Survey : Where is Film Criticism heading to?

I briefly mentioned earlier in my post on the Paris MoMA event : "Où va le cinéma?", that Le Silo (a collaborative research group studying the relation between cinema and Contemporary Art) was conducting a survey of some 150 people from the world of cinema on the question at the heart of discussion for this symposium and for the Film Criticism roundtable in particular : "Where is Film Criticism at?", intentionnaly focused on the "how?" rather than the "why?".
Nine answers are already posted online at the Centre Pompidou website (Emmanuel Burdeau, Jean-Michel Frodon, Hervé Joubert-Laurencin, Raymond Bellour, André Habib, Christian Lebrat, Antoine Guillot, Raphaël Bassan, Christa Blümlinger) [in FRENCH]. This will culminate in yet another summit on the state of French Film Criticism sometimes in spring 2009. So more food for thoughts on the way.

Here is the questionnaire in 5 parts for you to respond and to publish yourself to take part in this open international debate. Consider it like a meme to be circulated on the blogosphere, and to "infect" others :

Who knows where is Film Criticism going to?

1. HOW IS IT GOING?

What is the situation of Film Criticism today? If the golden age of interpretative systems seems behind us, if critics communities, great movements and great trends vanished, on what ground could criticism found itself? Before knowing where it goes, do we know where it's at?


2. HOW DOES IT WORK?

How does the critical relation to the film develop? How did this relation evolve in History? If film criticism comes after the film, what is its own tempo? What kind of distance to put between the film criticism and its objects (the films)? Is it a matter of method, maybe of technique? How do you work yourself?


3. HOW DOES IT SHIFT?

Should film criticism reassess its positions since cinema takes new positions? Do the successive migrations of cinema (from theatre to museum, from the film on the big screen to the DVD on a TV screen, from DVD to internet...) induce new types of writing styles? And maybe other realities, other modalities than just writing? Since other modes of rhetoric appropriated its object (Film theory, Film history, Film exhibition in a museum...), should the function critique be redefined in regard to other discourses on films?


4. HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?

How does film criticism position itself vis-à-vis discourses of the news, of communication or of evaluation? How are dispatched taste judgement, production of knowledge and interpretation? If we consider that film criticism should speak of more than just cinema, what other territories exterior to the strict field of cinema should film criticism cover?


5. YOUR ADDITIONAL COMMENT

- If you post your questionnaire, please add your link in the comment section of this post.
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