Film critics

[nrh]

a.o. scott definitely got a pass for a lot of years by succeeding the dreadful vincent canby and the even worse janet maslin at the times. it is wonderful to see him describing tsai's film as humorless and then describing the devouring of poor mrs. cabbage lee.

[Searchlike]

Oh man, I remember when I would listen to Scott for movie recommendations, that was a long time ago. This one is a jewel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu2qAHXQHiM

[MrCarmady]

amazing, his take on la dolce vita is akin to people throwing great gatsby parties
i love the film but if you come out of it wishing you were more like marcello, leaving aside his handsomeness, you need some therapy

[thoxans]

i used to luvvv the new yorker capsule reviews before they reformatted (read: vastly diminished them), even more so than the long(er(ish)) reviews featured in the actual issues themselves. they were always a nice little paragraph-long summation, with a sprinkling of thought-nuggets here and there. that's also why i like our format, which i suppose is closer to the film circle social media format in general; but i get better recs/reminders from folks 'round here through nice little blurb posts (and polls) than anything else tbh

[Otello Cagliostro]

I heard Bazin was pretty skeptical of author theory but still let it be published at the Cahiers, i can't really find anymore information on it (or maybe i didn't look hard enough) but I though that was interesting.

Bazin outlines his reservations about auteurism and his editorial approach here: http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/la-pol ... azin.shtml
It's a pretty interesting article from a historical perspective, and also because he brings up some key concepts that would become the major points that Kael would later use to attack Sarris' ideas.

Damn thanks for the link !

[...]

Bordwell is great at what he does, but it ain't film criticism, something he actually seems to be almost afraid of doing in constantly hedging his assessments of aesthetic judgement in a lot of the most meaningful ways. He's a film historian specializing in how film language developed over time and changes more than anything else. A cinema mortician basically. Zizek is more bravura than value, mostly recycling others ideas into his own packaging without a deep history of knowledge of the form as his interests aren't really about film per se, but Zizek's own ideas of culture writ large. The "hidden meaning" thing has gone way, way beyond practical use to something more Qanon, fake moon landing, RM 237 mystical bullshit and I'm completely over it as being only marginally connected to aesthetics. Paying close attention to detail is great, reading for one true "secret" meaning is folly.

[RenaultR]

Writers who use "film criticism" mainly as a platform to pontificate on the state of "art and culture" writ large are far and away the most annoying. David Walsh at World Socialist Website is another offender.

[Umbugbene]

I'm completely over it as being only marginally connected to aesthetics. Paying close attention to detail is great, reading for one true "secret" meaning is folly.

I find myself largely agreeing with many of the comments here. My main problem with Bordwell/Thompson is that their approach to understanding films isn't especially fertile. In my classes I always tell my students not to bother buying their textbook because it's overpriced and I won't use it in class. Žižek's style is more exciting to me, but as I think some of you noted, he's guilty of using films as props for his own arguments, which doesn't always do justice to the films themselves. He does have nice insights sometimes, but it's surprising how poorly he interprets Hitchcock given his psychoanalytic background.

Greg, could you say more about what you expect of criticism? Whenever I hear the word "aesthetics" I have a feeling that someone's trying to put an end to conversation, because it always seems to lead in the direction of "I know what I like and too bad if you disagree" or "Everyone's opinion about art is equally valid." I'm not saying that you're suggesting that, but I honestly find discussions of aesthetics to be dead ends. If I find a movie beautiful or sensually delightful that's a big plus, and I'd like to think other people feel the same way, but it's not enough. To love a movie for its logic is something else... it doesn't come naturally, it takes a lot of work, but it opens a lot more doors than aesthetics.

To illustrate, for many years I had a hard time appreciating Bresson because I wasn't attracted to his aesthetic. Some people find an austere beauty in his films, which I respect, but that never convinced me. Only when I started to see how clever and subtle they were, and how much there is to discover in them, did I come around to appreciating his style. Ideally we should be able to appreciate a diverse range of aesthetics, and judge films by the thought behind them, but most people come to movies with a pre-formed taste and never go beyond that.

I'm not exactly sure what you intend by the above statement, but I'm skeptical of claims that dismiss "meaning" in film, because that tends to deny movies their voice. Whether or not it's necessary for all films to "mean" something, it's not unreasonable to suppose that some films do. Why not use cinematic resources to express insights? And as long as some films do this, why be so dismissive of efforts to understand them? Would you make the same argument about novels?

[...]

