering what talent this young guy named Steven Spielberg possessed to make a creature feature so absurdly great. Of course, I would’ve been among the millions watching Star Wars, my curiosity piqued by the fact that even people who didn’t particularly care about movies were making time to see it. And since I’d be living in a time when mainstream talk shows were halfway sophisticated, I’d look forward to seeing personnel from these films engage in the intelligent roundtable conversations found on The Dick Cavett Show.
None of this is to say that a modern film isn’t capable of making waves. And to be sure, film enthusiasts today have an advantage in that cinema from around the world is so accessible. Nowadays, I can purchase Rashomon on Blu-ray and revisit it to my heart’s content. What’s more, other great directors—say, Kurosawa’s senior Mikio Naruse—have gained viewers never afforded in their lifetime thanks to streaming. But there must’ve been a special thrill in that era when film culture was so rich, when actors and directors appeared on programs defined by taste and culture, and when entertainment wasn’t as available at home. I also imagine one’s excitement after seeing a film was greater in those days because the following week’s programming wasn’t yet known. What would you watch after the next edition of the Sunday paper reached your doorstep?
And what would the critics published in those pages have to say? This points to the other aspect of past film culture of which I remain envious. Even though movie criticism still exists, it is—like the films—a shadow of its former self. Once upon a time, criticism was a passionately discussed medium, and some of its practitioners were celebrities in their own right. The New Yorker garnered extra attention because cineastes wanted to know Pauline Kael’s thoughts on what was playing. John Simon was regularly getting attention—and hate mail—for his frequently inflammatory reviews in National Review and New York magazine. TV shows occasionally booked writers alongside artists whose work they’d critiqued—and not always favorably. (I highly recommend an episode of Dick Cavett featuring entertainer Little Richard, actress Rita Moreno, screenwriters Erich Segal and Robert Kaufman, and John Simon. The conversation, once Simon joins, encompasses everything from the quality of Segal’s Love Story to the auteur theory—the educational sort of chatter antithetical to what one expects from American television today.)
In short, movie criticism once amounted to something greater than junket-born blurbs and a website with a say-nothing percentage score. It was rich, cherished, and culturally relevant, like the movies themselves. There are many likely factors behind its decline, and the decline itself has ushered in a need to remember why this art form (and it is indeed an art) was useful in the first place.
Why is Film Criticism Valuable?
During my lifetime, the most accessible American film criticism existed on the television show Siskel & Ebert. Once a week, competitive Chicago reviewers Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert spoke about the latest releases as well as trends in the motion picture industry. The younger me never caught the show during its initial run, but watching archived episodes became a favorite pastime in high school. Siskel & Ebert remains irresistible today—especially compared to its short-lived, rightly forgotten clones—as both men were sharp free-thinkers, and their professional rivalry generated more than a few memorable debates. Although limited by the time constraints imposed by television, these two nurtured my budding interest in film analysis. And their naming reviewers they admired led to me studying the books of people like Pauline Kael and Stanley Kauffmann. Through all this and my growing sensibilities, I came to cherish film criticism—and to lament the misconceptions surrounding it.
Perhaps the dominant stereotype applied to critics is that of the elitist snob putting down all whose tastes don’t mirror his. Some writers embody this, though they truthfully constitute a mere reflection of human reality: one finds, in all fields, in all walks of life, individuals convinced they know better than everyone else and who snidely make this known; such voices simply stand out more in criticism given the public-facing, opinion-centric nature of the trade. The stereotype has discredited reviewers who practice their craft respectfully and, worse yet, it has stolen attention from the reason one should read criticism. As John Simon so eloquently stated in his 1982 book Reverse Angle: “It is not for the critic to do the reader’s thinking for him; it is for the critic to do his own thinking for the reader’s benefit.”
How does the critic think for the reader’s benefit? To begin with, they don’t approach movies from the perspective of a consumer taking in what’s new. Rather, the critic comes to the writing desk with a sharp, analytical mind and an exceptional awareness of film history. (It’s not necessary to know every movie ever made, but no favors are paid, for instance, in reviewing the latest war epic as if war epics began with Saving Private Ryan.) Having a deeper knowledge of the medium allows the critic to frame genre offerings within a context and inform readers of works that might be unfamiliar to them. The often controversial Armond White is useful this way, as he employs his vast knowledge of genre histories when reviewing new releases. (See his analysis of Robin Campillo’s Red Island, wherein White backs up points by recalling other movies about colonialism, like Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa and Jean Renoir’s The River. By remembering the past as he examines the present, White provides both an informed perspective and a path for serious moviegoers to enrich their own experience.)
