6. The Death of the Film Critic
And I talk a lot about on here about the disposable culture and the culture of the algorithm, and why we don't necessarily enjoy movies the same way we did 30 or 40 years ago, let alone ten or 15 years ago. But the very, very odd and fascinating thing, I think now that no one really probably saw coming was the degrading, or I should say the devolution of the film critic
And every culture has that, every subculture has that, whether we're talking sports, film, music, whatever, everyone has a comic book guy. But film is in a very fascinating perspective of this now, because what was once something that had to be studied in college can be learned for someone that is of sound mind and someone that has a lot of discipline to teach themselves a lot about cinema just by studying the things that are on the internet
You. Just as the Internet nerd acts as a voice of opinion and a voice of gatekeeping. Now, with cinema and so many different other art forms and media, the the third dynamic of what makes a film good or bad in the eyes of the public is now the audience review. And I spoke about this in an earlier episode on this channel discussing the phenomena of marketing and the downgrading of how it's handled
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Rocío (Ro) Christensen
@rocio · 3:58
I actually really enjoy it because it's got a mix of audience and also there are a few film critics on there and there are people who critique and analyze films in a serious way. So for me, that's kind of sparked my interest again in having these discussions that I haven't had for a long time and for finding new movies and being tuned into a different part of the film world that I wasn't tuned into before
When you see we've gone from newspapers and the idea of someone having a column film writing their thoughts and articulating a certain type of voice that honestly could make or break someone's career has now reverted to spamming. That can make or break a film and damage its score and its perception and reputation amongst film people that haven't even seen the movie yet. It's very fascinating
How much of this was the unicorn being rare in itself and then the unicorn becoming known, and then the changes that have continued to happen, the difference between constructive criticism versus just good, bad, and all of these being affected by social media, let alone wiring, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that was kind of messy and a lot, but maybe you can make sense of it
The idea to listen to a singular voice, whether that is problematic or not, is out the window. It doesn't exist anymore. We are a culture now that is very opinionated and we don't necessarily look for the word truth. We look for the word that best matches our perspective and our sensibilities. And I think that's one of the reasons why of many film is going down the drain
Oh, my goodness. Yes. That strip. It sounds like a herd of elephants upstairs. I hope you can't hear that stripping away of the nuance and complexities of even talking about things. Things. I think it also like we see it that there's not as much it's not to say it doesn't exist in some places, but as much nuance and complexity in some scripts, you know, and and I I get bored. I want I want the nuance and complexity
There were a lot of references from books and a lot of references from other articles and social media happenings and interviewing and things of this nature that really rang true as how you know what you know and why you feel the way you feel about film. That's why I think Roger Eber, when he got sick with cancer, he was saying how writing was therapeutic for him. A lot of people thought it was stressful, but for him it was casual