Monday, June 14, 2010

Film Criticism

Being brief, there's a lot to explore here later:

One of the films I saw at Dead Center was For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism” . The following panel was about the state of film criticism as well.

The film turned into a film snob rant on blogging and the internet and how it is killing film criticism. It was easy to feel inadequate as I quickly flashed to my favorable review of Iron Man 2 and even claimed Pepper Potts to be one of the best written female roles in cinema. Yes, I said that. I'll back it up in a later blog.

I also thought about how I do not invoke the entire wealth of film knowledge in to my reviews. And I felt like the group of girls in the film history class that all said they liked Transformers 2.

But here is what I've processed so far. I do know film. I could easily reference any French film with popular culture and tell you why any film didn't work perfectly. I can also tell you the real reason why no one cares to see French films - it doesn't have anything to do with reading the screen - it's that French films have recently failed to expand on and evolve with film grammar. They still largely rely on the fact that they are French.

(I've digressed - imagine that). Anyway,
the reason I don't pull on my vast knowledge of cinema, and quite possibly the reason why critics are losing jobs... is because there is a very clear difference in a review and in film criticism!


Explain to me how you can really provide a powerful discussion and criticism of a film without giving away major plotpoints. And in doing so, changing how the movie is seen. And in doing so, changing the experience and possibly breaking the connections and contexts you created. And then what benefit did you provide a reader?

On top of that, it's commercialism, not the wide variety of morons on the web, that have given way to an attitude of watching only what is new. And that's just the way it is. Too many films are out there now and people want to see what's new.

So to "review" a film and invoke a context (what the director of the documentary claimed is what good critics give their review) that is not accessible by the audience you are writing for is simply the critic showing you how smart they are... intellectual masturbation. And I'm just saying, you are probably going to lose your job writing reviews for the paper.

When a critic pulls an attitude that downs "blogging" and other mass pop mediums and plays it off as silly, I have to take an issue as an Educational Technologist. And when they act as if they are better than mass culture because they enjoy French films and won't review new films because it's pop culture and "I am just going to hate them all anyway", it's hard to feel sorry for them for losing their job.

I enjoyed the film, I loved the panel discussion (as much as I got to see), and the director did say he wasn't anti-web or ageist, and that if he could re-edit he would change how that attitude was portrayed. But you couldn't help but feel the animosity directed toward anyone without a cane or nose in the air.

And so... I've regrettably defended pop culture... I need to take a break... I don't feel so well...

I walked into that film with an attitude that I was know-more-than-you auteur and walked out re-evaluating myself. And feeling the need to defend my reviews. More on this self-made dilemma to come.

Mark one up for DeadCenter Film Festival for making me think.