I can expand on it, but not at length at the moment. I used aesthetics to differentiate from "meaning" in the sense of "a" or singular "right answer" to what a film is "about", or even that "aboutness" is limited to reading a film in a the logical discursive sense one might make a philosophical or legal argument in. The aesthetic response to art or movies covers a wider range than that and is frequently one of opposing or even contradictory impulses that nonetheless are simultaneously true, which is what gives art its force. If a movie can be fully explained by some "right meaning" then it can't maintain its hold on the viewer as its message is exhausted. Art is more than message in that way. The works that have the strongest hold are the one's that allow for multiple "readings" for how the different elements within the work speak to each other and find connection to our larger reality. Sontag's Against Interpretation is asking for that essentially, criticism that captures more of the shifting aesthetic response to works as opposed to hunting for hidden meaning and one true read or message.

Ironically perhaps, its Bordwell and his pals like Noel Carroll that are doing more to push the all opinions are valid side of things, in part by their trying to put the arts and appreciation under the realm of science, which is just another way of constraining the relationship between viewer and works to a narrow thread of possibility, and by treating all responses as essentially the same in terms of emotional pull. That favors movies that reinforce the status quo by drawing on the most common and easily tweaked emotions; friendship, love, loneliness, etc. Bordwell talks about the innovations in film technique, but doesn't look very deeply at the core value of art in its more emotionally/aesthetically expressive element, which, I suppose, is why he wrote a book on Chris "Humans, What are They" Nolan, well, that and the money I guess. Carroll goes further in that regard, actively arguing for mass audience response as measure of merit, where merit doesn't mean just money but some less clear idea of lasting value. Bordwell's gang is, or maybe has, gained a considerable influence on film writing and it isn't great outside the historical/technical aspect.

[Umbugbene]

I wouldn't suggest that a movie should be reduced to a single meaning, but rather that finding clear meaning(s) in it expands the movie, making it more than what it appears to be. And yes, that can and often should mean seeing it more than one way. But I'd rather talk about seeing it multiple ways at the same time, than shrugging my shoulders and saying that anyone's view is as valid as the next, or that we shouldn't bother to look for some inner purpose or guiding light within the film. The same movie might address its contemporary audience one way (e.g. a French film supporting the Resistance during WWII) but also offer a more timeless and universal understanding to future generations.

Also, the beauty of film is that it speaks through the material of life, i.e. showing rather than telling, so that the resulting message (if we must use that word) is not as reductive as words tend to be. Therefore any criticism, at least of an extraordinary film, should try to pay homage, guiding the reader to appreciate an original work which is more eloquent than the critique can be.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I do like Bordwell and company a lot, despite my criticisms above, so I should add that another virtue of their work is that they offered a film theory approach that wasn't, in my judgment, nonsense derived from pseudoscientific continental European philosophy, like Lacan or Deleuze, at a time when that was far and away the dominant approach. They developed an alternative research programme that can then be used to support rigorous, meaningful work in film history and cultural analysis, ideally work that combines their study of form with a more robust study of content.

[RenaultR]

I think Jonathan Rosenbaum does a good job of bridging the gap between a rigid focus on form at one end and a rigid focus on content at the other. With that said, someone still needs to have a working knowledge of film form and why the Greatest Films of All Time are considered Great from a technical standpoint in order to appreciate what makes people like Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr tick as film lovers to begin with. Just my two cents.

The Bordwell approach has its uses, even if the typical SCFZer is unlikely to learn something from him they don't already know.

[RenaultR]

I wonder if the rise of HD viewing formats like Blu-Ray as well as the ubiquitousness of 2K and 4K restorations can partially explain the pendulum swinging back towards formal appreciation at the expense of sociology among other things. These superior viewing formats bring the formal accomplishments of the medium to life in a way the options available in the late 80s and 90s never could. It’s telling that Zizek didn’t appear to have upgraded to Blu-Ray when he did his Criterion closet video. 25 years ago, formal appreciation rested largely on a handful of flagship studio catalog titles kept in healthy circulation like Chinatown, Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Vistavision Hitchcock and so forth. It was hard to see films like Jeanne Dielman or A Man Escaped back then in formats that could do justice to their formal attributes, and yet now, both films are canonical usual suspects.

Maybe this also explains why formal appreciation is often unfairly associated with autistic film bros.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

It’s telling that Zizek didn’t appear to have upgraded to Blu-Ray when he did his Criterion closet video

Lol. I don't know if I buy it, but I really like it. I also haven't upgraded to Blu-Ray, but I do a lot of streaming, so I'm getting a lot of HD content. Maybe that explains my oscillation between Zizek and Bordwell's approaches.

