Film critics are not like other people
Why do the opinions of film critics so often differ from those of the general public? Tony Scott tried to answer the question in Tuesday's Times, but I couldn't really figure out what he was saying. Here's my short(ish) answer, based on having spent much of my professional career as a film critic, my last post being a stint as the chief film critic of the New York Post.
Film critics really don't watch movies the same way most people do. If they're any good, they watch not merely for entertainment (though a critic who forgets a film is supposed to be at least entertaining is not very useful), but for craftsmanship, and at best artistry. All the time people would say, "Boy, you have the best job in the world, getting paid to watch movies," which was usually their way of saying, "How'd you luck into a job any boob could do?" The thing is, most people can't explain very well why they thought a particular movie was good, bad or somewhere in between. They'd shipwreck themselves after the first paragraph or two. A professional critic has to be able to write hundreds of meaningful words about what he sees. To do that requires real professionalism. Not just any yahoo can do it, but if you learn to read movie ads carefully, you'll see the same names from obscure media outlets turning up raving about turkeys. Those are the Any Yahoo brigades, and nobody should take them seriously.
So a critic tends to have higher standards than most casual moviegoers, because he or she is trained to watch movies closely. It took me a long time after I left reviewing to unwind while watching a movie, to quit analyzing it but instead just give myself over to the experience. But it's also the case that a critic quickly grows bored with this or that aspect of contemporary filmmaking simply because it's old news to him long before it is to most moviegoers. That's largely because in major markets, critics will see between five and 10 films a week, not counting film festivals. Normal people don't watch movies at nearly that rate, and can enjoy a trend long after the critics have gotten tired of it from overexposure.
This also leads to critics placing far too much value on novelty. I'll never forget how staggered I was to watch an audience filled with most of the major film critics in North America giving a film festival standing ovation to that sicko Todd Solondz' film "Happiness," which, among other things, featured a grown man's attempt to drug and anally rape a child played for comedy. (I seem to recall that some reviews later appreciatively noted the skill with which the director manipulated the viewer into rooting for the rapist to succeed.) Were these critics perverse? Maybe. But I think that reaction can be explained mostly by the fact that the director showed them something they hadn't seen before, and did so cleverly. Another example: I noticed that when I quit regular reviewing, which happened around the time I had my first kid, I became a lot more aware of the degree of sex and violence in many mainstream movies. I professed shock to my wife, who told me that she thought I had simply grown numb to it because of constant exposure, and was now like a heavy smoker who had quit, and was shocked to discover once again that things had tastes.
And it's also true in my experience that nearly all film critics are political and cultural liberals, and many of them don't have children. Having kids dramatically changed the way I thought about pop culture, and the movies. It injected a serious element of social awareness in my understanding of art. Nobody can bring to a film a perspective that's not authentically their own, but the perspective the individual critic brings into the theater will inevitably shape his reaction to the movie. Roger Ebert, for example, is acutely concerned with issues of race and racial justic e, which in my view leads him to overpraise some films built around those themes. But someone else might say that Ebert understands and appreciates those movies more than somebody like me, who is more sensitive to the way religion is treated in film than most critics. In general, I'd say that quite a few film critics don't have a lot in common, culturally and politically, with the people for whom they write.
A final, minor point: because professional critics see everything for free, we can be guilty of overpraising small, worthy films. After I quit reviewing professionally, it startled me to think about how many movies I'd given three stars (out of four) to that I wouldn't mind renting on DVD, but that I'd never pay $10 to see. I think a pure critic would have said honestly what he thought about the movie, and not thought of his job as having anything to do with being a consumer guide. But I was not paid to be that kind of critic; I worked for daily newspapers, and people had a right to expect me to help them figure out if this or that movie was worth the price of a ticket. A more honest and truly useful ratings guide would have been to chuck the star system, and do one of three choices: "See it," "Skip it," or "Wait for the video."
Now, for all that, I do believe good film critics are indispensable. If you read widely enough on the web, you'll find critics whose tastes more or less match your own, and those critics can be useful in guiding you toward good films, steering you away from bad ones, and helping you to understand the art and craft of filmmaking. Every now and then I'd run into somebody who, upon finding out what I did for a living, would say, "If the critics loved a movie, I stay away from it, and if they hated it, I figure it's something I'd enjoy." My stock response: "See, we are helpful to you after all."
