Professional Criticism

 crit·i·cism 

noun \ˈkri-tə-ˌsi-zəm\

Every now and again I spot warning flags raised about threats to the survival of film journalism. They are obviously not imagined threats. Indeed, I began reading the reviews of Todd McCarthy routinely because he was let go by his longtime employer, Variety. McCarthy's peers obviously saw this as a travesty of justice and I read several pieces entirely about their feelings on this, significantly increasing my awareness of his writing. Fortunately, Mr McCarthy later got a steady job writing for The Hollywood Reporter, who maintain an exceptionally well designed site, which I find allows me to keep up with a lot of film news while I am riding the bus to work. The Internet is generally considered the culprit responsible for cutting into the profit margins of print journalism, although if I had had the internet as a teenager, I would have been able to learn much more about film, having grown up in places where access to media was not always simple. Perhaps this is the praise-tempered-with-cynicism that is the meaning behind the internet meme that has been growing ever ubiquitous; 'well done internet'.

It seems to me that there is a strong sentiment pervading the times in which we live questioning the need for learned criticism. It strikes me as being an odd one. Cinema, television, and music are art for the masses; most of us spend disproportionate amounts of time on at least one of these. Escapist entertainments are fine, often better than fine, and occasionally rise up to become milestones for future generations to pore over and analyze in minute detail. James Cagney's many starring roles in the 30s clearly were not intended to be dissected as gallery pieces close to a century later, but there is no denying Cagney's ability to rarely seem to be acting, rather almost always charging out of the screen, fully embodying the scripted character. Decades before 'method acting' and 'Marlon Brando' had been drilled into the lexicon of movie-goers. There is also the fact that he worked with directors who are now revered as auteurs like Michael Curtiz and William Wellman. 

But now we live in an age where the average worker has a career that is existence defining, dedicating exhaustive hours of service. Never mind the hours still needed for a healthy family life, and if you are a single-parent such as myself, many more of these hours are needed. We are now also bombarded by a plethora of entertainment (hopefully art) of such an intense volume that the chance of making the wrong choice and spending a couple of hours recoiling in revulsion because our intelligence is under assault is high. Especially as the main distributor of film has often decided that the key to keeping its bottom line strong is to cobble together badly shot scenes of expensive garbage, with recognizable faces, then set the marketing machine on overdrive.   

Despite this being a method that is showing increasingly diminishing returns, the ostensibly arthouse successes of recent months being a hopeful indicator, I doubt we will ever reach a stage when entertainment barons are not desperately trying to force-feed audiences empty-headed - and ludicrously expensive - nonsense. It is also becoming clear that the studios see developing countries, such as the one where I reside, as being a replacement dumping ground for their celluloid atrocities.

The blogosphere is all very well as an outlet for hobbyists like me. But I generally find it necessary to look to established voices to learn more about what is out there to watch during the precious few hours I can spare away from home for personal entertainment during a given month. I crave practiced prose, the benefit of years of experience and more knowledge about film-making than I can possibly hope to forget. I have subscribed to certain writers for years now and with the familiarity which this brings, I find that it is even possible detect from a less-than-flattering review that I personally may yet be interested in seeing the title - such is the power of the critic's words. I read about most of the films I watch for the first time from these same writers. Be it a revived silent, a non-English language film, or an ostensibly shallow genre piece bearing subterfuge for those looking. Given the limited opportunities to socialize presented by my aforementioned situation, I often find that it is in print, with unwitting participants, that the real discussion is to be had. Most rewarding of all is the ability to progressively seek out entertainments, art-as-entertainment, and every now again the kind of artistic statement that leaves one under its spell days, or quite possibly years, later.

I pity (yes, pity!) those who seek to be entertained, and instead end up wallowing in the bottomless depths of whatever inanity Hollywood has decided to unleash during the summer blockbuster period. The chances of finding thoughtfulness, or well-crafted escapism (usually thoughtful itself) go up during the present award season. However, so far I have only been able to count on one hand the number of award frontrunners to make it to local screens, while the possibility of wandering into a film ridden with queasy-cam, CGI, yet devoid of a single intelligent idea is precariously near. 

The internet is awash with remedies to this, expounded by wise minds who are as in love with the world of film as much as the people who make films. A furniture-dwarfing HD television seems to be an essential piece of equipment in the home of an upwardly mobile family, while digitally restored DVDs are revelatory when compared to the rotten VHS tapes which were all that were available not so very long ago. It is baffling that more people do not put such modern technology to better use, when good free advice is a few clicks of the mouse away. I take special content in having rarely subjected myself to films that I have actively disliked over the years.

Metacritic

Rotten Tomatoes

IMdb

Ebert

Maltin

Rosenbaum

The Guardian - Film

The AV Club

Correction: someone professing to be Jonathan Rosenbaum has pointed out an error in this post. It doesn't seem likely that this poster is a fraud, despite my initial surprise that someone of Mr Rosenbaum's stature would stumble upon my amateur writing. In any case, it is a significant error, which I have left in, but drawn further attention to in the comments. 

 

Morality/Celebrity

I have just finished watching Jack Reacher, the latest genre film starring Tom Cruise. The film itself is a well crafted slice of action, which on the face of it offers nothing new to the mainstream. Although after a while one starts to feel a pattern to the very straight-faced delivery of a series of overtly macho lines of dialogue. And there is also the fact that the film-makers, in an uncharacteristic move, chose not to ignore the fact that if a man looking like Tom Cruise walked into your average bar, he would turn the heads of many a lady. Jack Reacher is more parts John Shaft than John McClane.

