In defense of criticism. Reviewing a film etc
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film….You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film constantly watching ourselves.”
–Don Delillo (The Names)
What do we ‘feel’ as soon as we view a film? Lots of emotions or lack thereof. And these promptly get written up into blogs and opinions, lapped up by thousands eagerly waiting to be told what to watch and how to think. These are impressionist accounts; they have their place in this universe. Within such a context the ‘voyeur’ is justified in leaving the theatre as soon or late as his heart dictates. No one should blame him for that. He is being true to one thing he values most, his reaction to the film. There is integrity here; he will not continue this charade of paying homage to an ill deserving candidate. For the moment he is the Commentator.
A re-viewer will not only watch the whole film the first time around but will go to the pains of watching it again, hence he is the ‘RE-VIEWER’ Alas there are not many of those, the moment we see something we like/dislike we need to urgently state it grandly before the world. In the era of quick fixes and instant gratification one should be thankful for even the slightest sense of interest from the other. Where is the time, tell me? Do revere your Reviewer. S/He is getting more involved for your sakes.
A film critic is a rare species. In Winter of 2004 ,after the screening of Notre Musique at NYC, Godard slammed the New York Times film critic , stating that Manohla Dargis was just a reviewer. Well if that is the state of one of the most respected film journalists of our times, where do we stand in comparison!
……..”In an interview with Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, Jean-Luc Godard discusses his latest film, Notre Musique, as well as the problems of the term “American” and the differences between critics and reviewers. As Dargis notes, Godard can be a bit combative:
Dargis: Are you still passionate about movies?
Godard: Yes, but it’s difficult because one can’t see many.
Dargis: Because they’re not being made or you don’t have the time?
Godard: Because generally they’re all American films.
Dargis: I understand. I’m a movie critic.
Godard: Americans don’t have critics. For me, there are only two, James Agee and Manny Farber. The rest are reviewers………….”
A critic must not only be a writer, a reader, a lover of art and film but also a socially conscientious personality. It is the critic who will determine the philosophies and policies of tomorrow through her writings and outpourings. Thoughts that have been deliberated upon and analyzed, thoughts which would then enable her to judge something as spectacular as Film without prejudice, without the desire for personal aggrandizement.
Moral turpitude is common and timidity at being excommunicated is rampant. Hence most will and have kowtowed to popular opinion but for those few who have held their own , who have been objective with the director and subjective with the film, those who have kept aloof from private friendships with these very people whose work they are called upon to comment and critique, there can only be Hosannas.
For example while everybody was singing paeans to Pan’s Labyrinth , Harry Eyres who writes the SLOW LANE column for the Financial Times compared it to the Spirit of the Beehive[1973] and found it wanting .
“Just over 30 years separate the two films: strong thematic similarities link them. Both look at the aftermath of the Spanish civil war through the eyes of a young girl. Both show fantasy and reality colliding in traumatic fashion. Extraordinary performances from young actresses grace both films. But in other respects Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive of 1973 and Guillermo del Toro’s recently released Pan’s Labyrinth could hardly be more different. The differences have much to tell us about the evolution of our times and of our imaginations.
Del Toro, by all accounts a scholarly, even geekish director, is surely paying an implicit homage to Erice by making his central character a girl whose imagination sometimes gets the better of her. Both girls, Ana in Spirit of the Beehive and Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth, befriend a scary-looking imaginary creature. For Ana it is Boris Karloff’s beetle-browed monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein, which she has just seen as a travelling cinema visits her home village. With Ofelia it is a faun, created by elaborate computer-generated special effects………..” [ Jan 19 2007 , FT ]
Again, a review by the British Film critic and Film programmer for Asian Films, Tony Rayns’s , “Kim-Ki-Duk -The overrated poster boy”, which appeared in the November/December issue of Film Comment angered many fans who thought it a sacrilege and suggested that he was just jealous of Kim Ki-Duk who had attained fame without the stamp of approval of Tony himself.
Excerpt :
“So how did this guy get to be the toast of the European festival circuit? Well, his “breakthrough” was the screening of his fourth feature, The Isle, in competition in Venice four years ago. It was an archetypal succès de scandale: the film’s sexual terrorism (fishhooks in the woman’s vagina and down the protagonist’s throat, etc.) provoked fainting and vomiting in the auditorium, and many were disgusted by the visibily unfaked acts of cruelty toward a dog, a canary and numerous fish. I don’t know why Venice chose the film for competition, so I can only speculate. [...] Was it because they were looking for cheap shock value and an easy source of controversy?”
Ultimately, Ryans concludes that “the mystery surrounding Kim’s popularity with festival juries and credulous critics clears up: these culture-lovers fete Kim because he’s the Freddie Mercury of Korean cinema”.
