Critics’ fight and fury
[Thoughts, thoughts and thoughts on film criticism in India and elsewhere.]
One of the first generation of American film critics, James Agee said, “There are a good many people who honestly enjoy movies, know the difference between good work and bad, and care a great deal about the difference.” But how many people, who are writing about films today, really understand cinema in this country?
Ajit Duara, a prominent Indian film critic, said that he had been struggling as a film critic for the last two decades of his career. Today all he gets is 350 words limit to review a film. But what could one possibly do other than to resort to the web space to express his views? We must not forget that critics work under editorial and market constraints and constant pressure from various people.
Since we’re talking about writing, let’s also find out when did screenwriters finally arrive in India? Here’s the clue: Anjum Rajabali heard about ‘screenplay’ for the first time only in 1992! Writers didn’t get their dues in Indian cinema before Salim-Javed, Anjum said. He said even after the pair became stars overnight, the film industry didn’t take writing seriously. What about film criticism? Are you mad, forget it?! I don’t think we ever had a proper school of film criticism here. ( Duara shares this view.)
Satyajit Ray said, “You cannot really reprehend mediocrity, you can only regret it. But you can and must condemn the gifted filmmakers who has it in him to combine artistic integrity with a consciousness of dual responsibility to the viewing public and to keep the man who backs him but who yet keeps postponing the great film because he must ‘first make a little money’ and therefore must compromise just this little, just the once.”
While I subscribe to the views of Parker Tyler and John Simon about film criticism [read below], let’s not think about that whether criticism can change the standard of films or not. Now that a new kind of cinema in India is taking the center stage, I’m certain that quality film criticism will also emerge gradually. I strongly believe to be able to ‘judge’ the merits of a film, we need to have an understanding of the history of the cinematic art form. The knowledge of the filmmaking process is crucial to do justice with a work of a filmmaker. But how do we go about educating ourselves about movies? I had to look for the answer in American books. In 1992, when Marc Smirnoff asked the question to Pauline Kael, one of the prominent American film critics of the day, she didn’t think it was possible to ‘catch up’ overnight.
“Oh God, if he has to go about educating himself, forget it,” Pauline said. “I think that popular culture is something you pick up. It seeps into you. It’s in the environment. I’ve heard people getting jobs as movie critics and then watching ten classics to get educated in movies. The whole thought makes me throw dart at them.”
“If you haven’t picked up an education in movies from what’s available in your area, from television and from VCRs, what’s the point? You can never catch up. Sure, you can pick out some of the great ones o go see, but that’s not the same thing as seeing what the great ones spring out of, which is all the crap. Part of getting to know movies is sorting out the great ones from the crap for yourself, seeing all those lousy Warner Brothers movies, out of which really good ones came, and there’s no way you can educate yourself in that.”
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Critics’ Role
Pauline felt “the role of the critic is to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn’t be, what is not in it that could be. He is a good critic if he helps people understand mere about the work than they could see for themselves; he is a great critic, if he by his understanding and feeling for the work, by his passion, he can excite people so that they want to experience more of the art that is there, waiting to be seized. He is not necessarily a bad critic if he makes errors in judgment. (Infallible taste is inconceivable; what could it be measured against?) He is a bad critic if he does not awaken the curiosity, enlarge the interests and understanding of his audience. The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others.”
Another leading American film critic Stanley Kauffman believed “the best critic is one who illuminates whole provinces if an art that you could not see before, who helps to refine the general public’s taste (which is never good enough – they haven’t time, they are busy studying something else or doing their jobs) and who serves as a sounding board for serious artists. . . But fundamentally you take a critic’s hand and let him lead you further, perhaps higher, only if you are initially convinced of a substantial area of mutual sympathy and interest.
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On the craft of writing criticism
These excerpts attributed to Pauline Kael are from Conversations with Pauline Kael edited by Will Brantley and Nine American Film Critics edited by Edward Murray.
