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The Seven Bewilderly Sins

With Their Power at an Ebb, the Arbiters of Good Taste Face Ambivalent Audiences and Bewildering Times

Opinion by Tao Jonez
Posted: September 30, 2009

Once was a time when critics ruled art as giants … when an acerbic wit could close a Broadway production … when a rave review would turn out large audiences for an unknown or unappreciated cinematic gem.  These were the times when the critics themselves were an integral part of the artistic endeavor they critiqued … when The New York Times chief theater critic Frank Rich - then known as “the Butcher of Broadway” - underscored the distracted disconnect between American politics and pop culture.

These were also the times when L’Ecran français critic-filmmaker Alexandre Astruc proposed “la caméra-stylo” (movie camera as author’s pen) … when Cahiers du cinéma magazine co-founder André Bazin articulated the idea of a director’s vision … when Cahiers du cinéma critic-filmmaker François Truffaut expounded the “la politique des auteurs” (the policy of authors) … when The Village Voice film critic Andrew Sarris repackaged Truffaut’s thoughts as the “Auteur Theory” … when The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael challenged the limits and even the validity of this French “New Wave” concept … and when tenets of that same theory found their way into the curricula of prestigious film schools and, eventually, influenced the “creative rights” doctrine of the Directors Guild of America.

That was then.  But as first confirmed in 2006 with The Da Vinci Code’s near record-shattering opening box office bonanza - despite tepid advance word and mixed reviews - a new paradigm now exists between film critics and filmgoers.  Today the broadcast and print media’s role as a cultural gatekeeper has been substantially destabilized by the Internet and other new media.  People today prefer information that’s quick, concise, and on point.  Just say it - is the film good or bad?

Of course, even in the form of a simple thumbs up or thumbs down verdict, moviegoers are now less trusting of any critic’s judgment - giving rise to aggregation review sites like Metacritic.com and RottenTomatoes.com.

Critically Critiquing the Critics

Movie critics find themselves trapped inside an awkward time warp within the history of their tradition.  The Digital Revolution has already changed things so fundamentally, and will change things again and again for many years to come.  Now critics seem uncertain what role they should play: whether they should uphold high culture with passionate advocacy, or whether they should suppress personal opinion in favor of consumer reporting.

This confusion of focus within the critical community makes moviemakers and movie audiences all the more wary of movie reviews - the reviews, mind you, not the reviewers … most movie critics are fine people.  Critics simply are making bewildered choices in their take on the movies.  Hate the sin, love the sinner.  Below are the most irksome critical sins … at least from the perspective of the content professional:

The Seven Bewilderly Sins of Movie Critics

1. PRIDE: Lacking in humility of judgment… Very many critics review movies based entirely on whether a movie appeals to that critic’s personal tastes.  Then, if the critic has been displeased by the movie, the critic will see that displeasure as an unpardonable crime that - sha-zaaam … Dr. Jekyll … ka-pow … Mr. Hyde - conjures forth their inner demon with the evil mandate from the Dark Side to warn all audiences against that movie.  Never mind that most moviegoers - and even most of that critic’s readers - do not share the same highbrow tastes of the movie critic.

Not every book in the bookstore was written for the aficionados of William Shakespeare.  Similarly, the content industry must entertain a wider range of audiences than just that.

2. GREED:  Lacking in generosity of credit or blame… Moviemaking is a collaborative process.  Really.  It is.  No one can do everything.  Especially on the larger shows.  So without being close to a movie’s production, even veteran moviemakers may have difficulty in determining what caused what and who was responsible.  Hence movie critics are frequently wrong - sometimes very, very, very wrong - in their assessments of merits and demerits.  And when in doubt (though the typical critic will never admit doubt), most critics will cite the Auteur Theory and assign all responsibility to the director.  Never mind that most directors do not fit the criteria for an auteur.  (See How to Recognize an Auteur)

3. LUST:  Lacking propriety when it comes to the paragons of high culture… Many movie critics favor certain arthouse touchstones and up-class darlings.  They always effuse superlative praise when the paragons are good, hearty praise when they are so-so, and mild rebukes when they are bad - whereas anything or anyone else comparable would be drawn and quartered by those same critics.  Most prized are movies produced in an understated style, with naturalistic actors, with gritty vérité camerawork, concerning powerless little people or tortured powerful people, and that champion politically correct social causes.  Oh, and let’s not forget almost any foreign language film with good lighting and classy subtitles (as long as the subject matter is not deemed exploitative), or any uneven movie directed by a celebrated auteur, or any off-the-mark role by an Academy Award icon.