Here are some sites that might help us get a broad overview of how we can write a review or critique a film.
http://www.henrysheehan.com/resources.html
http://www.mrqe.com/
www.rottentomatoes.com
www.metacritic.com
Coming to a very disturbing phenomenon that is occurring time and again these days: With language fluency and computer skills, with buying power and spare time all of us have turned into writers and critics but do we ensure that the grammar , syntax, spellings, dates , numbers are correct and true? Do we even try to learn from our predecessors? Do we check facts like maniacs [ the way it should be done ], in the age of Google and Wikipaedia this should pose no problem but are we even willing?. Do we formulate our own beliefs and standards before coming to a conclusion about others and their work?
We can fight through pens and words for ideas and principles, spill ink and suffer from carpel tunnel syndromes instead of indulging in blood and gore , instead of swords and stakes. A benchmark has to be set, if non-existent then created, this is what a true critic must do. Delve into his/her own conscience and also the consciousness of the society at large, see clearly where the chinks are and rush to fill them up with a dose of constructive criticism. A little something of a Mother, who admonishes her child for the child’s own good , especially because she feels so much LOVE for her child and also because she wants her child to climb higher and higher [ and going deeper and deeper ]
Then of course one is bombarded with the same adjectives again and again :
awesome, brilliant, rocks, sucks, shit, crap, fuck.
It is ’sooo’, ‘like’, Telling.
It shows very clearly the lack of a better vocabulary in the writer but also shows poorly on the part of the reader who can read this ‘bull’ and understand what the commentator means.
I am ‘amazed’ at this ability.
” It is fucking good man!”. I would rather that the man was good at fucking.
A friend sent me an audio tape by Osho on the variety of uses of the word fuck: as a noun, as a verb,as an adjective etc etc to acclimatize me to such usage.
It was funny no doubt and I can excuse a Sudhir Mishra or even Anurag Kashyap using such phrases as a form of protest or disgust only because they are proven film makers , they have gone beyond the vocabulary of words, they speak in images but not the many others who have no excuse, if one is writing to an audience we should respect that, show it in our language, our attitudes and our hard work.
‘Hell’ we have a loooong way to go. Modes of expression as a way of rebelling against the establishment are understandable [ though it is such a juvenile locker room behaviour ], what is inexcusable is that we have not explored any other means to do so except borrow slavishly from Americanisms. I did not hear ‘rock star’ till two years ago while today everyone uses it with abandon as a badge of their arrival……it is pretty grim, this lack of originality.
At this rate we will lose even the English Language: what we don’t use we lose.[ see it gets to you ]
So many indigenous languages have died and so many regional languages are at the brink of extinction while we run this globalization race in a frenzy. Only two words matter anymore to all of us: Dollars and English. Mea Culpa too.
So lets try this, why not use different adjectives to describe a film, analyze its merits and demerits, keeping the personal ego out, get some perspective on history/ philosophy / politics and THEN come out of the closet with our mental outpourings? Not everything that we think has to put out there, not everything we say is interesting or useful. A little restraint please. What you don’t reveal has much more appeal than all the nakedness in the world. Even God will tell you that.
It is not a class/term paper but we owe it to ourselves to set a standard. We do not win the Olympics nor the Oscars, we do not influence World Policies , can’t even get a Security Council membership for God’s Sake! We think we have ‘ arrived’ and we are ‘hip and happening’, Sorry to break the reverie but we are nothing but a bunch of ‘arseholes’ ,
we are the kind of nation which reads voraciously article after article about the India Fashion Week when at the same time farmers commit suicide by the hour in Vidarbha, Andhra and TN.
With that angry thought, sorry shouldn’t I be saying I am pissed?
‘Have a good day’ and ‘Take Care’!!
For all those who disagree with me there is this website where you can contribute: http://www.fwfr.com/
The reviews here are all of four words and go
“Malevolent Dench manipulates wench”……………[ for NOTES ON A SCANDAL ]
The rest of you, you are screwed.
Alright now this is what a film critic does, please read the whole article.
It is a pleasure to feast your eyes on something like this.
That scary moment when royalty lost it
By Nigel Andrews
Published: September 13 2006 16:36 | Financial Times.
Here is your question of the week. Are Britain’s royals a national asset? Or are they freeloading, emotionally retarded nutters? I didn’t invent that last description. It is spoken by Cherie Blair (Helen McCrory) in The Queen, a scintillatingly funny, sometimes touching re-enactment of the week in which the monarchy went off-message after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
As Britain’s second lady, Cherie gets the pick of the putdowns. She is closely followed by Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell (Mark Bazeley), who tells a Tony Blair picking up the phone to her Majesty after the Paris tragedy: “Ask her if she greased the brakes.” That is the only hint of conspiracy drama. Elsewhere, the Windsors do enough damage to themselves without needing a murder plot.
