PRINTThe demise of the film critic
Professional film critics reach their final reel
April 17, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Film criticism is far from the sole casualty as the newspaper stares down a potential slide into oblivion, but it is consistently one of the earliest. The past two years have seen a glut of firings and departures that have repercussions for film discussion and the industry around which it revolves.
The exodus
In March, critic David Ansen accepted a buyout from longtime employer Newsweek, and the Village Voice laid off Nathan Lee. The Detroit Free Press, the paper with the 20th largest circulation in the U.S., is the biggest to expunge its film critics entirely; it borrows reviews from other newspapers to fill the gap. Newsday seems to have followed its lead: On St. Patrick’s Day, Gene Seymour and Jan Stuart accepted buyouts. Their replacements? Freelancers and the music critic, pulling double-duty.
Many big-name alt-weeklies are faring even worse. Village Voice Media doles out the same review for papers as far-flung as the Village Voice, LA Weekly and St. Louis’ own Riverfront Times. Although the chain employs fine writers, the move seems contrary to the very mission of alt-weeklies: opposition to a homogenous voice.
This loss of a vital local voice is one of the main casualties of the print cutbacks. “You get a sense of the different culture of the regions — different politics, different values,” says Matt Zoller Seitz, a New York Times film critic. “It’s a little funny that somebody in Nashville or Fort Lauderdale or Oakland or somewhere is going to be getting the perspective of somebody who writes on the Lower East Side of New York.” Without a local beat, newspapers inevitably ignore local film scenes, tastes and concerns.
From newspapers to net
“I am, as they say, ‘looking for work,’” Lee wrote to his colleagues in an e-mail leaked to TheReeler.com, “though presumably not as a staff film critic as such jobs no longer appear to exist.”
So it goes, but not without regrets. The role of the professional movie critic allowed individuals to amass a breadth of knowledge about film. Even in years in which Seitz saw fewer films, he still caught somewhere in the vicinity of 200 movies. Without spousal support or a trust fund, it’s difficult for amateurs to accumulate as broad an intellectual stockpile of cultural and film history.
Since its inception, American film criticism has seen a number of changes. Andrew Sarris intellectualized it. Pauline Kael personalized it. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert popularized it. Now the Internet generation is democratizing it. A few highly reputable online magazines (Salon, Slate and Slant) have sprung up, but film criticism on the Web is done by experts and neophytes alike. Perception of the critic is moving from the “arbiter of taste” to a role that can be filled by anyone regardless of qualifications.
However, more open discussion doesn’t necessarily benefit the studios putting out riskier fare. “From the point of view of the distributor, the conversation has to be happening when the movie is in the theater,” The Oregonian’s Shawn Levy says, “not six months later.”
Risky Business
When Andrew Bujalski’s independent film Funny Ha Ha opened publicly in New York, Houston King, head of distribution at Goodbye Cruel Releasing, introduced the film. Although his purpose was to announce the end-of-show Q&A with Bujalski, King took the opportunity to ask a question.
“I asked how many people had seen anybody write about it on the Internet, and about 10 percent of the people raised their hands,” King says. “I asked how many people had come to see the film because of the film review in the newspaper, and 85 percent of the audience had raised their hands.”
The results wouldn’t surprise Levy. A resident of Portland for 16 years, Levy is able to pinpoint themes that resonate locally. “I can’t stop people from going to see Larry the Cable Guy movies; I can’t make people stop going to see crappy American remakes of Japanese horror movies,” he says. “But I can point them to little movies.”
Bujalski has made a name for himself now — his scenes are “as close to perfection as any Amerindie has come in recent memory,” wrote art-house champion Dennis Lim (laid off from the Village Voice in 2006) — so he’s a bit more insulated from the growing critical absence. But the loss of mainstream critics is happening just as barriers to entry in the independent film world are collapsing. What will happen to most of these fledgling filmmakers? The results of King’s impromptu poll suggest the answer.
“A film like Andrew’s lives and dies by major film critics getting behind it,” King says. “The lessening of the film critics who are out there and the more syndicated of the reviews that they’re running — it’s definitely worrisome.”
Another big loss is the departure of the prolific, free-thinking, and erudite film writer, Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Chicago Reader. It almost feels like a conspiracy, but new voices will emerge (I hope).
Posted by Jai Amrod on Apr 17, 2008 at 8:46 p.m. (Report Comment)