Film critics really don't watch movies the same way most people do. If they're any good, they watch not merely for entertainment (though a critic who forgets a film is supposed to be at least entertaining is not very useful), but for craftsmanship, and at best artistry. All the time people would say, "Boy, you have the best job in the world, getting paid to watch movies," which was usually their way of saying, "How'd you luck into a job any boob could do?" The thing is, most people can't explain very well why they thought a particular movie was good, bad or somewhere in between. They'd shipwreck themselves after the first paragraph or two. A professional critic has to be able to write hundreds of meaningful words about what he sees. To do that requires real professionalism. Not just any yahoo can do it, but if you learn to read movie ads carefully, you'll see the same names from obscure media outlets turning up raving about turkeys. Those are the Any Yahoo brigades, and nobody should take them seriously.
So a critic tends to have higher standards than most casual moviegoers, because he or she is trained to watch movies closely. It took me a long time after I left reviewing to unwind while watching a movie, to quit analyzing it but instead just give myself over to the experience. But it's also the case that a critic quickly grows bored with this or that aspect of contemporary filmmaking simply because it's old news to him long before it is to most moviegoers. That's largely because in major markets, critics will see between five and 10 films a week, not counting film festivals. Normal people don't watch movies at nearly that rate, and can enjoy a trend long after the critics have gotten tired of it from overexposure.
This also leads to critics placing far too much value on novelty. I'll never forget how staggered I was to watch an audience filled with most of the major film critics in North America giving a film festival standing ovation to that sicko Todd Solondz' film "Happiness," which, among other things, featured a grown man's attempt to drug and anally rape a child played for comedy. (I seem to recall that some reviews later appreciatively noted the skill with which the director manipulated the viewer into rooting for the rapist to succeed.) Were these critics perverse? Maybe. But I think that reaction can be explained mostly by the fact that the director showed them something they hadn't seen before, and did so cleverly. Another example: I noticed that when I quit regular reviewing, which happened around the time I had my first kid, I became a lot more aware of the degree of sex and violence in many mainstream movies. I professed shock to my wife, who told me that she thought I had simply grown numb to it because of constant exposure, and was now like a heavy smoker who had quit, and was shocked to discover once again that things had tastes.
And it's also true in my experience that nearly all film critics are political and cultural liberals, and many of them don't have children. Having kids dramatically changed the way I thought about pop culture, and the movies. It injected a serious element of social awareness in my understanding of art. Nobody can bring to a film a perspective that's not authentically their own, but the perspective the individual critic brings into the theater will inevitably shape his reaction to the movie. Roger Ebert, for example, is acutely concerned with issues of race and racial justic e, which in my view leads him to overpraise some films built around those themes. But someone else might say that Ebert understands and appreciates those movies more than somebody like me, who is more sensitive to the way religion is treated in film than most critics. In general, I'd say that quite a few film critics don't have a lot in common, culturally and politically, with the people for whom they write.
A final, minor point: because professional critics see everything for free, we can be guilty of overpraising small, worthy films. After I quit reviewing professionally, it startled me to think about how many movies I'd given three stars (out of four) to that I wouldn't mind renting on DVD, but that I'd never pay $10 to see. I think a pure critic would have said honestly what he thought about the movie, and not thought of his job as having anything to do with being a consumer guide. But I was not paid to be that kind of critic; I worked for daily newspapers, and people had a right to expect me to help them figure out if this or that movie was worth the price of a ticket. A more honest and truly useful ratings guide would have been to chuck the star system, and do one of three choices: "See it," "Skip it," or "Wait for the video."
Now, for all that, I do believe good film critics are indispensable. If you read widely enough on the web, you'll find critics whose tastes more or less match your own, and those critics can be useful in guiding you toward good films, steering you away from bad ones, and helping you to understand the art and craft of filmmaking. Every now and then I'd run into somebody who, upon finding out what I did for a living, would say, "If the critics loved a movie, I stay away from it, and if they hated it, I figure it's something I'd enjoy." My stock response: "See, we are helpful to you after all."
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