Created by the director Stephen Frears and the screenwriter Peter Morgan, the team that made the TV Blair-Brown drama The Deal, The Queen is social history laced with lèse-majesté. It is brilliantly crafted and acted. Helen Mirren’s performance, gonged at Venice, may be the best blend of imperson-ation and acting in movie history. The glacial politeness, the pinging nasality, the clasped-hands, straight-backed condescension and killer smiles that say: “I tolerate everything. I rejoice at nothing. I am the last person left who can do this job without ruining it.”
Back in 1997, though, she gave it her best shot. Sequestered in Balmoral Castle, Elizabeth and Philip (James Cromwell) disguise their distaste for Diana’s memory with a lofty pretence of private grief. Charles (Alex Jennings) wrings ineffective hands over the PR disaster of an empty Buckingham Palace with no half-mast flag and a tsunami of unacknowledged flowers. Down in London Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) goes bipolar, soothing Cherie’s anti-republicanism while having pro-monarchy tantrums himself. If the story weren’t a farce it would be a tragedy. Frears and Morgan wisely try to make it both.
It errs only once. For pathos the Queen is allowed a passage of slightly naff humanisation, weeping at the sight of a stag beside a stream (monarch of the glen!) and later gazing on the poor, trussed carcass as if seeing there her own perishability.
Did we need this? Not really. Mirren has already persuaded us that Elizabeth II is human. Her Queen has only to stand next to the rest of her clan. Philip shows he would make a good founder-leader for Britain’s Neanderthal party. (“Soap stars and homosexuals!” he grimaces, on reading the funeral guest list.) The Queen Mum (Sylvia Syms) bleats endearing nothings from a sofa. And the younger royals are in danger of becoming a lost generation, ruined by too much huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’. The Queen is a funny, unsparing film, which only Frears among British directors could have endowed also with affection and a kind of faith. Faith in Britain’s ability, through all vicissitudes, to live with its royals. Faith too, while the Queen survives, in the royals’ ability to live with the British…………………………..”
QED
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@ KKK…Pehle tho..welcome to PFC….
Fluidity…..in every word of this article of yours =d>
I loved the way you unfolded this post, but i kinda disagree on a couple of notes…
“Here are some sites that might help us get a broad overview of how we can write a review or critique a film”
Just the way one shouldnt be taught how to view a movie, i feel one shouldnt be taught how to re-view a movie…let the critic learn from his/her past posts…let him/her grow…One grows from viewing movies, same way i feel he grows from reviewing in his/her own innocent way….different school of thought.
But, i loved the way you de-fined re-viewer…”to go by the post”…it was AMAZING..lol!!!
“What you don
Halo triple K - A good write up, though i am not a critic and neither would i ever want to be one. I agree with one thing about what you have written, and that is maintaining some kind of self discipline and using words for the sake of using the,. In fact i myself have used them and after reading your post, i have started feeling bad, though this article has taught me one thing adn i am gonna try and follow one thing, that is be more careful and responsible while what I am writing… at the same time the feeling of just letting your thoughts flow without any censorship is ‘amazing’ ha ha ha ha ha… TC.
hi, good post.finally every review or critique is a point of view.nobody can take authority over someone else’s work.
yielding has started right here…..check up on that
kavita, you forgot “mindblowing” and “speechless”, just two of the reactions i felt after reading your post. your post summarizes very well why i’m not a critic or a reviewer, or don’t really desire to be one. but i do try to learn from other people’s writings, and i fear that if a certain benchmark is adhered to in every re-view, they might lead to monotone and dull readings, not to mention, give one the opportunity to flaunt their opulence in and mastery of the english language. contrary to popular belief, some reviews CAN and SHOULD have a tinge of humour, as long as they analyze and criticize the art in a constructive manner. i personally would not like to have webster’s next to me each and every time i read a review. don’t you think so?
on a separate note, can someone forward this post to khalid mohammed and/or taran adarsh please?
KKK,
I completely agree with you on the issue of language. I don’t think we need to use “shit”, “fuck” etc. We can say the same things in decent language. I understand that some people might have pretty strong feelings, but I am sure they can use better words rather than taking the easy way out by using swear words.
[...] describes the role of a reviewer and challenges bloggers and film enthusiasts to hold themselves to a higher standard. Coming to a very disturbing phenomenon that is occurring time and again these days: With language [...]
