I don’t have much to say about the latest film criticism obit, this time from Anne Thompson at Variety. Well, okay…I have a couple of things to say.
Number one: Although I love Pajiba, I don’t see them fulfilling the role of champion for under-the-radar new releases. A champion for forgotten/overlooked/misunderstood catalog titles, yes, and deflater of misbegotten studio marketing-fueled wannabe blockbusters, for sure. But scroll down their front page right now, and the “smallest” film you’ll see reviewed is Flawless, a Magnolia release starring Demi Moore which Dustin Rowles compared to the experience of a former smoker lighting up for the first time in five years: “the first few puffs are exhilarating, but then the headache sets in, and then you wish you’d quit puffing away before the tobacco left a taste of ass in your mouth that you still taste the next morning.”
Pajiba reliably gives each release they cover the treatment it deserves, but they don’t have a mandate to cover everything. They’re an indie site with limited resources, and they’ve chosen not to devote those resources to panning for untapped art house new release gold. Which is understandable––seeking out and heralding worthy festival films and smaller releases can be an arduous process and in terms of traffic, it’s often totally thankless––but when I think of sites that could realistically fill the void created by an absence of adventurous print critics, dedicated to, as Thompson puts it, “influenc[ing] readers to seek out small releases,” I think of Reverse Shot or The House Next Door long before I think of the site that devotes 800+ words to why David Zucker “should crawl up into the fetal position and abort himself for allowing Superhero Movie to see the light of day.”
And then there’s David Ansen.
Ansen, who recently accepted a buyout offer from Newsweek along with 110 other staffers of the mag, sums up the current state of his profession in Thompson’s story:
It is scary…It’s a lot like a return to the hard old days when I was growing up when anybody could be a movie critic and they’d take somebody off the sports desk. It’s a profound diss to the knowledge and expertise of a lot of good critics out there.
The idea that “anybody” can get a job as a film critic is a fiction, because as Ansen knows, there are increasingly fewer jobs to be had. It’s absurd to draw an analogy between the current crisis and an age when sports reporters were writing film reviews, because that’s equating a time when there was a demand for film reviews to a time when they’re simply not a priority–if a newspaper wants them, as we’ve seen, it makes more financial sense to syndicate them, and general interest magazines (like Newsweek) have almost completely transitioned away from actual analysis of films in favor of celebrity profiles and feature stories.
What “anybody” can do, of course, is express their opinion on the internet, but to equate the empowerment of the crowds to talk back to the media establishment with a “profound diss to the knowledge and expertise of a lot of good critics” is to totally miss the internet’s potential, and thereby guarantee one’s own obsolescence. As Thompson notes in the story, certain print outlets have found ways to put their critics front and center by exploiting the internet rather than blaming it; New York Magazine is just one example of a print pub “which has invested heavily in an improved — and well-trafficked — website.” Not only does critic David Edelstein have his own blog at NYMag.com, but his magazine reviews are often presented and recontextualized on the site’s Vulture blog, which serves as a cultural homebase, a hybrid of breaking news and informal reviews/features, and a bridge to the magazine’s longer-lead, more traditional content.
In my other life as an internet nerd, I’ve been tracking conversations all week about Doree Shafrir’s NY Observer assessment of the state of freelance writing. Shafrir notes that whilst for “those entrenched in the [magazine] industry, print has lost little of its luster or prestige, and the Web represents little more than an amorphous, somewhat scary entity that can only require them to do more work,” brands such as NYM and Radar “get it” in a way that their competitors do not. “The magazines that understand how their online and print divisions can complement, as opposed to provoke, each other seem to be viewing their print editions almost as extensions of their Web sites—instead of the other way around,” Shafrir writes. What New York Magazine does as far as using their blogs to promote (and in some ways, protect) their critics is not the future: it’s what any established publication needs to be doing to be relevant now.
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We chat with some of the best filmmakers in Telluride (and the world): Mike Leigh and Paul Schrader!
Agreed. These are intimidating times for folks like us, Karina, although it must be said that even a decade back, there was no clear path to becoming a professional film critic.
Ebert started on the Sun-Times features desk, my pal Rene Rodriguez was answering phones in the Miami Herald’s subscriptions department when the position opened. There are others — lucky ones — like Owen Gleiberman and Paul Schrader who made strategic friendships with Pauline Kael back in college and let her persuade their first employers.