Things go wrong during film production … sometimes beyond anyone’s control.  And, sorry, sometimes the emperor really does not have any clothes. Heaven’s Gate, anyone?

4. ENVY:  Lacking respect for the movies… Since movie critics come out of a tradition of criticism and opinion, many do not to bother with the basic questions of journalism: who, what, where, when, why and how.  These critics are not the least concerned with helping audiences find the right movie for that audience’s tastes.

In fact, some critics are belligerently envious of the so-called “critic proof” film that achieves commercial popularity either in defiance of or in avoidance of any demeaning pre-release critical scrutiny.  These critics will publicly chastise the moviemakers - as though the moviemakers were somehow beneath contempt because they produced a marketable movie that appealed to mainstream tastes rather than to arthouse audiences.  And these critics will reserve an extra measure venom for each of the offending moviemaker’s subsequent pictures.

Memo to Movie Critics

Let’s get real.  Every movie has essentially three audiences: the critics, the fans of the genre, and the general public.  Most films are intended more for one audience than for the others.  Yet some critics review films primarily for their colleagues rather than for the three audiences.

Here’s the truth:  If you do not review movies for all three of a film’s audiences - the critics, the fans and the general public - you do not respect the industry that made them, and neither do you love the movies themselves.  You cannot have movies that please you without an economically healthy movie industry to produce them.

Nobody expects the critical community to shill for the big studio-distributors.  On the other hand, owing to the upcoming convergence of video and network broadcasting with the Internet, the movie industry is now entering an era of particular uncertainty that eventually could unhinge its very economic core.  Bottom line pronouncements from critics like “see it,” “see it on cable,” “wait for video,” “great for teens,” “not for kids” and “not for me” are all fine.

But, unless a film glamorizes pornography or extreme anti-social behavior, audience advisories like “skip it,” “don’t bother” and “stay away” are both inappropriate and disrespectful.

It’s that simple.

5. GLUTTONY:  Lacking in moderation of perspective… Because many critics write their reviews to earn the esteem of other critics, they tend to judge every movie within the context of the great tradition of world literature beginning with Homer, or at least within the context of world cinema beginning with D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.

Now, really, that’s like comparing every automobile made - including a toddler’s toy truck - with only the top-of-the-line luxury sedans from BMW, Cadillac, Lexus or Mercedes.

6. ANGER:  Lacking in patience for the moviemakers… To counterbalance the kid gloves they reserve for the paragons of high culture, many critics also bring out the brass knuckles in dark alleys for the non-paragons, especially the newcomers.  They are furiously harsh in their critiques, inappropriately poking fun and mocking without the least human compassion for the people behind these projects, for the endless personal sacrifices these moviemakers have sustained, or for the production difficulties the moviemakers have courageously overcome to put that movie on the screen.  It’s one thing to note that a movie or a specific performance does not work; it’s quite another to attribute the problem to the inherent talents of the moviemakers.  As already noted, many things go wrong during the production process.  Let’s examine two typical scenarios:

Scenario 1: Good Actors Behaving Badly

Suppose a good actor accepts a role only to discover subsequently that a pair of key support actors have been miscast.  Suppose one of those actors was the studio chief’s or perhaps the marquee star’s personal makeup artist’s wife, niece, son-in-law, mistress, wife’s cousin, daughter’s boyfriend, college buddy, etc.  (Yes, Virginia, that sort of thing still happens from time to time.)  Now, suppose those miscastings have materially undermined the overall chemistry of the ensemble.

Alternatively, suppose the director has insisted upon a very false interpretation of the good actor’s character.  Or suppose that good actor has established a daring on-camera character choice and then the anticipated principal scene partner must be substituted at the last moment by someone with whom that daring character choice does not play.  In each situation, the ensuing disharmony would be like running an Olympic race manacled with ball and chain.  Yet the good actor still would be professionally honor-bound to complete the role while knowingly turning in a less than stellar career-peak performance and, yet, not being allowed to explain the problem to the public … that is, not if the actor values career longevity.

