Critics vs. Bloggers, Chapter 387: The Cineaste Critical Symposium

Some months back, I was asked to participate in a symposium for Cineaste entitled, Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet. I was both honored and thrilled to have been asked, for I'm certainly no stranger to the subject. As those who know me well can attest, pour a few drinks in me and I'll blather on and on about it all night. The issue (Fall 2008) has finally gone to print and should be hitting newsstands any day now. (Perhaps subscription copies have been sent, for I've already received an extremely angry email about my Diablo Cody comment.)

Reading through all twenty-three pieces, it seems that the gap between the old guard and the new media is closing, but still has a way to go until completion. Even among the online-only critics there is that tendency to play the "I'm-getting-paid-for-it" hierarchy game. Oh well. The introduction to the piece mentions Armond White's tantrum from a few months back, and goes on to say that one goal of the symposium is to "chip away at some of the hyperbolic rhetoric exemplified by White's jeremiad." There's more than ample evidence contained within to disprove Armond's blanket charge of anti-intellectual pinheadedness.

Most of the old-school critics claim that they rely on the Internet more for research than for actually reading about film, yet there's still room for a bit of name calling (narcissists, bottom feeders) and to bring up the old chestnut about our not having editors. Still, all manage to find some good things to say about the blogosphere, and the only truly contentious comment comes from Amy Taubin, who claims that the Internet has marginalized traditional film culture. (There's a fascinating subject for debate!)

Time magazine's Richard Schickel's piece is probably the closest to being controversial in that he claims that, with the exception of James Agee, pre-1960 film criticism was "largely the work of dullards and time-servers." (Take that, Otis Ferguson!) Surprisingly, there are a few points where he and I are in complete agreement; namely that critical opinion no longer has the capacity to affect box-office receipts as it once did (a point I also raise in my piece), and, more importantly, that The Visitor is indicative of American independent's cinema's demise into "faux serious sentimentality." (Granted, that has little to do with the subject at hand, but I'm still getting beat up for my singling out the film in my screed on the dumbing-down of non-Hollywood films.) Schickel ends his piece with a provocative statement -- great criticism requires great art, and we're hardly in a golden age of cinema right now. I'll have to chew on that one for a while, but I do believe he might be on to something.

Of the critics whose rise predates the Net, Kent Jones, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Glenn Kenny are three who best understand (and have accepted) the changing dynamics as a result of this new democratization, and all three have much to say about the participatory nature of the medium.   

My humble contribution reiterates a point I've made elsewhere -- that all camps need to stop the finger pointing and band together to ensure that the art of genuine film criticism remains alive, particularly now that the syndicated capsule review and/or clever marketing piece has become the primary go-to resource for most people. Collectives such as The House Next Door are, in my opinion, the first step towards building a community with a commitment to the cause, as it were.

Yet for all the differing opinions on the subject, there is one thing nearly every participant agrees with -- without the tireless efforts of David Hudson at GreenCine, we'd all be running around the Net like a bunch of headless chickens.

Complete list of participants: Zach Campbell, Robert Cashill, Mike D'Angelo, Steve Erickson, Andrew Grant, J. Hoberman, Kent Jones, Glenn Kenny, Robert Koehler, Kevin B. Lee, Karina Longworth, Adrian Martin, Adam Nayman, Theodoros Panayides, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dan Sallitt, Richard Schickel, Campaspe, Girish Shambu, Michael Sicinski, Amy Taubin, Andrew Tracy, Stephanie Zacharek.

Update: Girish alerted me that the entire symposium is now available online.

Comments

[Filmbrain]

Mike -- Excellent point about Armond's piece; it's the same thing that irked me as well. While there's nothing wrong, I guess, with a film that is uplifting and/or shows us the positive aspects of humanity, I don't want all my films to be that way.