[nrh]

i like this video by adrian martin and christina alvarez lopez, on rohmer attempting formal analysis of a scene by anthony mann before the home viewing era - https://vimeo.com/362287739

bordwell's work can be pretty frustratingly hit or miss, as he works within or bumps up against his limitations. i think figures traced in light: on cinematic staging is a near perfect version of what he does, setting up dense historical frameworks around the work of several directors so their individual formal choices can stand in greater relief.

where you run into trouble is something like planet hong kong, where the local history context is pretty helpful but the book essentially runs aground whenever bordwell needs to actually evoke the work of the directors he so clearly adores, and you end up with things like -

"The kung-fu films known to most Americans resemble B westerns; a Lau [Kare-Leung] film is often the equivalent of a rough, stubborn Raoul Walsh, say White Heat, with Keatonesque comic touches thrown in and some elegiac moments recalling John Ford."

[...]

Also, the beauty of film is that it speaks through the material of life, i.e. showing rather than telling, so that the resulting message (if we must use that word) is not as reductive as words tend to be. Therefore any criticism, at least of an extraordinary film, should try to pay homage, guiding the reader to appreciate an original work which is more eloquent than the critique can be.

I can't disagree with this, but of course saying that is the easy part, writing that way is hard. Critics absolutely should see their calling as guiding people to better appreciation of the works, which can come from a variety of directions, with different critics having different takes on what they get out of a movie. Some, like Manny Farber, weren't always accurate in their memories of what they saw, but still could sometimes add to the experience of watching even seeing it "wrong", though I'm far from agreeing with Farber on everything, especially some of his broad takes on the form, like his problem with "white elephant" movies to name just one. But that's gonna be true for almost any critic, so no special knock on Farber there.

The current trends in criticism are tending more Bordwellian, speaking a lot about the "how" of a film, without being able to say much of specific interest about the so what beyond just asserting it as a given, while the more theory based criticism, which also had plenty of problems, is sort of fading, replaced by the more direct form of moral judgement of worth, which is both a real problem for art in general, but necessary for society in other ways. The end of the battle between "high and low" art came with the low so totally winning the field that the concept of aesthetics, in the way I mentioned them earlier, has been almost completely routed from discussion. That so-called low art could be seen to hold many of the same aesthetic values as high art was a needed correction, but that carried over to saying any enjoyment is the same as any other, "liking" is all that matters to some large extent, and questioning that becomes fraught and appreciation becomes more simplified, as if a movie has to be like an '80's US kids cartoon complete with explicit moral at the end.

Scientism is another horror that Bordwell has sort of ridden alongside of, without actually jumping completely over to their wagon, with crap like evo-art history and its ilk continually threatening to gain a stronger grip, but even neurology based art writing becoming more popular than the value of anything it can deliver towards better appreciating art, more just using art to explain some neurological function. When the now old school theorists, the Marxists, Feminists, Freud and Lacanians, or even Auteurists and so on, made claims, no matter how absolute, those claims could still at least be understood as coming from an approach that informed the statements, so they remained as "readings" as much suited to using movies as a way to discuss their values as defining the films, but scientism doesn't really allow that, because science explains it all!

I also actually think Bordwell is great at what he does and what he does is important. I would encourage people who want to understand movies better to read him, as long as they get that he's a great teacher for attention to detail, but not all that great at seeing the whole as something more than details collected, but I also think Lacan, Jameson, Deleuze, Derrida, Kristeva, Kosofsky Sedgwick and a lot of the other heavy theorists are pretty great and no worse at helping appreciate different parts of a film than, say, Tag Gallagher. (Sorry Jerry)

Maybe this also explains why formal appreciation is often unfairly associated with autistic film bros.

Hmm, not so sure the association is entirely unfair given how eagerly so many film bros, and their kin in the other arts, love to label, categorize, catalog, and rank their obssessions, as if one obtains mastery of a subject by slotting it in ever more discrete bins, the Letterboxing and Film&TV Troping of art history. That those concerted endeavors have been for so long primarily the domain of certain types of young men should alone give one pause over the greater value of those efforts.

[RenaultR]

Hmm, not so sure the association is entirely unfair given how eagerly so many film bros, and their kin in the other arts, love to label, categorize, catalog, and rank their obssessions, as if one obtains mastery of a subject by slotting it in ever more discrete bins, the Letterboxing and Film&TV Troping of art history. That those concerted endeavors have been for so long primarily the domain of certain types of young men should alone give one pause over the greater value of those efforts.

Oh sure, but my point was mainly that formal appreciation of film is often unfairly associated with the behaviours of "certain types of young men". I wasn't suggesting that said behaviours themselves were unproblematic.

[...]

