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I woke up this morning to a feed reader full of stories about film criticism, many of them blog posts in response to the latest bit of polemic from Armond White. It’s a prolonged screed against contemporary critics––young, old, print, web––anyone but Armond, essentially. Most of it just reads as noise, and since I’ve decided to put a moratorium on talking/writing about What Happened In Queens, I can’t respond to White’s not original complaint that the MOMI institute (which he did not attend) seeks to turn young critics into shill bots for studio films. I also can’t comment on his suggestion that the Institute itself is “a project seemingly designed to further confuse the profession,” although I will admit to being, before, during and after the Institute, confused about my profession. And I do suspect that all of our circular, internecine fighting about this stuff is, at least for me, making the confusion worse.
So it’s a relief to come across the second half of Rotten Tomatoes’ interview with critic Nathan Lee, and find an answer of sorts. You want to write film criticism? Stop reading it. Go look at art and get laid. The relevant quotes after the jump.
I find most film writing almost…unreadable. And the longer I write, the less of it I try to read. I think that keeps me a better writer. I’m reading all the time, but I can learn more about the movies I’m seeing this week from reading a great 19th century novel than I can from whatever XYZ critic has to say this week about whatever. I think another problem with movie writing is that it’s insular, especially Internet writing. It’s so narrow and insular and just about movies, and I think to be a really good writer and film critic you need a range. You need to know what’s going on in painting, you need to know what’s going on in music, you need to read books, and get laid, and go to restaurants, you know what I mean?
I do go to restaurants.
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We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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[...] How to Write Film Criticism? Stop Reading It. Karina [...]
So would you be able to follow Nathan’s advice about not reading critics? Or would that be professionally impossible?
RE: reading, I’m not sure if I can get around to reading all the schwag we got from the Institute, but in lieu of reading Mark Harris’ book, I listened to his interview with Elvis Mitchell for the KCRW The Treatment podcast. (Though it was so good that it made me want to read the book even more…)
Karina — I don’t know about you, but I’ve yet to be turned down by a restaurant.
But seriously, nice piece. I had to stop reading the White’s thoughts. More straw men that the entire state of Kansas, circa 1939. Perhaps it’s time for him to cut down on the caffeine…and the glue sniffing.
And I love Lee’s advice because, at least when it comes to reading, I certainly practice it. I’ve actually never sat down to read a book of straight film criticism though I’ve read gazillions of individual reviews over the years. (I really should, though, sit down and read me some Agee and Farber, though.)
Kevin: No, you’re right––more so than someone who only reviews films for a living, it’s part of my job to read and comment on a wide range of film writing every day. But I can be stricter with how I spend my free time, and I should probably spend less of it reading things like “Pictures at a Revolution,” and more of it doing things like reading novels and having conversations with human beings.
[...] shenanigans going on at the moment: How to write film criticism? Stop reading it. — Karina Longworth, Spout [...]
[...] Since film critics’ heads began rolling en masse at newspapers and magazines a little over a month ago, the debate over the job’s future has ignited deep thoughts from New York to Los Angeles. The discussion turned especially profound this week as a selection of esteemed critics moved on to slapping anyone and anything that would stand still long enough to absorb their blows. Follow the jump for our favorite sallies of critic-on-critic violence: In the Ebert age of criticism, the Aesthetic of the Hit dominates everything. Behind those panicky articles about critics losing their jobs (what about autoworkers and schoolteachers?), lurks the writers’ own fear of falling victim to the same draconian industry rule: Most publishers and editors are only interested in supporting hits in order to reach Hollywood’s deep-pocket advertisers. This is what makes traditional criticism seem indefinable and obsolete, leaving web criticism as a ready (but dubious) alternative. … (Viral criticism isn’t real; it’s mostly half-baked, overlong term-paper essays by fans who like to think they think.) — Armond White, New York Press Armond’s deeply confused screed makes me glad I quit the Press so that I don’t have to attempt to explain to people out of professional courtesy what point he thought he was trying to make. … His simplistic denunciation of the meaning and impact of Roger Ebert — who has done more to widen the tastes of the moviegoing public and popularize basic cinema literacy than any critic in the history of print — is shameful, and would be so even without the “I wish him well as he recovers” parenthetical. — Matt Zoller Seitz, The House Next Door I mean, it’s really sad that all these film critics are losing their jobs, but I think most film criticism is terrible. And not useful. And frankly, really boring. I read very little of it, and find very little of it to be useful. So it’s a shame that my colleagues are losing their jobs, but on the other hand I don’t read many of them. … [New Yorker critic] Anthony Lane is a very witty, very funny writer — and he doesn’t know shit about movies. — Nathan Lee, Rotten Tomatoes How to write film criticism? Stop reading it. — Karina Longworth, Spout Blog [...]