[HarryTuttle]

What's the point to invite people to a symposium on online criticism if they don't read blogs? "Yeah tell us about what you don't know, we'll fill some space"
That and there seems to be a confusion between "bloggers" who actually belong to the Web 2.0 interactive revolution, and the mere "online writers" (who disallow comments on their site) perpetuating the old Print paradigm, but in digital form. To me there is no difference between the press and people posting print-ready articles online (except maybe they're free), so if there is a formal breakthrough on the internet, it's certainly not coming from the institutional critics who come from the Print tradition. (nothing wrong with them, they're as good as the press always has been, but they are not the "NEW" stuff we're talking about)

[Brian]

I don't think we Otis Ferguson and Manny Farber admirers need to defend our heroes from Schickel's dismissal of criticsm prior to 1960, since it contains several qualifiers that protect these figures as well as others. For one, he's talking about American criticism exclusively (so no slight to Bazin either). Secondly, he exempts along with Agee "a few lonely voices in the little magazines". I think this is the territory where the New Republic and the Nation likely reside, at least in Schickel's mind. So perhaps a slight against the magazines, but not against the critics.

Otherwise, terrific piece and discussion!

[Adrian]

Filmbraim wrote: "Of the critics whose rise predates the Net, Kent Jones, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Glenn Kenny are three who best understand (and have accepted) the changing dynamics as a result of this new democratization, and all three have much to say about the participatory nature of the medium ... "

But not Adrian Martin? I was writing for about 15 years before the Net came along, and have embraced it wholeheartedly!! Just ask Girish !!

[Filmbrain]

Adrian --

A terrible oversight -- my apologies. For some reason I associate you with the new guard ("one of us, one of us...") yet my prized copy of Phantasms should remind me otherwise.

[Marilyn]

I read the piece all the way through and felt that which ever culture (print/online) the writer most identified with colored how they view and use the Internet. I actually read The Nation only for its arts criticism, which adequately balances out its otherwise stridently political essays. As for Taubin, it seems to me that she was doing what a lot of print journalists are doing these days--trying to be "controversial" in order to get readership.

What makes a good film critic goes beyond seeing a lot of films, going to film school, or having an English degree. I enjoy writers who have a strong grounding in many disciplines, who show they have trained their minds to absorb, retain, and synthesize all the many wonders of life, from the visual arts to philosophy to astronomy. Yes, people like Rosenbaum--a personal favorite for being intelligent and knowledgeable about film, as well as personally humble (something a favorite of many people here is not and that I find very grating--know what they're talking about when it comes to film and even geopolitics. But I find something lacking--perhaps the "humanities" approach that favors the Renaissance Man rather than the specialist. I find that in the work of Roger Ebert, a man most serious cinephiles may, at best, backhandedly comopliment. I know he is a man with passion and an insatiable curiosity about everything, and it shows in his writing and ability to draw from many disciplines to do a 360-degree evaluation of a film.

[mike]

as far as Amy Taubin goes, i don't know how more communication and talk about film destroys the culture. I haven't been around as long as she has, so i can't comment on film culture of the 60's and such that knowledgeably, but i have to believe that some of this stuff about how great it was back then has to be bologna. I'd like to hear write a piece about what was so great back then, and what's different now.

it reminds me of the movie theatre/ dvd debate. in the good old days you watched movies in a dark theatre, now you watch them at home alone. back then you talked face to face and had "real" conversations about film, but now you sit at home alone in front of your computer.

unfortunately, a lot of us don't live in incredibly rich areas for films, so there aren't a lot of choices other than to watch films on dvd. if you don't, then you just get to see whatever makes it into a big multiplex. at the same level, some don't have a lot of people around who want to talk about movies, or simply don't hang around those who do. so what should we do? according to many critics, don't see any film unless there brand new Hollywood releases, which leaves out about 100 years of film history, and certainly don't contribute to those awful blogs. now that sounds like a great film culture to me.

[bradluen]

Somehow I doubt that Taubin expects her remarks to cause a spike in Film Comment's circulation.

The older critics who have been most receptive to the blogosphere are the ones with an insatiable appetite for criticism (e.g. Rosenbaum), while those who consume criticism sparingly (e.g. Taubin) don't see the appeal. I suspect what underlies this is that almost all of the best-written crit is still in edited essay form. There's a huge amount of valuable blogcrit, but if you limit your time spent reading about movies in order to spend more time watching movies or playing Nintendo or whatever, finding and reading it all might not be the best use of those hours.