Why we still need film critics

I was about 13 years old when I started reading film criticism in earnest. My parents had recently subscribed to a paper with a morning edition (our local paper only had an evening one), and I developed a habit of perusing the “Today” section, a lifestyle-entertainment hybrid, over breakfast. I looked forward to Friday’s edition all week. It had Louis B. Hobson’s movie reviews, and I could not wait to find out his opinion on upcoming releases. My ever-encouraging parents took the hint and subscribed to Entertainment Weekly shortly thereafter.

Gone are the days when Owen Gleiberman could make or break a movie for me. I still want to know his opinion, preferably after I’ve published my own, but I won’t let it decide the fate of a movie for me. That’s what I’ve got Dana Stevens for.

In the intervening years, it seems that publishers and audiences’ opinion of critics has not grown in proportion to mine. The New York Sun reports that “more than 30 film critics have abandoned or lost their posts since 2006,” while the Financial Times bumps the number of critics lost last year alone up to 121 (N.B. you need to register to view the full article). The Guardian is sounding the alarm about critics being shut out of screenings, while Slate attempts to reassure us via math.

While all of these articles defend film criticism, they seem to be missing the most important argument for film critic’s survival: why do I, the reader and movie-goer, need film critics? For the weekly lesson in sarcasm? Unlikely. You and I need critics for two reasons: to tell us what to see and to tell us what to think about what we see.

Thumbs up by Nina Charest

Even if you regularly troll the IMDb pages of your favourite actors, directors, and screenwriters looking for their latest projects, critics are the number one way to find out about new movies.  Critics are often stationed in big cities with better access to limited and early releases, and therefore able to see films before you can.  More importantly, they see more films than you ever even hear about. Starting Out in the Evening, Once, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and Brick are all top 10 quality films that I never would have seen if a critic hadn’t told me about them. After you’ve been reading a critic for a while, you get a sense of whether your tastes align, and you learn to trust his or her judgement. This opens the door to a variety of movies that would have escaped your attention otherwise, particularly smaller, independent films with limited advertising budgets.

Now that you’ve seen these movies that you otherwise wouldn’t have, how do you feel about them? A single review can push me into seeing a movie I would have overlooked, and a handful of reviews about a movie I liked (or even disliked) can help me organize my thoughts about it. Sure, we can easily tell if we liked a movie or not, but was it good? Was it bad? What makes a movie good or bad? I know that I liked Serenity and that it was a pretty good movie, but I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it if I hadn’t read Jacob’s recap (a beautiful, philosophic film essay if there ever was one).

Even when you vehemently disagree with the review, as many did with David Edelstein’s mostly negative The Dark Knight review, it can still provide helpful insights. Intelligent and thoughtful critics like Edelstein take the time to burrow deep into the layers of the movie, sort out what works and what doesn’t, and call a movie on its flaws – and its fortes.

T.S. Eliot said “criticism must always profess an end in view, which appears to be the elucidation of works of art and the correctness of taste.” Critics are brave, bold souls, willing to take on film as something more than just entertainment. Yes, some movies are just mindless distractions. They get that. So do I. So do you. But they also get that film can and does have a place as an art form. There’s nothing wrong with Jacob linking a sci-fi western to Jung, or with Edelstein linking the Joker to Nietzsche, or with Stevens linking Cronenberg to Caravaggio. Perhaps none of these associations would have occurred to you and me without their help.

Through these critics we start to see the work that goes into making a good movie, even a massive, record breaking Hollywood blockbuster, and through them we can get more out of what we see. Movie critics don’t write reviews. They write guides to movie appreciation. They do the hard work for us: seeing the movies before we do, helping us figure out the best way to spend our money and our time, and guiding our thoughts about it afterwards. We’re lucky to have them.

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