Anghus Houvouras on film critics and whether they matter…
Do film critics matter?
It’s an age-old question. One that has been asked as far back as the creation of the movie medium. Maxim Gorky, a Russian writer, was one of the first ever to pen a movie review after seeing a collection of Lumiere films in 1896. Even after witnessing the birth of this new art form, after seeing moving images for the first time, he remained ever critical:
“Their smiles are lifeless, even though their movements are full of living energy and are so swift as to be almost imperceptible. Their laughter is soundless although you see the muscles contracting in their grey faces. Before you a life is surging, a life deprived of words and shorn of the living spectrum of colours — the grey, the soundless, the bleak and dismal life.”
The miracle of the motion picture presented to paying audiences for the first time, and Gorky basically tells Auguste and Louis Lumiere ‘Sure, its novel, but where’s the sound?’
I’m trying to picture Auguste and Louis Lumiere, artistic pioneers of the motion picture debuting this amazing new medium and then having to read Gorky’s Two and a Half Star review, hunting him down like the Weinsteins in a drunken stupor and in their thickest French accents screaming; ‘Gorky… you piece of shit! You think you can do better?’
I started writing on the subject of film back in the late 1990’s, taking inspiration from fledgling film websites and bulletin boards when the internet was in its infancy. Back when most online movie sites were little more than some Helvetica text and poorly animated hit counter. Including a photo meant adding 14 minutes to your page load time.
As online personalities began to carve out audiences reviewing movies it was the traditional print media critics who began to cry foul tearing down the internet personalities, many of whom were little more than anonymous pseudonyms who split time between offering scoops, posting test screening reviews, and reviewing movies. The print critics and entertainment writers found many of the online personalities to be a repellent, unrefined breed of fanboys who lacked the proper pedigree to be taken seriously. 16 years later and the entire landscape has changed: Print media continues to hemorrhage readership and relevance. The last remaining vestiges of film criticism have found a home online.
The state of criticism now is so radically different today. The strong personalities and unique voices that once permeated the medium have been replaced by a million anonymous online accounts that hold little weight. It used to be the name of the critic that you saw emblazoned above the title of a new movie. Kael. Siskel. Ebert. Sarris. Denby. Now, more likely, it’s the name of the publication itself. The name of the institution holds weight but the micro-sized font name below it (if it’s even there) does not.
Max Landis, the internet’s favorite petulant child, once again caused ripples in social media when he started discussing the relevance of the Film Critic. HitFix’s Drew McWeeny got particularly chuffed at his dismissals of the relevance of modern film criticism. And while I take no pleasure in agreeing with Landis, I can’t say he’s wrong.
Film critics exert little influence over the success of movies. Maybe they never have. Their was a time when studios believed a good review could help launch a film to success and that a bad one could sink the long-term financial prospects. Hollywood seemed to fear those giant thumbs of Siskel and Ebert. Now, studios are just interested in people talking about the movie. Every PR Flak will tell you that it’s mentions, likes, and trends that matter. Just talking about the movie is considered relevant. The words in the review or the final affixed grade has become an afterthought. Saying ‘I hate Furious 7‘ is no more valuable than saying ‘I love Furious 7‘. The only part that matters is that the title of the movie is there. That’s got to be tough for many film critics to stomach.
So perhaps the film critic still matters but their opinion is now obsolete. The actual criticism holds no value other than verbiage that surrounds the mention of the movie in question. A well-respected critical voice holds no more value to the movie than a well trafficked Tumblr Blog or a Twitter Account with a high number of followers. The phrase ‘Everyone’s a critic’ has never been more true. With everyone’s opinion now digitally distributed across a thousand platforms, the number of voices simply begin to drown out one another and it’s all reduced to aggregated data of mentions and likes. If the opinion of the film no longer matters, does the critic?
Film criticism used to be at the front of the process. It was something that people most often read before they went to the movies in order to find out if it was something they wanted to see. Now, it’s something you reference after you’ve already seen it. An after the fact check in to see whether or not you agree with the critic. The modern film critic seems to exist not as a tastemaker, but as someone readers use to align their own cinematic sensibilities. Critics are the voices you seek out to see if you agree with them. Like so much of our online culture, it’s about finding like-minded individuals who share an opinion. Dissenting voices can be blocked, ignored, or unfollowed.
You’d think I’d have a stronger resistance to this idea, but I’m a realist. I write a lot of columns on film every year and 52 reviews for Encore Magazine (for over 10 years), but I’ve rarely considered myself a film critic. I’m an Op-Ed Columnist who also reviews movies. I write my reviews with the goal of entertaining the reader, with little interest in regaling readers with film knowledge, reference, or complex technical stagecraft. So when someone says ‘Film critics don’t matter’, I never take it personally. It’s not a rallying cry or a reason to get defensive. Filmmakers often see critics as the potential enemy and critics often have an inflated sense of self-worth. Hearing the phrase ‘film critics don’t matter’ wound thin-skinned writers because they like to consider themselves part of the process. That the gestation of the movie from inception to creation is part of a complicated process that the critics are somehow part of. If a movie is released and no critic reviews it, does it even exist?
I’m sure Max Landis thought critics mattered when they showered Chronicle with praise. Now that Victor Frankenstein and American Ultra have been universally panned & forgotten he lashes out at the critics.
In some ways film critics still matter. To their readers who value their opinion or eagerly await hearing what they have to say about the latest trend at the cineplex. Or those who can shed light on a movie that someone might not have seen otherwise. Films like Anomalisa are the kinds of small films that need critics in the same way PR companies do: to help people learn the movie exists. That’s a much easier task for Furious 7 than Anomalisa, but the value is still the same. And critics still matter as entertainment. I was as excited to see RedLetterMedia’s Half in the Bag episode of Star Wars: The Force Awakens as I was the movie itself because I think Mike & Jay are entertaining as hell. That doesn’t ‘matter’ on a grand scale. A Half in the Bag interview isn’t going to sway public opinion on a movie nor will it impact the movie’s final bottom line. The opinions are obsolete, but there’s still a great deal of entertainment value to be found in film critics, whether it be cerebral stimulation or just to have a few laughs. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
