"It's too big, it's too wide | It's too strong, it won't fit | It's too much, it's too tough | I talk like this 'cause I can back it up [..] Some call it arrogant, I call it confident | You decide when you find on what I'm working with [...] Ego so big, you must admit | I got every reason to feel like I'm that bitch"
Beyoncé (Ego, 2008, on the album I am Sasha Fierce)
A critic is an individual human who develops a judgement based on personal preferences, like anyone else of course. Unfortunately, when taste becomes the only referential for every opinions issued on a film, the level of critical insight lowers considerably.
Assuming whatever affects you, influences you, shocks you, makes you think and dream is somehow universal therefore applies to everybody else, assuming that the expression of your own taste will set everyone else's taste in tune is the delusion of the infant whose psyche is underdeveloped. The infant believes to be the centre of the universe and that people around think exactly alike. Later we learn that taste is particular and personality is what makes everyone unique.
Each viewer can relate to a film for different reasons and the reaction can be totally contrary due to taste differences, even if the rational understanding of the film is equivalent.
That's why the debate of taste preferences is left to the basic audience chatting up what they experienced outside the theatre. Writing on a film as a critic involves going beyond this immediate state of personal impressions (self-indulgent preferences, self-reflexive experiences) otherwise the review will be entirely interchangeable with anybody else's report on the film... not because of the opinionated stances it takes, but for its level of superficiality.
Taste is equally shared among people. The taste of a film critic is no better/finer/more authoritative than any average viewer's. In fact when it comes to subjective appreciations, the critics' taste is probably less spontaneous, less genuine than the general audience (who is not conditioned by theories, trendspotting obsessions, "professional" fetishism, friendly acquaintances with people working in the film industry...) The critic fabricates a certain sophisticated taste, based on knowledge, canons, compulsive viewing, this taste becomes more objective, more informed, more reasonable, more based on facts and understanding than the fully emotional response of a common movie goer. So critics can't operate within total subjectivity and shouldn't deceive their readers by pretending what they offer is pure taste and impressions.
ME. ME. ME.
Assuming whatever affects you, influences you, shocks you, makes you think and dream is somehow universal therefore applies to everybody else, assuming that the expression of your own taste will set everyone else's taste in tune is the delusion of the infant whose psyche is underdeveloped. The infant believes to be the centre of the universe and that people around think exactly alike. Later we learn that taste is particular and personality is what makes everyone unique.
Each viewer can relate to a film for different reasons and the reaction can be totally contrary due to taste differences, even if the rational understanding of the film is equivalent.
That's why the debate of taste preferences is left to the basic audience chatting up what they experienced outside the theatre. Writing on a film as a critic involves going beyond this immediate state of personal impressions (self-indulgent preferences, self-reflexive experiences) otherwise the review will be entirely interchangeable with anybody else's report on the film... not because of the opinionated stances it takes, but for its level of superficiality.
Taste is equally shared among people. The taste of a film critic is no better/finer/more authoritative than any average viewer's. In fact when it comes to subjective appreciations, the critics' taste is probably less spontaneous, less genuine than the general audience (who is not conditioned by theories, trendspotting obsessions, "professional" fetishism, friendly acquaintances with people working in the film industry...) The critic fabricates a certain sophisticated taste, based on knowledge, canons, compulsive viewing, this taste becomes more objective, more informed, more reasonable, more based on facts and understanding than the fully emotional response of a common movie goer. So critics can't operate within total subjectivity and shouldn't deceive their readers by pretending what they offer is pure taste and impressions.
Lorena Cancela : "Or why — if most teachers celebrate Godard's inserts or interruptions in a film as the introduction of the first person, as the presence of a voice calling for attention — can't they accept that someone uses the first person in writing as a way of saying "Hey, here I am"? "
Klaus Eder : "[..] you start, as a film critic, on a white sheet of paper or an empty monitor and it's always painful to find the first sentence, to write something. And you write about yourself. I'm deeply convinced that, if you read film critics, you'll probably understand more about the critic writing it than about the film. About his personal humor of that day. You slept, you didn't sleep well, you had some problems with your wife or your lover. I mean, it's all in there. "
Adrian Martin : "Now the gut response is not the be-all and end-all of film criticism, but you've got to start with the gut response. Hopefully, it travels from your gut to your head at some point and you write something intelligent — but you've got to trust your own gut response."
