HerrSchreck wrote:As an afterthought I'd ask everybody to remember how extremely agonizing it is for artists of any field to have their life's work torn to pieces by critics. (No critic should ever really complain, as they hold jobs that in reality nobody should really get to have-- in my humble opinion it should be a rotating public job like jury duty. We're all just fans: what is a critic but a "professional fan"?) Imagine having smart asses around the world sitting behind PC's in their dens publicly tearing apart the work you do in your 9-5 job, searching out private tidbits about you, laughing at your failures and rubbing it in with smug sarcasm & gymnastic linguistic usages designed to make you and your life's work sound as pathetic & laughable as possible. I recall the documentary on my 25th anniversary edition vhs of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, where John Schlesinger recounts how "I wiped my bottom with the review from..." (I can't remember for certain as I haven't pulled it out in a while but I believe the review was from the Village Voice.)
i've been thinking about this since i read it yesterday, and i half agree and half strongly disagree. HerrShreck, do you really believe that there is no justification for the profession of "critic" and that it should be a publically rotated job? have you read the Hilarious Amazon Review thread?
but in all seriousness, but i agree that a job where an individual rips apart the work of an artist is absurd. perhaps it's my fledgling pipe dream, but a revolving door of public opinion is also absurd. The problem is the definition of a "critic" today. in the internet world where anyone can buy a domain name and declare themselves a "critic," the days of actual criticism have disappeared and the word is now synonymous with mostly unsupported remarks about a film/movie.
In my own writings, i try to elevate the thought of movies and hopefully impress upon my readers that it is an important art, not just a 2-hour escape vehicle. however, with a high-brow approach, i'm bound to put off some readers, so the real challenge is keeping the tone very readable, while discussing complicated cinematic techniques.
The major problem is that the skill of writing is what is forgotten. while the majority of people can read and write, that hardly makes them writers. criticism has turned into someone's blog where they sit down and ramble, either positively or negatively, about a movie and at the end we are left with nothing of substance, other than if this individual liked or disliked the movie.
i would say what we need is more "professional fans." fans who make it their job to study and write about film. fans that take it seriously and watch anything and everything in a continuing quest of film knowledge. Fans that can teach us something. What we need less of is loudmouth "fan boys" with a computer passing themselves off as critics. actual citicism is as rare today as artistic films, it's shame that the profession has dwindled down to bashing or D. S'ing.