Sorry to break the bubble here, but I couldn’t help but spot the irony. I found some glaring grammatical flaws in this post. Not that it means too much. I detailed that observation in a comment on Desipundit.
Content-wise I can’t disagree with you!
Piker’s comment on Desipundit:
Quote
To quote from the quote itself:
Though I agree with the import of the article, the irony of having spelling mistakes and punctuation errors in the para berating others made me roar with laughter. I mean while taking a moral high ground about fact checking on google and wikipedia, the least one can do is get the spelling for wikipedia right! (even granting that it is derived from American way of spelling encyclopaedia and therefore easy to make a mistake, but isn’t that what fact checking is all about?)
I loved the article and the points it made and had there been a less patronising tone regarding the grammar and punctuation I wouldn’t even have noticed the errors. I hope the author understands through her own example that sometimes grammar and punctuation errors don’t bother readers so long as the content is good. Correct language and grammar are means for good communication and not ends in themselves. With fact checking, a lot depends on the audience for the websites. Readers of reputed newspapers don’t tolerate mixing up the name of a murderer and his victim, but the audience for a film magazine loves spiced up gossip knowing fully well that some of the ‘facts’ mentioned in the article may turn out to be false. A blogger who blogs about current affairs will lose his/her readers if there is a glaring error in facts in his/her article and therefore will be extra careful. But readers of a blog, which is a personal diary about daily activities of a teeny bopper obssessed with parties, would care less if she mixes up Mayawati with Mamata Banerjee. Even if some smart reader corrects her, her other readers who may be equally ignorant in these matters will take no notice and carry on with life without anyone getting hurt.
@ Debashish nice pointers. Target audience huh….
But, KKK here was talking about reviewer and critic, where the facts have to be right.
Do keep dropping by on PFC dude.
Stand corrected on grammar Piker/Oz.
Should have spell checked better. Thanx for pointing out. There is no excuse except laziness.
Debashish,I hope you see beyond my patronizing and berating tone, that I include myself in it. It was just the right ‘mood’ for this article.
Om, sure everyone is entitled to a point of view,how they watch a film,or write about it but I sincerely feel that we should adhere to some basic tenets and hold ourselves to the highest standards. Not congratulate ourselves too soon. Thats all.
Striker!! Kaisay ho? am left ’speechless’ with happiness sharing space with you on PFC, ‘mindblowing’ :)) [ guyz Striker and I worked together on a film..........]
Surya, Rony, Madhu, Venky, thank you for checking in, will be in touch.
Keep the criticism coming………
Ciao
K3
great article..but
irreverence is not such a bad thing, and if everyone puts in as much effort they might end up sounding the same..
And another thing i have discovered in my journey is that communication is more important than grammar, it was the need to express and communicate that created the language first and then grammar..i still don’t know my commas and full stops..we might lose our language but we won’t lose expression..mathematics when applied to the mode of expression often, not always takes away the soul.. grammar to me is mathematics..its more like table manners that i hated in school because i wasn’t given a chance to grow to adapt it.. it was forced on me..
KKK you are more evolved than most and that really can be frustrating and make you angry..you can see mediocrity more than most and also see why it exists..and i can see the pain you feel.. but sometimes the mediocre is also doing his best to escape it..case in point.. a himesh reshammiya.. i don’t like him.. i never liked him but his passion can’t be questioned..he tried to escape what he thought was mediocre and he thinks he found an evolved state of creativity, but to you and me and most music lovers he is still mediocre, but a little less..
though i will say that people like khalid mohammed who once i revered, who sees world cinema, reads a lot, has the vocabulary, is not mediocre, but chooses to appreciate it, and be it..the very man who once was given the power to help indian cinema evolve chose to regress..he is the one and his colleagues that this needs to be addressed to..to me.. to sudhir..who have the responsibility, whether they chose it or was thrust into the position ..
and still i would want the freedom to be irreverent and incorrect and random..
nevertheless your passion and idealism is so enormous and giant that it dwarfs most of us..makes me think ..the power you have with expression makes me conscious of what and how i don’t know to express..thank you.. the most brilliant piece i have ever read on PFC..
another thing..in my experience i have seen two kind of artists, when i say artists i mean the ones i don’t think are mediocre..
one kind is the kafka and dali and lynch kind..who create art without keeping its audience in mind and yet after they have created it look for a connection , an audience..
the other lot which is the rest of them are constantly struggling to simplify their grammar to reach out..what they create is not original , but an original way to look at a normal everyday event or thing or whatever.. they constantly try to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.. they reach far out.. case in point ..life is beautiful by benigni..
i struggle to be the former but will be happy even if i can be one of the latter.. the idea of the world not knowing you is very romantic to me but i have always found myself giving in to the appreciation..right now i just think i am struggling to be less mediocre..