“It really is a wonderfully exciting field to write about when the movies are good. When they’re not so good, it’s to despair. The really bad movies you can write about with some passion and anger. It’s the mediocre ones that wear you down. They’re disgusting to write about because you can feel yourself slipping into the same mediocrity and stupidity.”
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“When you’ve something good, it writes itself, nothing is more fun than using your brain. But suppose you confront, say, King of Gypsies? What can you say? And how do you make a creditable piece of writing from bad movies? If you have pride in your writing, and I do, it becomes an incredible chore.”
“It’s my feeling that no one should trust any critic who does not take the art form he is writing about seriously enough to write a decent paragraph? I simply do not trust the observations of people who write sloppily or in illiterate hyperboles. I can only believe in people whose level of observation in prose does justice to the art of motion pictures or any other art he is writing about. But in order to live up to that requirement, you kill yourself sometimes if the subject is a bummer.”
Pauline Kael to Sheila Benson/1980
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Fellini on Film Critics
No other film can give a glimpse into the working relationship between a critic and a filmmaker better than Otto E Mezzo. According to Fellini, “what is extraordinary about film critics is that they apply critical methods which are a hundred years old to work which couldn’t have existed a hundred years ago.”
Fellini says in Fellini On Fellini, “I’m not a good critic myself. I’m a very poor witness. I put everything out of shape and I’m very partisan. I won’t have any argument; discussion bores me. The critical spirit appears in me in the form of doubt. It’s paralyzing. For someone of my temperament, exercising the critical faculty is masochistic. Why mummify what has moved you, why become lukewarm about it, why mortify it, why extinguish it? It’s physical fact. I can’t bear people who try to define me precisely.”
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“The critic merely by saying, ‘I am a critic,’ inflates himself and causes himself to see not what exists but what he thinks ought to exist. But things are only what they are. Therefore, the critic is usually mistaken. A truly humble critic would look at things from the inside, not from the outside. If the thing is vital and you look at it from your external point of view, you will never understand but will only project onto it what you think it should be.”
Fellini, from ‘Nine American Film Critics’
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Critic’s Code?
I’m sure that we who are serious desire that better film criticism stand for values, that it should be able to point and distinguish, speak a coherent language, and espouse at its best, a vigorous, high-level doctrine.
— Parker Tyler
The first and last responsibility of the film critic is – prepare yourself for a thundering truism – to raise the standard of motion pictures.
— John Simon
All art is a game played with ethnic rules.
— Vernon Young
It comes down, ultimately, to value judgments (“taste,” “opinion”) which can never be settled as conclusively as the freshness of an egg. Which is not to say that one man’s opinion is as good as the next one’s. Before the ultimate is reached a critic goes through a process of defining, describing, reasoning, and persuading which is drawn from his own special experience and knowledge and which may or may not persuade his readers that his judgment is more accurate – “true” or “right” would be claiming too much – than other judgments, according to their experience and knowledge. Readers have their own ideas, too, if they’re worth writing for.
— Dwight MacDonald
Excerpts from ‘Nine American Film Critics’
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Tags: Film Criticism, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
nice first-up post.
the definition of a critic has degenerated to a person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. film criticism falls in the same realm. and this degeneration will continue as more people who know nothing about the aspects of movie or movie-making become critics.
Any individual is bundle of his own emotions, ideas, bias and is a product of upbringing, environment and his own intelligence and tolerance.
Therefore, writing opinions in national dailies so that others may form opinions about a subject, is not insult the layman’s intelligence.
A channel’s job is to report, not pass judgements or decisions. It is and should be left to the consumer.
One individual’s opinion therefore is shared by a very miniscule number of people. Why then should one person’s opinion be broadcasted?
Critics come in the same category. None would have ever seen a film camera or if he has, then he would have made the greatest duds in the film history
Since a large number of people view critics’ column before deciding whether to watch a movie or no, the critics’ column itself should be delayed to be broadcasted after one or two weeks after the release of the movie. After all hundreds work towards making a movie and most important, the producer has to recover money, even if the film is bad.
Any review after one/two week’s after film’s release would be a mere analysis or a discussion. After all, critics should not matter in deciding the film’s fortunes, that way, they will not matter at all!