Oh, sure, I'm with ya, I was just saying I understand why some people make that connection given how much louder some voices are than others in social media.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Oh... Also, it's not really a work of film criticism, but James Baldwin's The Devil Finds Work is one of my favorite books about the interpretation of films ever. He's working very much in a Zizek-esque mode, but of course with his own very Baldwin interests and obsessions. Highly recommended.

[nrh]

my favorite type of film bro is that guy from the old dave kehr blogs (and if i recall correctly a film by message group) who just made these enormous lists of, like, every single time a ladder appeared in the work of raoul walsh.

[thoxans]

Writers who use "film criticism" mainly as a platform to [psychoanalyze themselves and showcase how they're oh so special] are far and away the most annoying

ftfy. and it's not even a film 'criticism ' specific thing; it's every single goddamn recipe blog that forces you to scroll past someone's uninteresting life story just to get to the goddamn recipe itself. idc that you had a friend who knew someone who had a party and that's where you tasted this dish for the first time! just tell me how many tbsp of salt to use!!!

[...]

my favorite type of film bro is that guy from the old dave kehr blogs (and if i recall correctly a film by message group) who just made these enormous lists of, like, every single time a ladder appeared in the work of raoul walsh.

Heh. yeah, Kehr used to attract an odd group of hardcore fans. Understandable since Kehr was one of the best at short summaries that still managed to convey something more meaningful about the films, and he knew his stuff. Not a blog for lazy responses since people were always looking to "actually" each other as much as possible, with Kenr sometimes playing referee.

[flip]

just tell me how many tbsp of salt to use!!!

two. you're welcome.

[nrh]

just tell me how many tbsp of salt to use!!!

to taste

[Searchlike]

my favorite type of film bro is that guy from the old dave kehr blogs (and if i recall correctly a film by message group) who just made these enormous lists of, like, every single time a ladder appeared in the work of raoul walsh.

Michael E. Grost, right? That site of his is wonderful, a great resource for not only films, but also TV, commercials and 80's music videos. Definitely thought of him when making that Non-Film thread. But damn, has anyone ever hated Yi Yi as much as him?

If your idea of a good time is Yi Yi, a film about the death of a loved one, losing one's job, sadistic teachers mistreating little kids, guilt about neglecting your elders, the pain of adultery, corruption in the business world, and horrendous feelings of angst and misery, you are welcome to it. Yi Yi sort of hits the jackpot in "serious dramas", by including virtually every horrifying or depressing situation found in modern daily life in one fun-filled three hour movie. It is hard for me to imagine any ordinary person seeing Yi Yi, and not feeling ghastly. I cannot imagine a more miserable experience, short of having your dog die. When critics recommend a film like Yi Yi, I wonder if they are sadists, trying to inflict suffering on audiences. While Yi Yi made many critics' ten-best lists for 2001, the public stayed away in droves. Yi Yi also seems to me to be a complete piece of garbage by other standards: it is visually ugly, has little creative camera work, and the acting is at a somnambulistic level of misery and malaise. Am I making myself clear: I hated Yi Yi. I have also come to dread the genre it represents, the "serious drama". Most of these films seem awful to me.

[Otello Cagliostro]

I do like Bordwell and company a lot, despite my criticisms above, so I should add that another virtue of their work is that they offered a film theory approach that wasn't, in my judgment, nonsense derived from pseudoscientific continental European philosophy, like Lacan or Deleuze, at a time when that was far and away the dominant approach. They developed an alternative research programme that can then be used to support rigorous, meaningful work in film history and cultural analysis, ideally work that combines their study of form with a more robust study of content.

The Problem is also that Gilles Deleuze did an important book on Cinema and was affiliated with the Cahiers and Daney in the 70-90s. The cahiers tendancy to be like a Mafia annoys me sometimes, Godard being the cult leader.

[roujin]

Mike Grost is a psycho, and we need more like him.

[grabmymask]

nonsense derived from pseudoscientific continental European philosophy, like Lacan or Deleuze

heh. this is like one of my favorite avenues of film critique (esp. Christian Metz—tho he was more of a theoretician than a critic). I also have a pretty big soft spot for total fanboys like Kim Newman tho.

[nrh]

the deleuze model is only a problem when it's used in american universities as pseudoscientific rather than what it actually is.

favorite version of this right now is jean louis schafer in the ordinary man of cinema. can't recommend the movie he made with rita azevedo gomes and pierre leon enough. just 3 cool folks talking about old paintings and landscapes and stuff.

[Angel]

The late Bertrand Tavernier, one of the last MacMahonists.

Looking forward to his 100 ans de cinéma américain.