Critics’ Cardinal Sin
July 13th, 2006 by Andre Soares
"It is easy, perhaps necessary, for a film critic to forget that every film is a human endeavor, one that represents a substantial investment of time and money for all involved (and there are invariably many involved). Critics traffic in opinions, and they are not beholden to anyone in this regard. But we do owe it to the filmmakers, to our readers, and to ourselves to make sure that our review is reconcilable with the film we’re reviewing."
That’s Andy Horbal’s "The Cardinal Sin of Film Criticism," found in blogcritics.org. Horbal’s article provides a thoughtful - and to this reviewer sobering - insight into the responsibilities of film critics.
After reading Horbal’s article, I immediately thought of my reviews of El Aura / The Aura and, especially, The Da Vinci Code. Considering how convoluted the plots of both films are, I wonder if some of my qualms about their lack of verisimilitude had to do with my own mental faculties and not with the films themselves. I’m now wondering if the old man had a good reason to be walking in the hallways of the Louvre in the middle of the night, and I somehow missed his motivation…
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2 Responses to “Critics’ Cardinal Sin”
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Giving a critique of anything is not hard to do but hard to do with thought and consideration. However it is all too possible to overthink and over consider every little detail, even details that do not actually happen or are confused with other films. I think over thinking a film happens much more frequently than confusion. Why was the old man in the Louvre in the middle of the night? What was his motivation? Sometimes it’s just to propel the plot and that’s all. Hitchcock made an art of the nonsensical or even not really important plot element. No one really cares what’s in those wine bottles in Notorious, only that there’s danger inside of them. Was the money Janet Leigh stole in Psycho important or necessary? No not really, she could have gotten to the Bates Motel another way but rendevous with a lover or a vacation wouldn’t have made her a criminal. Or the missing woman in The Lady Vanishes, yes she was a spy, but that’s not why the audience is supposed to care about her. She’s a nice old lady, with government secrets.
I wanted to also add that being no stranger to criticism yourself Mr. Soares (I came across Regina’s Marler’s unkind review before I read Beyond Paradise) even when you do write about something that you do not like you do seem to take it into consideration what the film maker was trying to achieve and whether or not the met their goal, and not simply getting out that obsidian scalpal that some critics use to dissect every little instance and you admit when something is a personal like or dislike and do not state it as fact that film was terrible simply that you weren’t entertained, a line that many can’t seem to draw because they are so sure of the importance of what they say. In any sort of criticism there seems to be those who are very sure of their authority, what they say is true because they “know” good films or books. Dorothy Parker knew good books but never wrote a good book herself. She wrote films too but even A Star is Born is just short of being a standard or good screenwriting. Ebert and Maltin and others know good films but have never made one themselves. When people put there work out there to be reviewed I don’t think that many people do consider the someone’s soul may have been invested in a project, and not just their time or money.