At the same time, the ideal film critic knows—and thinks—about more than just movies. John Simon and Stanley Kauffmann were intimately knowledgeable about literature and theater, and this familiarity, even when not explicitly referenced, helped shape their perspective. Otis Ferguson, a gifted critic whose life and career ended prematurely in World War II, also wrote extensively about jazz. Given that cinema borrows from and utilizes the other arts—and given that movies, theater, and novels share the same core function: to tell stories—it’s beneficial for a critic to have experiences outside the moviehouse. The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov argued that a well-constructed narrative maintains its various plot threads. (“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”) A critic who’s observed this brings it to their analysis, noting whether ideas in a screenplay lead to payoff. (Why are the many third-act twists in The Shawshank Redemption so much fun? Because director Frank Darabont spent the previous two hours setting them up.)
The best film critics also think about the world around them, as current trends and events often creep into, blatantly manifest in, or are responded to in the arts. Stanley Kauffmann defended Dr. Strangelove’s mockery of the American Cold War government from accusations of implausibility by reminding that “[i]n the same week in which the US takes economic action against nations who trade with Cuba because Castro is spreading Soviet Communism, we also sell a huge lot of wheat to Soviet Russia.” Roger Ebert described Bonnie and Clyde as a film set in the past but made for the year of its making, 1967. Recalling then-recent normalizations of violence (“newscasts refer casually to ‘waves’ of mass murders, Richard Speck’s photograph is sold on posters in Old Town and snipers in Newark pose for Life magazine”), Ebert championed how director Arthur Penn depicted killing as bloody and painful. “Perhaps that seems shocking. But perhaps at this time, it is useful to be reminded that bullets really do tear skin and bone, and that they don’t make nice round little holes like the Swiss cheese effect in Fearless Fosdick.”
In essence, the critic brings with them their entire personal history with art and with the world, all the while knowing how and when to reference it. They must also be willing to make distinctions. One can take pleasure in a badly made movie without pretending it’s anything of quality. A critic can likewise salute excellence while objecting to a work’s moral compass. Pauline Kael acknowledged the exquisite filmmaking in Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (“It would be stupid to deny that [it] is a stunningly well-made genre piece”) but held the movie accountable for what she deemed the ennoblement of a vigilante cop. (“[T]his action genre has always had a fascist potential, and it has finally surfaced.”)
The best thing about Kael’s review is that her words push the reader to contemplate the movie. In doing so, she epitomizes John Simon’s statement about the critic thinking for the reader’s benefit. Many have disputed Kael’s judgment of Dirty Harry, but the fact that her review produces conversation—that others invest energy into constructively responding—makes her valuable. Such insight doesn’t come from a blurb-spewing automaton that regards film as product for immediate consumption. Criticism helps us notice things in this art form we love so fervently. It encourages us to think about movies, to mull over what we’ve seen, and to be extra attentive when absorbing what we see next.
It can even help explain our feelings about particular movies. I admired many things in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo from my first viewing and found greater appreciation in subsequent years, but it was Ebert’s 1996 analysis that put into words what makes the picture so emotional for me. Two-thirds of the story focuses on Scottie, a retired detective who falls in love with a mysterious woman named Madeleine. He seemingly loses her to death and becomes obsessed with another woman named Judy, who reminds him of her. In Act Three, Hitchcock boldly informs the viewer—but not Scottie—that Madeleine never existed: she was a doppelgänger impersonated by Judy to cover up the murder of a real person. In the process, Judy came to love Scottie for who he is but must now confront the fact that he still loves the persona she enacted. At this point—as Ebert correctly demonstrates in his review—Vertigo ceases being solely about Scottie and is now “equally about Judy: her pain, her loss, the trap she’s in.”
With this in mind, notice Hitchcock’s filmmaking choices: how the camera lingers on Judy and even presents scenes predominantly from her perspective. She wants to be loved for herself, but the past won’t allow it. And Scottie’s still haunted by the memory of the nonexistent person he lost. In Act Three, we see two guilty souls tormented by love they can’t fully have. I’d noticed this after repeat viewings of Vertigo, but Ebert phrased it in a way I couldn’t at the time. And then he made me consider how the film relates to the larger body of Hitchcock’s career. “Over and over in his films, Hitchcock took delight in literally and figuratively dragging his women through the mud—humiliating them, spoiling their hair and clothes as if lashing at his own fetishes. Judy, in Vertigo, is the closest he came to sympathizing with the female victims of his plots.” A terrific observation that’s just as fun to think about as it is to read.