I enjoyed Reacher more than might be wise to admit in public, and I knew that when entering the cinema, which is why I bought my ticket. I have long wondered when the film's director, Christopher McQuarrie was going to produce a follow-up to his 2000 directorial debut, The Way of the Gun, which got written off as  another Quentin Tarantino bandwagon jumper, when its real crime was more likely that it drew from some of the same influences as Tarantino. Never mind the director, I am an unabashed fan of Tom Cruise, the movie star. 

The persona of Cruise was at the forefront of my mind as I entered the cinema. The most recognizable male face in film for as long as I can remember, he is also well-known for his odd, problematic personal life. Most notably, his high standing in the Church of Scientology and his marriage to Katie Holmes, many years his junior. A marriage which ended with all interested parties in the media clearly taking the side of Ms Holmes. 

I have no special fondness for the controversial faith that is Scientology, but more to the point, I have no idea as to why the Cruise-Holmes union ended abruptly other than what I have read in the papers. I am not entirely sure why I should care about such things? Scientology courts nothing but bad press - usually along the lines of its newest members having their personal finances eloquently plundered by the church. My personal view of the faith is dim. However, I have yet to hear of its high priests systematically abusing minors, then having their crimes covered up by their supreme leaders. Nobody in Hollywood ever had their reputation dragged through the mud for pledging allegiance to Roman Catholicism. 

Indeed Scientology is said to have played a key role in the Cruise divorce. But again, it seems to boil down to differences of opinion, with nobody being forced to act against their will, and Holmes making a clean exit.

This is all tabloid fodder which feels insignificant given the state of the world, but try as I might, the topic became unavoidable as it quickly found its way into non-tabloid media outlets. As far as I know Cruise has never been accused of a felony. I severely doubt I will ever get the chance to spend quality time socializing with him, so I cannot find it in my heart to worry about whether he is of sterling character or not. I am much more concerned about the man on the screen, than the individual who believes in some fairly far-flung ideas about the origins of man. I do admit to having read biographies of famous people, but most of them are dead already. Additionally, they are biographies which are more likely to reveal what went on behind the camera than in front of it, let alone during a highly intimate conversation with a loved one. 

Thankfully, 2012 was a genuinely good year for film, that produced more high-quality craftsmanship than highly-gossiped about scandalous behaviour. Mind you, as the year came to an end, Spike Lee managed to launch a personal tirade against one of his peers that struck me as being worth gossiping about. I do of course refer to his very public yet very personal ire for Quentin Tarantino's revisionist slave epic - Django Unchained. As I consider QT to be among the greatest director's alive (and on a clear track to becoming one of the greatest ever), I am eager to see whether Lee's anger is founded, although for now, like Mr Lee, have not managed to watch the film in question. 

The ultimate case of private behaviour affecting perception of art in modern times must be Roman Polanski. Here is a man who drew revulsion from his biggest admirers when it became known that he had had sexual intercourse with a minor. The cynic in me feels that this decades-old incident would now be long forgotten were it not for the fact that, facing a sentence far harsher than the norm at the hands of an attention-seeking judge, Polanski fled the scene of the crime, America, and has yet to return. A lover of film such as myself is faced with the heinous act of a man who admitted to sex with a thirteen year-old when he was well into his forties, yet also created such monumental milestones of cinema such as Chinatown, Bitter Moon and The Pianist.   

 There is no question in my mind that his prowess as a director in no way condones his crime. But having said that, his art did make me curious as to the circumstances of the crime itself. They are murky indeed, and many of Polanski's detractors who are in the habit of levelling false accusations against him would do well to read up on the actual event. There are also the facts of Mr Polanski losing his entire immediate family in the Holocaust, and later on having his wife and unborn child brutally murdered by the Manson Family. Both before he committed the act which would stain the rest of his life so far. There is also the victim of the crime, Samantha Geimer, repeatedly pleading with US authorities to drop their pursuit of Polanski, as well as publicly forgiving him. 

I enjoy watching his movies, and make a point of seeing them when they are playing at the cinema. I cannot avoid thinking about the private life of the man behind them, public as it is. However, I do not believe that I am committing any kind of ideological transgression by watching, and enjoying. If Polanski had not felt that he was looking down the barrel of a gun, unfairly pointed in his direction, and had not fled the country, I cannot imagine that many among us would be paying so much attention to a crime of statutory rape committed so long ago, regardless of how heinous it unavoidably is.

The scholarly film critic and film writer, Jonathan Rosenbaum, famously refuses to watch Elia Kazan's classic boxing-gangster movie, On the Waterfront. This is not a comment on the film's worth as a piece of cinema, but is entirely to do with Kazan naming names when his back was put up against the wall during the McCarthy communist witch-hunts, and the film being allegorical to this - expressing Kazan's frustration at the condemnation which he in turn received from his peers. It is almost certain that Kazan's actions ruined entire families, by incarcerating breadwinners, and/or putting them on the infamous Hollywood blacklist, which prevented them from finding work. 

Yet I cannot imagine how I noble I could find the temerity to be, if I myself were being blackmailed by my own government, with the choice being information, or ruination. On the Waterfront, like many of Kazan's films, also happens to be one that passionate observers of the craft should watch. 

I do not want to imagine what immoral or misguided act would be the one so reprehensible so as to cause me to boycott an artist. I do not really want to think about it, because I do not want to be somebody who imposes my own moral judgement on people whom I have never met.