Please correct “Therefore, writing opinions in national dailies so that others may form opinions about a subject, is not insult the layman’s intelligence”
to
“Therefore, writing opinions in national dailies so that others may form opinions about a subject, is to insult the layman’s intelligence”
“See not what exists but what he thinks ought to exist.” 100% truth. appreciate the fact that you have put together so many quotes together and thrown some light on an important & relevant subject here.
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IMO, aside a few rare exceptions (a la b.rangan), film criticism in apna des is one big joke. actually i see that there are 2 types of it -’popular ishtyle film criticism’ and the ‘arty type film criticism’ and there are serious takers for both the genres of criticism.
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to think of it, cinema itself is not taken so seriously (at a macro level), who would think much about film criticism?
but yes, i m still trying to figure out, what are your thoughts about the same?
Critics should not be allowed to script a film’s fortunes. Any review should be allowed to be broadcasted after a week or two after a film’s release. That way the review will remain a discussion/analysis how it should be.
Critics are all these nose-in-the-air schmuks who dare to rate the movies, as if they are the final authority. Any individual carries his own bias, thots and what not. If he knows so much about film making, why doesnt he go and make one himself. One person’s opinion cannot be broadcasted in a national daily simply because his views might be shared with only a miniscule amount of people and he’s thrusting his opinion on many fence sitters, which is like insulting intelligence. A channel should be allowed to report not decide!
Yaar this site. First I posted with my name. It vanished. Then I posted as mr nobody, it got a “Moderator review” but was posted. Then it vanished. So I had to rewrite whatever i cud remember again with my name. Why does PFC do this!
Criticism in theory may be anything but in practice, it has become a means of manipulation. We don’t have knowledgeable and honest critics who don’t suck up to stars and producers. Instead we have fans, friends and chamchas of stars or plain idiots passing of as critics. So, this tribe as it exists now need not be taken seriously at all. And yes, the so called criticism shouldn’t be published before the movie has completed at least one week’s run.
Salik, welcome here!…:)…
Salik, thanks for this well researched article.
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There must be a use for criticism that illuminates the conversation. I’m just not sure who will pay writers to spend that much time thinking critically about films anymore, with traditional print periodicals in such economic straits.
a good deal of research here!
i have a simple thing to say…
just as it is a personal matter whether one appreciates a certain film or not… it is also a personal matter what one can write and one would love to read about cinema critics !!!
people like to read the story background, setting, back stories, character descriptions and details, research that went behind,political scenario, BEHIND THE SCREEN ACTION…the progress of the script, changes and evaluations, and others interested in the technical aspects…
so the reader pick what they wanna read… writers write what they wanna wright… why complicate ?
“A channel’s job is to report, not pass judgments or decisions. It is and should be left to the consumer…
The critics’ column itself should be delayed to be broadcasted after one or two weeks after the release of the movie. ”
@ Mr Nobody: Well, it is necessary to make the audience aware about the product so that they can make a wise choice. Critical analysis can wait, I agree. But our reviews and reviews by international publications are so different in content and style. Our reviews are like advertorials . . .
“Film criticism in apna des is one big joke…”
@ Magik, that’s why it’s our duty to change this attitude.
“Critics should not be allowed to script a film’s fortunes. Any review should be allowed to be broadcast after a week or two after a film’s release.”
@ Vinay, that’s not possible even if that may be desirable due to the market practices. Reviews have become marketing tools around the world. And a lot of crap is being published in the name of film criticism.
“Criticism in theory may be anything but in practice, it has become a means of manipulation.”
@ Leena, that’s exactly the case with the most of publications. But let’s not forget that there are blogs and websites like PFC too. The readers do know the differences and care a great deal about them.
@ Evelyn Tu, unfortunately, that’s true.
@ Prarthana, the problem is that not many people know that there are things out there that could be interesting and insightful other than what they are used to. We tend to limit ourselves to what we want to hear/see/read. There might be very few takers of serious criticism, but they’re worth paying attention.