The Art of Criticism 1: Inane Ramblings

I thought that at some point I should start to address why I don't have any interest in writing "reviews". In this age of blogs and ready information all anyone seems concerned about is whether a new movie is good or bad. People write pages and pages about the "beautiful cinematography" or the "well written script" with really knowing what that means or even if its important. What makes art interesting (and criticism even more so) isn't assessing the value of it, that's part of the simple act of watching.

Without pigeonholing exactly what criticism is (its much easier, yet probably meaningless, to say what it isn't) because it can take many forms, I merely want to express that it should enhance appreciation or understanding in some way. Writing a "review" as a means of convincing someone to go see something does not count as criticism.  What got me thinking about this was reading Matt Zoller Seitz's article about two of my favorite critics: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. They consistently get me thinking about films in new ways and their blog is one of the best the internet has to offer. The article itself though is a critique of much of modern film criticism and is in that way its own form of film criticism.



As the article above maintains, many different critics (many of whom are both interesting and influential) have worked in very different ways (I'm just going to wholesale cut and paste what Matt Zoller Seitz said here because I certainly am not capable of summing this up any better) including: "an expression of one's personality, politics and taste, with traces of social critique and memoir (Pauline Kael, James Agee); or a kind of performance art on the page, using individual films, actors or filmmakers as springboards for sustained riffs on art and life (Manny Farber); or a scholarly attempt to draw connections between films and film movements, rank filmmakers by aesthetic significance and put works in historical context (Andrew Sarris)."

Whats most interesting to me about going deeper and deeper into an art form is how varied and deep an understanding of it can be. Layers (of the most abstract kind) exist in film, both of the film makers creation and of the audiences. Discovering them becomes easier with study and practice. But its easy to miss something, to misunderstand intent or symbolism. Yet another reason why dashed off reviews are so uninteresting.  I just wrote about Fight Club, one of the most misunderstood films ever to be subjected to critics. The film is only now being understood by the public at large as a black comedy in which almost nothing is to be taken seriously. When it first came out Rex Reed, writing in The New York Observer, said it was "a film without a single redeeming quality, which may have to find its audience in hell." How is that helpful?

I read somewhere recently (I can't remember where or I would link to it) that Kathryn Bigelow's work, in particular The Hurt Locker, was both influenced by and critical of Richard Serra's sculptures. That sheds light on an interesting work and highlights what I think the job of a film critic should be to peel back the layers, to connect work, and most of all to construct a sturdier art form. I'll end this with a link to perhaps the greatest bit of film criticism I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing, Chris Marker's La Jetee. Perhaps I'll talk about it in the future, but its very structure is a form of criticism and that is truly beautiful.