I really don’t know why i am writing all this but you have forced an introspection which probably is a more objective and evolved introspection than when i wrote my last post..thank you again
Dear Anurag
Thank you for understanding what I actually meant. I knew you would,when I watched your film. Some things are obvious.
It has definitely been a frustrating thirty five years.
I love people. I love everything and everybody around me, hence the urgency.
Why should I let them go scot free if I love them so much?
Would you care to correct someone you don’t care about?
My mother was constantly admonishing me,I was always wrong. I never got the ” meri pyaari beti ” treatment.Ever.
This just meant and I could see that , that she cared so bloody much what became of me. [ yeah I can be irreverent too ]
I don’t have a problem with the SLANGS per se, I am just boiling all the time when I see people not willing to learn or see or improve or appreciate……..not willing to grow.
Yes your examples are very apt.
How did you know I don’t like Himesh:))
I mean his songs.Though there are times when I hum his tunes. To be able to do what he did, make a nation [and Pakistan!!] hum to his tunes is definitely an achievement.
I am very conscious of my responsibilty and duty [ yes yes Debashish it sounds preachy and pompous ] maybe this is the only way I can contribute, do my bit so to speak, coz I see these things around me, and I want to share what I know. What I have pondered over, tortured over.
Is it Truth? Is it Beauty ? Is it Conciousness that I seek, sometimes I find it all in one place and that is when everything is as it should be. Rebellion has its place, Irreverence has its place, Playfulness has its place. One can break the mould but that too has its place and time.
My dance guru constantly corrects me,she tells me how to sit, how to emote, how to stamp my foot, slight, minute movements that make my dance much better than what it was…..isn’t she being rigid? isn’t it all very ‘in the box’ , Of course! But It is I who has the freedom to dance that very piece, use my soul and irreverence to produce something totally different that can only be mine. She no longer will need to correct me, she can just enjoy it through me. Shouldn’t we all be aspiring to that ideal, where we are what we do???
In ancient times a Brahmin was held up to the strictest of punishments for the slightest of faults becoz he/she was supposed to know better, having studied the Vedas/Ethics/Logic and all that. They had the burden of leading a nation, a people, a race by example. It was imperative that they lived by these standards.You can say that I would like all of us to be ‘Brahmins’.
I am happy I made you think. Thinking is my favourite activity.
Shukriya
Kavita
KKK,
Great article! But, as Anurag rightly pointed out, irreverence is not really such a bad thing. The idea that nothing is sacred and sacrosanct, so to speak, is great one, but requires loads & loads of maturity. For instance, I have always found the ‘right to burn the American flag’ a fascinating concept - not exactly irreverence, bordering more on contempt - but still allowed. Extremities of freedom ??!!
Anurag,
Liked your example of the two kinds of artistes - its so true when you think about it.
I agree with many points in your article (which is why I linked to it from Desi Pundit!
A couple of thing though - yes, a reviewer and a critic need to be held to a high standard and yes, in the internet age, everyone is able to slap together a review and shout it out to the world.
Hoever, I think it really matters why you are doing it. As an aspiring filmmaker, I think it is important to re-view and analyze and think about what you liked in a film.
When I watch a film, I watch it the first time to just absorb it. But if I like it, I will often watch it again and look at the camera angles, how shots were cut together etc. This is great learning. And even if you’ve seen the film before being critically analytical can show you new things you hadn’t seen before.
Then, I write it down. Not always, but sometimes. This becomes my “perspective” (my chosen word for things - not review). Do I do as much background checking as a great reviewer? Clearly no. But do I go to IMDB and Wikipedia? Yes - but that’s to learn more about the filmmaker - what’s their background, motivation, drive - why did they make the film they way they have? Why not differently etc. It goes to Sudhir Mishra’s post - don’t just copy Tarkovsky b/c you are are not him, you haven’t lived his life.
Anyway, all that to say, that people “write” about films for different reasons. That’s a lens that should be used when reading what they write.
Critical critic and verbose viewer.
It is the critic who will determine the philosophies and policies of tomorrow through her writings and outpourings.
Crap.
A little something of a Mother, who admonishes her child for the child
Vinayak
liked your take on Iqbal Masud.
you sound as angry, passionate and sarcastic as I do.
K3
Ek hum hi nahin tanha ulfat mein uski rusva
Is shaher mein hum jaise deewaane hazaaron ha
Vinayak :
That was long and good comment.
Could you pls, tell more about Iqbal Masud?
If Your blog covers that pls post a link.
Thanks:)