This leads us to another pleasure offered by film criticism. A good critic is a good writer, as deft in their use of language as a good novelist, playwright, or—for that matter—screenwriter. As such, they manage to entertain while they inform. Sometimes one anticipates the verbiage through which a critic expresses their findings. I get a kick out of reading Vincent Canby for his wonderfully dry humor. (In discussing The Godfather Part II, he quipped that “the interiors are so dark you wonder if these Mafia chiefs can’t afford to buy bigger light bulbs.”) Otis Ferguson’s famous dismissal of The Wizard of Oz (“It has dwarfs, music, technicolor, freak characters and Judy Garland. It can’t be expected to have a sense of humor as well—and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet.”) amusingly captures his response to what he perceived as overblown pageantry. And Stanley Kauffmann’s essays were so amazingly written—so cleanly phrased and enjoyable as they pushed you to meditate on topics large and small. (“Possibly the man with the greatest potential genius for symphonic composition lived in New Guinea five hundred years ago, but there was nothing in his world to make him know it.”)
Criticism, as mentioned before, is an art. Any worthy reviewer doesn’t merely possess thoughts and a knack for wordsmithing; he uses said thoughts and talents in the creation of something, just as a painter uses watercolors and a canvas, a filmmaker his cameras and lights. Like any essay, a review needs a thesis, evidence, and structure; both talent and skill are required to construct and integrate these effectively. And just as a novelist aims to elicit a response, so too does the critic with his review. The reader should finish an essay entertained and with thoughts stimulated by what’s been written for their benefit. When this happens, they become engaged in a discourse of sorts. For that reason especially, it’s unfortunate when the reader tosses aside the opportunity for discourse in favor of ego-based vitriol.
Responding (Civilly) to Disagreement
Disagreement is to be expected with any exchange of ideas, and one finds it among practitioners of criticism. Although Siskel and Ebert generally liked/disliked the same movies, they were quick to challenge one another whenever a difference of opinion arose. They even found room to disagree over movies both men recommended—say, Not Without My Daughter, a picture Ebert saluted as an exercise in tension but argued (against Siskel) was denigrating to Arabs. Andrew Sarris championed the auteur theory; Pauline Kael dismissed it as deification of directors. John Simon took glee in reviewing not only films but his colleagues’ reactions to them. All that to say there’s nothing wrong with audiences disputing what they read. There is something terribly wrong, however, with throwing childish fits because a review doesn’t match one’s viewpoint.
Consider a moment from recent history. In 2012, the critic Marshall Fine published a negative review of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. At this point, the film had been shown to critics but wasn’t commercially available; admirers of Nolan hadn’t seen the picture. And yet, Fine received death threats from an online mob that’d already declared The Dark Knight Rises the greatest thing ever made. These “fans” did themselves a disservice on multiple fronts. First, they allowed enthusiasm for Nolan’s work to mutate into blind defensiveness for anything the man touched; in doing so, they ceased being admirers and became reactionary cultists. Second, by lashing out, they disclosed their own petty insecurities. What was the “cause” of this behavior, again? A critic hadn’t validated their (preconceived) notions about a particular movie from a particular director.
What would’ve been an appropriate response to Fine’s review? For starters, the above-mentioned Nolan adherents should’ve waited until The Dark Knight Rises entered general release and then seen the movie before deciding whether or not they liked it. The next step: return to Fine’s review and constructively engage with his arguments. Ask some questions. What did you agree with, and why? What did you disagree with, and why? Did he bring up anything about the film you hadn’t noticed? And even if The Dark Knight Rises ended up being the greatest thing ever made for you, don’t be perturbed that someone else reached a different conclusion.
Just as the critic isn’t tasked with thinking for the reader, the reader isn’t tasked with seeking validation. We needn’t talk to anyone but ourselves if agreement’s all we want and (unwisely) think we need. Instead, we should value informed perspectives, treasure well-stated observations, and contrast all that to our experience of going to the movies. In denying this opportunity, we deny ourselves something beneficial.
The Present and Future of Film Criticism
Writing this essay has continued nurturing within me the question of what it would’ve been like to have lived when interesting critics tackled what’s generally regarded as a better age for movies. Alas, many of the writers I’ve cited have passed away, and some retired—they say—because the films came to resemble one another too often. (Kael and Dwight Macdonald were among those disenchanted with repeating themselves.) To be fair, there are worthy full-time critics today. I enthusiastically read Armond White not because I agree with him (I seldom do), but because he gives me ideas to consider and films from the past to check out. But he’s among a select few that stand out, and I often find myself longing for modern John Simons, Stanley Kauffmanns, and Pauline Kaels.
