Richard--
Although we don't currently have the colorful battle of egos (more than
minds) that typified the Sarris-Kael debate, that doesn't mean we should
reject current film criticism as little more than, as you say, ``relativist
tabloid pap which refers to nothing beyond a journalistic grid.'' There are
many fine movie crickets out there, and most of them not in New York.
Two who are in New York are Anthony Lane and David Denby at the New
Yorker. Now, for some readers of this salon, that may seem, oh, so, well,
Midtown of me (quite a stretch, since I live in the Westside of Los
Angeles!), and Lane can certainly lose himself in his own enthusiams.
(Witness his recent ``essay,'' if one might call it that, on ``E.T.'') But
witness, as well, Denby's current review of the Laurent Cantet masterpiece,
``Time Out,'' and last week's review of Michael Haneke's masterpiece, ``The
Piano Teacher.'' (And, yes, there are TWO, count 'em, two masterpieces
playing on commercial screens in America right now, and some may also add
Alfonso Cuaron's ``Y Tu Mama Tambien,'' to make for a nice threesome.)
Denby's cogent writing and considerations of the depths and breadths of
these two films are, to my mind, what any worthy critic should do: He has
clearly thought long and hard about these difficult works, and delivered
insightful reviews of each, both in considerably more concise fashion than
Kael, who also walked the New Yorker hallways, was capable of doing. (I'm
also almost certain, knowing Kael's predelictions, that she would have hated
both films.) Stanley Kauffmann is always worth reading, and he continues to
review movies with great vigor and discipline. Don't when Stuart Klawans is
returning to The Nation, but his time there was a joy to behold: Nobody, not
Kael at her most self-consciously rebellious, can defend his minority and
downright eccentric takes on movies better than Klawans.
Actually, though, there is one, and I think he's the most interesting
American film critic: Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader. No one gets
to the heart of the matter better than Jonathan, and no one does it with
more originality. He's an invaluable voice, especially in a Chicagoland
currently imposed by two hard Thumbs.
In LA, Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal is as readable and
reasonable a critic as I know of in the daily paper scene, and he gets you
inside the film. Manohla Dargis at the LA Weekly is fearless and ready to go
after sacred cows, even when this gets her in intellectual trouble from time
to time. Slate.com has terrific film criticism, as does indiewire.com. I
know that at Variety, we have right now probably the strongest lineup of
international critics as the paper has ever had, from Derek Elley in London
to Deborah Young on the Continent to David Stratton in Australia and Todd
McCarthy in LA.
Similarly, the writing in Film Comment has never been better, with
something always to argue with, and something to make you re-think your
views (though even Dave Kehr's impassioned support for ``The Royal
Tenenbaums'' didn't make me re-think anything).
The problems with US film criticism are too numerous to mention, and
worth at least another email all by itself. But there are several strengths,
as well, and they're too easily ignored in a haze of nostalgia for the
former culture of warring camps. Perhaps this culture, or a variation on it,
will return; but this isn't the only atmosphere in which film criticism can
develop. The personalities were perhaps larger in the 60s (Simon, Kael,
Sarris, MacDonald, etc) but they weren't necessarily better critics than the
ones working today. Again, I suggest anyone with access to variety.com to
peruse reviews from the 60s, and compare them to the ones written now; the
leap forward in every way is obvious. This is even true in a highly troubled
daily paper like the LA Times, which is pockmarked with bad reviews; but
compared with the LA Times in the 60s and 70s, they read comparatively like
masterworks. There isn't space here to discuss what the problems are and
where they lie, but the landscape is also far from a wasteland.
Robert Koehler
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