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So basically you can be someone who provides insight to 99% of the population who doesn't want to delve into the neuroses of "film criticism", or you can be a s
by petrilli 16y ago
So basically you can be someone who provides insight to 99% of the population who doesn't want to delve into the neuroses of "film criticism", or you can be a self-important blowhard who seems to mostly talk to himself in the dark. Most "film" is not cinema, and not art in a "deep" form. It is entertainment. To pretend that it contains more meaning than that is nothing but mental masturbation.
- baddox 16y agoThat's kind of like saying that Bill Nye the Science Guy delves as deep into science as 99% of the population can appreciate, so any scientist going deeper than that is a self-important blowhard. And as for your second sentence to the end of your comment, I believe that is a statement of an axiom with which Armond White would adamantly disagree. If you're entering into this discussion with different axioms, the discussion is pointless.
- dkarl 16y agoHow many scientists go out of their way to bash Bill Nye as a hack who damaged American science?
- baddox 16y agoThat's not analogous because Bill Nye, unlike Roger Ebert, has not become the public face of pure excellence in his field.
- prodigal_erik 16y agoI'm under the impression that most people think "film critic" is a guy who writes a paragraph for a newspaper saying whether or not a film is entertaining enough to see, and that was true before Ebert showed up. I don't think White's field has a public face at all.
- dkarl 16y agoI think people who would use the words "film critic" know that Roger Ebert isn't one. Most people would call him a "movie reviewer."
- Retric 16y agoArmond White writes for people that want to pretend that they are intellectuals. If you want to dive into a movies deeper meaning you need to look at it from the perspective of the content creators and not just treat it as literary crit 2.0. In many ways movies are closer to architecture than novels because there are far more constraints on the artist. Conceder how a useful hospital and a successful blockbuster are both built for the masses, yet using what freedom remains and artist can still create art and not just another forgettable commercial success.
- baddox 16y ago"If you want to dive into a movies deeper meaning you need to look at it from the perspective of the content creators ... " That's another axiom with which I suspect White would disagree. I don't think White considers a film a success just because the filmmaker accomplished what he/she set out to do. White indeed treats film criticism like literary or other art criticism--you identify a set of criteria, perhaps arbitrarily though ideally derived from the history and cultural context of the medium, and criticize a film against those criteria.
- petrilli 16y agoNo, I didn't say there wasn't a place for "deeper analysis", but let's be real and not compare science with "literary criticism".