But it’s always been a case of there being a finite number of positions, which meant waiting for a crusty old white guy to die or retire if we youngsters ever hoped to do this for a living. After more than 10 years of trying to work my way in, I still consider film criticism a sideline. Last year was grim, in that two of the outlets for which I was regularly freelancing (the Miami Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) cut their freelance budgets, while a third (that would be Premiere) folded and went online-only.
Much of the writing I was doing (including more than 100 “pro bono” Premiere.com reviews) amounted to volunteer work intended to pay off with a print gig. It did. I wouldn’t be at Variety without it, but it’s astonishing that things have come to this. I’m encouraged by sites like Spout that have created alternative forums for intelligent film criticism.
The unfortunate trade-off of blogging is that the exercise demands its contributors fill a bottomless hole, being “on” all the time and proactively scouring the web and responding to every little thing as quickly as possible. Because so little of the content amounts to original reporting (Spout’s SXSW coverage was one exception, as are many of The Reeler’s Gotham-specific posts and Nikki Finke’s tireless — and tiringly self-promotional — industry coverage), there’s little but personality to separate one blog from another.
And isn’t that the problem facing film critics? I view the rolling back of print gigs as an effort by newspapers to reduce REDUNDANCY: If movies open day-and-date in all markets, and if readers can access the reviews from countless other outlets on opening day online (and earlier, if you count test screening reports and other forms of amateur, unembargoed film criticism), why pay someone to do it in print?
This is a blessing and a curse. The film critics with whom I’m friendly are among the unhappiest people I know, constantly complaining about having to sit through every Hollywood film as their taste grows more and more refined — a complaint I’ve never had much patience for, since I would’ve killed to be in their positions. But maybe it’s time that criticism evolved into something more than the same bored and boring responses to every release under the sun.
Sure, we’ll always need SOMEONE to do that for us (thankfully, Variety insists on providing that service), but all those great Pauline Kael essays everyone holds as the gold standard of film criticism were greatest when they analyzed trends, directors or multiple films within a single piece. The energy required by blogging (or maintaining a fulltime job that allows you the luxury of reviewing films on the side, as I do) robs us of the opportunity to sit back, consider things thoughtfully and write the kind of paradigm-changing analyses that seem possible in a time when media literacy seems to be a common currency among our readers. Attempting to do more of that is the 2008 resolution I’ve made to myself, although the question remains: Where the hell can I print/post such pieces — and is there a chance in hell someone would pay me for my time?
Peter: Pay yourself.
One of the weird things out there is the notion that “blogging” is a specific thing. The term “blogging” really just means using blog software. If you want to put up thoughtful, introspective pieces on film, start your own blog, put some Google Adsense ads and whatever revenue generating streams in and try to make a couple bucks on your own.
“Blogging” doesn’t mean you have to keep up with the news, e.g. as Spout does. My blog shouldn’t be any kind of example — as Karina says, heralding small films isn’t a big traffic generator — but I think there is a place for essay length commentary on films. It might take awhile for cash to come rolling in, but if you got the freelance work to keep you going, then there’s no reason that a blog on the side couldn’t eventually generate extra income.
And if it never does and the blog ends up taking too much time, then you just do an “I’m out” post and people will forgive you.
[...] Dutta article, brought to you using rss feeds. I found it informative and I think you will too.Here’s some of the articleThey’re an indie site with limited resources, and they’ve chosen not to devote those resources to panning for untapped art house new release gold. Which is understandable––seeking out and heralding worthy festival films and smaller … [...]
Mike, I really question the validity of that forgiveness. It makes blogging seem too simple. Beyond that, as you & I both well know, the internet ad situation is mostly depressing. This is not an easy environment.
Two words though–college connections. As more and more arts journalism will have to be grant funded, those two words, outside Spout’s pretty incredible & alternative model, are my answers.
“seeking out and heralding worthy festival films and smaller releases can be an arduous process and in terms of traffic, it’s often totally thankless”
This is true. Getting consistent traffic to a blog that doesn’t cover Iron Man and Judd Apatow’s latest comedy opus has proven difficult. I’ve only been at this for a few months, and unfortunately I don’t live in NYC or LA so my access to the latest art-house fare is limited.
I have no illusions that I’ll earn
any significant income, but if I can get a few people to take notice of what I believe are worthy films then I’ll be satisfied. Film criticism just doesn’t pay. The most I ever earned as a freelancer was $50 a review for a mid-sized newspaper.
I agree, online ads are a joke. Unless you have an established number of readers numbering into at least the thousands, Google Ads, etc. are worthless.
My philosophy: write about movies because you love it. If something comes of it, consider yourself lucky.