David Bordwell : "Most orthodox criticism overdoes opinions, which create the critic’s professional persona. Soon opinions crystallize into tastes, and the persona overshadows the films."
Well, the first person is indeed preferable to the impersonal style using third person, "we", indefinite subject or infinitive verbs... Because the writer should endorse his own opinions when they are just opinions, and distinguish that from factoids and general wisdom that belong to culture and are not based on impressions/assumptions. The first person corresponds to the acknowledgement of the writer of his unique personal perspective. I care less for its stylistic advantages than for its inherent qualification of a point of view and discriminate the levels of reliability of informations contained in the article.
It's OK to let the ego speak, to express personal opinions, to share subjective interpretations, to throw tentative assumptions, to suggest speculative theses. But it's better to make it clear who speaks, where these statements come from, since the journalist publishes informations for the mass that might misinterpret the level of truth of a sentence. Good critics shouldn't build a reputation on such misunderstandings.
Read also Leo Charney's article : "Common People with Common Feelings" on Pauline Kael. (in my previous post)It's OK to let the ego speak, to express personal opinions, to share subjective interpretations, to throw tentative assumptions, to suggest speculative theses. But it's better to make it clear who speaks, where these statements come from, since the journalist publishes informations for the mass that might misinterpret the level of truth of a sentence. Good critics shouldn't build a reputation on such misunderstandings.
That's why I believe film criticism is a collective action, one nurtured by the ego and subjectivity of many, to form an ensemble of perspective that balance eachothers. Film culture is not the sum of unilateral authoritative statements imposed by a self-appointed chosen few who say "I'm a film critic so you must watch what I like". Only the plurality of voices, the checks and balances, the self-criticism, the open debate of opinions, the mutual engagements with eachother's ideas could build an accessible film culture.
JP Coursodon : "I consider myself a fairly ordinary film viewer, but I have never expected film to be the purveyor of wish fulfilment. I never expected a movie to fulfill any wish I might have. I never went to a movie with any kind of 'wish' that might somehow be 'fulfilled' by the experience of watching the movie. I don't even comprehend the concept of wish fulfilment. I can't believe that I am a freak exception and everybody else goes to movies for fulfilling some wishes. Maybe I'm in denial... JPC"Here is the difference between the regular audience and the professional viewer. I could as well say the difference between the casual movie goer (who is a consumer paying to receive a guaranteed entertainment) and the art lover (who visits a "museum" devoutly, with respect for the work, with understanding, with humility).
Fred Camper : "Yes, I don't come here [a_film_by] to "have fun" either. I also don't go to films to "have fun." There's nothing wrong with fun, but there are other kinds of experiences in life, and great cinema offers something different."
The consumers expect a service, a gain, a return for their money. They don't care who did it, or why and how, they don't care for excuses, for explanations, for messages. All they want is to get the entertainment they ordered, to kill time, to feel good, to escape daily life, to forget their problems. They are in an egocentric attitude, where the movie should come to them or fail. That's why the audience may be disappointed by a film for many different reasons, because it didn't match the expectations they built up for this movie, or their idea of an enjoyable night-out at the movies.
The critic goes towards the film, the filmmaker, in order to find the clues, to find what the auteur had to say, to offer. This is a forward pull in the direction of the film, a film-centric perspective.
This is a very different process. And if critics tell you they can predict what your ego wants in movies, what will be your favourite movies... they are lying. A film writer shouldn't make a business of dictating preferences, being a taste maker.
A critic is there to give readers all the elements necessary for you to judge for yourself if it fits your need or not, to help you enter the world of the film, to accompany you down the labyrinth.
Adrian Martin : "There is something in criticism I value perhaps above everything else: it is what I can call the ‘personal voice’. I do not mean the autobiographical or confessional content of writing, which often bores and irritates me – and, in fact, most writers ‘in person’ are absolutely nothing like what you imagine them to be from their writing! No, I mean the way in which an individual writer can communicate and draw you into his or her own ‘system’, their way of seeing, feeling and processing films, as well as the world."___
Cinemascope.it (issue 7) PDF
- See illustration here
