The Art of Criticism 6: Art and Objectivity

 ...All the same, if you say you dislike "The Godfather" or "Shawshank," I can't say you're wrong. The one thing you can never be wrong about is your own opinion. It's when you start giving your reasons that you lay yourself open. Many years ago there was a critic in Chicago who said "The Valachi Papers" was a better film than "The Godfather." "Phil," I told him, "film criticism is a matter of subjective opinion. Only rarely does it stray into objective fact. When you said 'The Valachi Papers' was better than 'The Godfather,' that was an error of objective fact." -Roger Ebert

All the recent bellyaching about Inception has again led many to criticize those reviewers who gave the film a negative review. This, of course, has opened up a whole can of worms about the value of the film reviewer (often incorrectly equated with a critic), of having dissenting opinions, and what qualifies as a valid opinion. Roger Ebert gives a nice little defense of his profession (above). Yet, I can't help feeling as if he's dancing around the solutions. He's certainly right when he states, "film criticism is a matter of subjective opinion." The problem though is when he tries to bring objectivity into the equation. Briefly, objectivity is "mind-independent" or free from any judgments made by an entity. This excludes Science, Religion, Literature, Film, etc, etc. The only things it doesn't necessarily exclude are Mathematics and Philosophy, the only fields where actual "discoveries" are made (not "inventions"). Basically, I point this out in reference to Ebert's quote from above, "only rarely does it stray into objective fact." What exactly is an "objective fact" and how is it different from a fact (and what does this have to do with anything?)? I'll tell you:

The Art of Criticism 5: The Written Word vs. The Moving Image

I think it's very possible that this last decade will come to be viewed as one of the most important in the development of the branch of the arts that includes movies, television, and youtube videos among others. That isn't to say that youtube is the equivalent of the printing press or that "The Wire" is the equivalent of Hamlet but its pretty undeniable that a huge leap forward has been taken. While for centuries the written word has been widely respected for its artistic merit in all sorts of forms (from a novel to a short story, and prose to poetry), the movies have dominated all discussion of artistry in the moving images. It is quickly becoming undeniable that movies, television, and short form video all constitute one of the most important art forms today. Vadim Rizov, in his recent blog entry "Why we need better television criticism", argues that because television has been seen as film's unimportant cousin for so long there are hardly any reputable television critics (not to mention the time commitment to watch all the important shows of the past as well as the present). Yet, television is becoming increasingly important and Rizov is onto something with his call for better criticism in that field.

The Art of Criticism 4: Aesthetic Value

"The fetish for Technicolor and the fetish for widescreen are two different fetishes that often combine in the mind and heart of the cinephile. Like peanut butter and chocolate, they're two great tastes that taste great together. Among other things, they provide fodder for argument about technical minutiae the likes of which could conceivably make a NASA engineer's head spin." -Glenn Kenny, The Auteurs Notebook

Glenn Kenny really hits the nail on the head of something that has been bothering me for a while. Is my preference for long takes, garish colors, technicolor, and B&W nothing more than fetish? Put another way, are there objective reasons for my aesthetic taste? This all came to a head last night while I watched the excellent Battleship Potemkin (1925) and I realized that I was seeing the origin of so many of the techniques (particularly editing) that would later be put to use in so many films. It was like I could look back over the many movies I've seen and, out of the corner of my eye, see the progression of technique laid out in all its complexity.

The Art of Criticism 3: Accessing the Artist

In a film class I took 2 or 3 years ago, I remember how, on the last day of class, the professor began to discuss the nature of art. Its something I hadn't really considered before, but at the time I remember being struck by the importance of the question. Although true in every medium, film is particularly problematic when discussing the artist of any particular film. Truffaut, Bazin, Rohmer, and the rest of the Cahiers du cinéma would have you believe that the director takes all the credit in what is known as auteur theory. The idea is still hugely influential and it is probably true that if you know any film theory, you know auteur theory. Naturally, though, it is incorrect. There are so many people involved in the making of a film, from the sets to the camerawork to the kid who gets coffee who just slips in a suggestion to one of the actors, that giving credit to one person seems, besides being wrong, just plain irresponsible. Even films made by only one person are still relying on a camera built by someone else or are filming in a location constructed by many others. No film is made in a vacuum. Yet that isn't really the level I'm interested in, even though it seems the most important. It certainly has the most written about it, yet I believe its possible, and necessary, to dig deeper. As in, is the above discussion even possible (or relevant)?

The Art of Criticism 2: Towards a Basic Understanding

My biggest frustration in discussing movies with my non-obsessed friends is their insistence on "reality"  in movies.
e.g. "that isn't how people talk."
"people are just not that beautiful in real life."
"black and white isn't vibrant" or "black and white doesn't represent reality"
This is both my call to action and examination of this, perhaps the most irritating of issues:

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.