So where are they? Part of the problem may be the trade’s shaky condition. When newspapers and magazines downsize—as they often do in the internet age—the entertainment sections are usually among the first to receive cuts. This pushes out critical voices and no doubt discourages others from joining the profession. There might also be intimidation from within. Pauline Kael commented to an interviewer in the early ‘80s that editors occasionally instructed their critics to like certain movies. She gave the example of Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict: in exchange for a glowing review of the film, a magazine could slap Paul Newman’s face on the cover and increase sales. Kael further remarked that some reviewers had been warned that if they didn’t cooperate, their editors would find someone who would. And that was before the web started stealing readers. I can only imagine how many critics in recent years have compromised their thoughts to keep their salaries. Or how many quit because they valued their integrity.
Let’s not forget, also, those who had no integrity to begin with. In a 1998 interview on Chicago Tonight, Roger Ebert railed against what he described as “trained junket prostitutes”: nominal journalists who play ball with studio publicists to gain free Hollywood trips and three minutes in a hotel room with a star. As Ebert pointed out, many of these “critics,” rather than write a review, spit out blurbs that can be plugged directly into ads. Meantime, the publicists lead them to understand that they probably won’t be invited back if they don’t praise the films shown to them. It’s certainly fair and possible for critics to befriend filmmakers—Ebert was friends with Martin Scorsese, after all—but as a journalist, the critic must remember his job is to cover the industry, not be part of it.
There’s another—in a way, more devastating—problem: audiences reluctant or unmotivated to engage with criticism. On this front again the internet and social media deserve much blame. With attention spans shrinking and more people conditioned to recoil from anything of substantial length, reviews become digested/responded to according to excerpts and pass/fail metrics. (In other words, something that obliges the short-burst format we’re now accustomed to.) Even websites that offer some value represent this. Take Rotten Tomatoes, which has been a mixed blessing since its inception. On the one hand, the archiving of reviews is useful to researchers and those who enjoy criticism; it has no doubt also boosted awareness for certain writers. That said, the famous “Tomato-meter,” which represents the percentage of favorable reviews attained by a particular movie, is an uninformative shortcut, reducing thousands of words of analysis to a nuance-free “consensus.” It grabs one’s attention and certainly helps distinguish Rotten Tomatoes from other movie sites, but ultimately, the meter is a promotable alternative to actively engaging with what critics have to say.
And then there’s the ever-worsening issue of juvenile feedback. In those wonderful days before the internet, effort was required to inform a critic they’d stepped on someone’s toes. The reader had to write and physically mail an angry letter: a solo act of “retaliation” that’d remain blessedly unknown to the public (unless the reviewer chose to discuss it in interviews or essays about their trade). Today, however, there exist instantly accessible platforms via cyberspace: Facebook groups, forums, comments sections, and the social media outlet I’ll forever call Twitter. Here, “fans” not only express displeasure in the most unconstructive of manners, they rally support from those similarly prone to outrage. Worse yet, they set bad examples, especially for young and impressionable users: that it’s okay to act emotionally on preconceived notions, that it’s okay to take enthusiasm to an unhealthy degree, that it’s okay to make death threats when someone’s viewpoint doesn’t match yours, etc. (It doesn’t help that certain websites publish clickbait on dissenting reviews—à la Mashable’s pointless story on Armond White “ruining” the Tomato-meter score for Get Out.)
What, then, is the future of criticism? Is there a stimulating chapter ahead for this trade that’s lost its mainstream potency? As tends to be my response to troubling things I observe today, I hope for the best but expect little. The more people scroll on their mobile devices, the less time they spend absorbing thoughtful content when it appears, and the more likely professional writers will find themselves laid off. If there is a future for serious criticism, it may rest on the shoulders of freelancers: those who aren’t dependent on writing to earn a living, who write for love of the topic and think of money, when it comes, as a bonus. Maybe the future exists on YouTube and podcasts—things people can listen to around the house or during daily commutes. (Heaven help us if criticism ever becomes part of the bizarre “influencer” culture I know little about and hope never to become well-versed in!) If it’s in the hands of indie content creators, the number one challenge the good ones face will be steering audiences from those who pander to the lowest common denominator. To the noble former, I say, “Good luck!”
One thing is certain: the days of Pauline Kael, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann, Gene Siskel, and Roger Ebert (and others I could name: James Agee, Charles Thomas Samuels, etc.) are behind us. But the value of well-practiced film criticism will never cease being relevant. Some recognize this, and to my fellow enthusiasts I issue the following reminder: It’s upon us to continue reading and saluting the good critics, to make sure the great names of the past do not become forgotten, and to remind other film-lovers why this art form is beneficial. I may not have experienced the golden age of moviegoing described at the beginning of this essay, but perhaps I’ll live to see a time when movies, movie criticism, and the public’s engagement with both improve. Perhaps I’m also asking for the sun, but maintaining hope for what one cares about is never a bad thing.