Scenario 2: When Bad Movies Happen to Good Moviemakers

Suppose the good moviemakers’ first choice for the marquee star is unavailable.  Suppose the second choice passes in favor of a more lucrative offer.  Suppose the studio’s or the financier’s marketers now insist upon a miscast choice for that role.  The moviemakers themselves are already under contract and - despite much cajoling, protesting, stomping, debates, threats, anger and argument - ultimately must accede to the marketers’ dictates.  Meanwhile, the miscast marquee actor may have spotted something interesting in the script, but will still know that the role is not a perfect fit.  The marquee actor typically will demand by contract an 11th hour page-one rewrite of the script tailoring it for the actor’s star persona.  Sometimes such forced 11th hour rewrites result in a significantly inferior script.

On the other hand, suppose the producer provides a well-crafted script.  Yet to compensate for an aggressively innovative or simply out-of-control star actor, the director permits the majority of scenes to be taken off-book using an in-the-moment improv.  The story will begin to drift … sometimes in unproductive directions.

The Golden Rule

You may ask:  Why don’t these compromised filmmakers stand up and walk away?  That’s not such a simple solution when you have a family to support and the other guys have both the legal leverage and the deeper pockets to back it up.  Moviemaking is collaborative.  And that requires some measure of compromise.  It’s the office politics of movie production.  Besides, like every industry, Hollywood lives by the Golden Rule - he who has the gold, rules.

Every day one of the above scenarios has been slammed in the face of some unsuspecting moviemaker somewhere.  Sometimes even the most talented filmmakers will be waltzed into a no-win situation through no fault of their own.  Very few movie critics are qualified to judge who caused such problems.  Or even to know that such problems occurred.  The scant handful of critics who may be sufficiently informed to make an intelligent guess are never so personally cruel to the moviemakers as those among the majority of critics who are not.

7. SLOTH:  Lacking in zeal to get things right… Some critics base their assessments solely on a boorish pecking order of snobbery.  For example, one producer found his cable-premiere movie psychically pre-reviewed by a prominent entertainment magazine.  When inquiry was made about how this film could have been reviewed before its media launch, the editors revealed that the review was determined by film festivals attended, genre, cast and director.  No one at the magazine, they admitted, had actually seen the movie.

Meanwhile other critics rely on certain trendsetter critics to tell them what to think about specific high-profile films.  Such practices are so extremely lazy.  Time was when critics researched film and offered fresh insights that had not been previously presented.  For the best critics, that’s still true.

The Importance of Being Critical

Despite the excesses of the Seven Bewilderly Sins, the most important mission of movie critics has not changed.  They still need to remind audiences about how well the movies mirror social aspirations and anxieties.  They still need to remind moviemakers about how well their productions reflect the requirements of quality art as well as provide cultural meaning. They still need to investigate and debate the limits of the Auteur Theory versus the Creative Unit Theory versus the Genre Theory versus the Decision-by-Committee approach to moviemaking. They still need to disclose the precepts of the latest avant-garde movements among moviemakers.  They still need to identify emerging new talents.

In short, movie critics still need to reveal the relevance of film as art.

On the other hand, the Digital Revolution now demands that critics modify their traditional presentations.  The blogosphere has created a near-instanteous word-of-mouth megaphone to the hardcore fans of any film.  Plus the Internet, video iPod and online cell phones provide easy on-demand access to film trailers.  As a result, movie critics lose credibility, influence and prestige whenever they also refuse to offer evenhanded consumer reporting about movies that accurately echo audience tastes.

Okay, but what about those quietly disgusted content professionals?  Suppose movie critics balanced opinionated personal advocacy with unbiased consumer guidance.  Suppose movie critiques abided by the Seven Critical Virtues (humility, generosity, propriety, love, moderation, patience and zeal).  Would moviemakers secretly scorn movie reviews?  Well, if a moviemaker’s own work were panned - yes, almost certainly.  But at least the moviemaker would know that the critic’s judgment had aspired to what’s fair and reasonable for all concerned - the general public, the fans, the critics and the moviemakers themselves.