Online Cultural Credibility

More from Adrian Martin's Valdivia speech on The State of Film Criticism (see previous post)

Adrian Martin : "the Internet is an enormous “delivery system” that of course can carry every kind of film criticism, journalistic, middle-range or academic."
"Many older, established critics are nervous about the Internet. Some University film teachers, also are worried. They suspect that what appears on the Internet lacks cultural authority, and it is unprofessional. It is a kind of democratic nightmare, everybody shouting their stupid opinions all at the same time. It seems, to some people, like an unholy chaos."

This is key here to stop using the word "internet" as some sort of overarching cultural entity, a homogeneous community, a rival to the Press industry or TV... The internet is no competition nor an alternative to the news media, it is a NEW media.

Like Adrian Martin says, the internet is only one of many means of communication for the cultural voice to express itself. A DELIVERY SYSTEM, like the telephone is. We don't blame the telephone, as a tool, for all the useless information it is used for everyday. We don't question the reliability of this entire network system when we need to use it to deliver serious matter. Likewise the internet is not responsible for the amount of crap output. Only people, writers and readers alike, choose the level of culture they put in/expect from the internet. The new cultural entity is not the internet itself, but something people make their own : a myriad of cultural identities assembled in self-organised groupuscules. And we can only blame individuals for the misinformation and the inane babbling, not the "internets" as a whole. The internet is serious when we use it seriously, it is casual when we use it casually.

We could use the same deceiving straw man (directed at the evil internet) to describe the Press as an unreliable bundle of highs and lows, if we lump together News of The World and The New York Times.... just because they are both newspapers published on paper by the "Press industry".

I'm glad paper critics start to give up on this primary aversion to this technology, to speak of the blogosphere for what it is, for its potential (see the latest NYFF Film Criticism roundtable) and not by equating it with its lowest common denominator, its bad apples (see an earlier NYU roundtable this year).

Adrian Martin : "You will notice that it is in the comparatively smaller countries that these important initiatives are happening, places like Chile, Argentina, or my own Australia. But not so much yet in England or America or France, the “old world powers” that are expressing all this anxiety about crisis and the “loss of solid values and standards” in criticism."

Adrian also mentions an alliance of the overlooked "small countries" from the Southern hemisphere, against the cultural hegemony of the North. I agree with the unfair imbalance, this is a constructive development, to strengthen the "underdogs" in the meantime. But I'm not sure the confrontational polarity will help to make disappear the divide on the long term. We need to break down the monopoly of the North altogether. We don't need to live in a world entrenched in a North v. South mentality.

I agree that all this noise around the alleged "film criticism crisis" (as if it was a new phenomenon) in the North is futile and misdirected, especially when we read their inadequate, outdated, reactionary concerns. Although it is always welcome to get them critics to take a self-reflexive look at the state of their profession losing touch, day after day, with the quickly evolving reality of cinema, media and cultural consumption.

Adrian Martin : "Too often, we go into a new technology, with its new possibilities, with the same old ideas of what a publication should be, and what it should do. In terms of a “middle range” film magazine, this means we head straight for the latest interesting films, the latest Festivals, the latest books; we do interviews and write reviews, we talk about directors, and do some “overview” essay pieces. But this standard “spread” is not enough anymore, it is blocking our critical, intellectual imagination. We need to completely redefine what a “film magazine” is or could be, and I am interested to hear how my colleagues respond to that challenge."
"And when I see the latest amazing mixtures of these elements in the best films shown here at Valdivia, I know we have to hurry up to produce a new kind of film criticism, a criticism that is proper to our time."

Indeed! And what should be this new form of criticism relevant to our contemporary appropriation of culture and cinema? This is a vast subject...

• Online film criticism is no longer censored by editors and sponsors with a populist agenda.
• Online film criticism doesn't need to please the largest crowd, and may dedicate all its time to niche subjects and small crowds without risking to waste investments.
• Online film criticism can hand-pick its own selection of films without the pressure to cover every weekly releases imposed by distributors.
• Not writing about a film is also a form of disapproval, and it allows to spend more time on films requiring in-depth treatments (both admirable achievements or offensive films).
• Online film criticism is open to interaction/collaboration with the reader, to turn the reader into a writer.
• Online film criticism is immediate and reactive, instantly updatable to avoid the spread of errors or misinformation.
• Online film criticism is multimedia. It can freely use image, sound and video to better suit the moving picture material criticized.
• Online film criticism is hypertextual and multidimensional (spatial/temporal).
• Online film criticism is polymorphic, taking any, every form necessary to suit each film, each topic, contrary to the stereotyped format (length, content...) imposed by the Press.
• Online film criticism is international, in touch with every territory of underexposed cinema cultures, with other schools of thought, with other markets, with other critics, with other venues, with other cultural fields, across language barriers and taste standards.
• Online film criticism is participative and amateur, each contributor contributing according to their engagement with the film, contrary to the professional duty for the same single critic to write something on everything, whether (s)he is inspired or qualified to do it.
• Online film criticism is not based on institutional/academic authority where each article must honour and further the reputation of the paper it appears in. However it is based on anonymous and exceptional contributions which gain authority over time by creating a buzz by itself among its readers (and not because it was published in a reputable magazine).
• Each article must fight on its own terms to earn a wider visibility thanks to the eventual retribution/recognition by readers and fellow bloggers.
• Online film criticism is a FREE resource of cultural informations opened to the world (as long as you have a computer hooked up to the web), because culture (or rather the commentary on cultural activities) should be free and shared selflessly among fans.
  
• Online film criticism could open a passionate dialogue about Art, between viewers and critics and filmmakers, without formal postures and talking points.
  
• ...

This alone would change the face of Film Criticism as we know it. And that's for starters... a whole new world is to be reinvented.