"What makes you the expert?" says German film industry to German critics

Fascinating report, Felix. This divide between critics and filmmakers, let alone critics and audiences, seems to be widening by the minute. Venues such as TWITCH itself has democraticized film criticism and film commentary. Though I understand the role of film criticism, good constructive criticism is far and few between. That's why I prefer commentary and the interview approach that allows filmmakers to speak for themselves.

I think the advantage of the internet is that film criticism has become less about film scholars puffing their cheeks and maintaining their own status quo, and more about regular folks like me who get to dissect film with enough prowess.

Film Critics can not and will not decide how a film performs at the box office.

BUT film critics are still very important. People have read reviews for a long time, and independent filmmakers rely heavily on film reviews to get the publicity for their film out.

I understand their anger, since they basically just want to protect their films, but film critics, as important as they still are to the film medium, really do not decide audience attendance in theaters.

Another hazard, of course, is that film critics are often tethered to editorial policy. More and more "small" independent films or foreign films are simply not given exposure in print and are reliant more and more on online promotion. 2006 marked the year when publicists began to realize that accrediting online film writers had its advantages. I speak from experience.

Another problem I keep noticing a lot lately, is that some films seem to get unfairly treated by critics when it becomes "the in thing" to trash some them. I know that a lot of them have a very large ego so they would never admit that they would be jumping on a bandwagon, but you read all their reviews and they are all EXACTLY the same and never give any real insight as to why they hold such a strong negative view towards them.

No film this year is a better example of this then The Da Vinci Code. You can argue that it wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't that bad and certainly didn't deserve the immense trashing that it got from critics. Luckily for the producers, that film was marketed like crazy so they did well at the box office.

There are plenty of smaller films that unfortunately are reliant on critics to get a lot of their viewers and get the same treatment by these bandwagon jumping critics sometimes.

If you really want to see a mistakenly trashed film, go to rottentomatoes.com and look at the various reviews of The Fountain. It's like the majority of today's critics really don't want to exercise their brains in watching a movie. They want plots and characters fed to them and then complain when they are.

I sincerely hate it when artists of any kind lash out against critics. For one thing, only history will come close to validating either the critical majority's negative opinion or the critical minority's positive opinion (in which, in these cases, they apparently agree with the filmmaker and the majority of the audience) of a given film. If anything, most critics in the US are guilty of not being negative enough, enough of the time. If you are a reader of film criticism and you like those mainstream films that "the critics hate," you have no right to demand that the critics pretend to like those films. Instead, you need to learn how to read them and discover when you will disagree with them, because no one will always agree with even their favorite critic's reviews.

As for the filmmakers, since they insist on making so much crap film, the role of the critic (when done right) is extremely crucial. They should do their jobs and let the critics (try to) do theirs.

The CRITICS....

well who listens to all the "critics" anyway? Not Joe-six-pack. And not the readers of Twitch...

Look, film enthusiasts find cirtics who have interesting opinions and writing styles that they can respect and relate to. For example, I read Vern's reviews because he makes me laugh AND he has interesting points of view on film. I can trust his opinion, even if I don't always agree. Todd is also a great writer and even if I'm not interested in a film's trailer, I'm going to remember to check it out if he gives it press on this site.

The fact is that NO ONE cares what Joe Sigel says. The guy calls twenty movies a year "the best movie of the year" and "one of the best movies EVER"... Probably because he know's he'll get a nice little check when his words get whored onto DVD covers. While people like him make up the majority of film critics (in the US at least), they really are cirtics that anyone takes seriously. They're just another program segment for newspapers and tv shows to fill up space with.

You guys need to be clear that there is a difference between critics and reviewers. The former are producing worthwhile discussion on cinema, whether from the perspective of whole genres or specific films. They're dissecting form and structure, revealing films' ideological positions, placing films in historical contexts, etc. Reviewers are just watching movies and telling their readership/viewership whether the movies are worth their cash to see. They're Consumers Report for films.

Don't denigrate film criticism by conflating it with reviewers.

I have no idea why Felix is getting down on film scholars. They sure as hell aren't the ones appearing in newspapers or television shows telling people what they should or should not see. I would hope it's not a hint of anti-intellectualism.

Daniel,

It isn't clear who exactly the directors are striking against. But I would gather from that they are attacking "reviewers" for the most part. However, one has to take into account that most "critics" are also reviewers. There is little interest in and few forums for the form of academic criticism you speak of, and as such most critics assume both roles in one facet or another.

However, let us say that the film makers are making a direct attack on these few academic critics. The ones who write the film history texts and publish in the cinema jounals. This would indeed be a strike against the established institution--and would be fairly labled as anti-intellectualism. But what of it? Many film makers feel that these critics speak with such assurance about their views that they entirely misunderstood the works being dissected. That their films are being judged on criteria that has little to no relation to the intended goals of the artists.

In short, we can't say for certain what the conflict in Germany is without more information. But we can say that there is room for criticism of both the common place reviewers and the critics. It does not, however, seem like the criticism being offered in this article is very sound in the first place.

Felix's piece ends with a quote from Josef Schnelle that specifically labels the issue as one about reviews. Unless Germany has a significantly different definition of "review", I think it's safe to say this is about a couple filmmakers complaining about what some newspapers are saying about their films. I doubt you really believe these filmmakers think that scholarly texts are affecting their box offices. Heck, what are the chances that such a text could emerge during the busy part of a theatrical run anyway?

Secondly, I hardly think true film criticism is a rarity. Countless books and blogs are tackling real criticism all the time. There are a good number of print mags (ie. Cineaste, Film Quarterly, Film Comment) along with online ones (ie. Rouge), not to mention a variety of other forms. Sure, this stuff isn't appearing in regular newspapers, but it's out there for those interested, and there are plenty. Also, I think you'll find that critics rarely intersect with reviewers. There are a few (say Roger Ebert, Jonathon Rosenbaum, etc) but these fellows are primarily interested in criticism in the first place. The elements of reviews they provide are requirements of their medium, and a sacrifice they make to get their pieces circulated. Reviewers are paid to provide information and an opinion to readers that will help them decide whether a movie is worth their cash. Critics' writings may help someone choose whether to see something or not, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is intellectual analysis and adding something to the discussion.

Lastly, I think it's a total mistake to concern yourself with the "intended goals of the artists." What matters is the film itself. Anyone can make some grand film with the goal of revealing the flaws in some political ideology, but that hardly means the final film does it. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If a filmmaker feels their work is being mischaracterized, maybe instead of calling people names they should take a hint from the French New Wave folks and actually dabble in criticism itself. Calling someone "autistic" is not in any form a repudiation of a film's criticism. One can't help but wonder that if the filmmakers can do nothing but point to the box office and call people names that maybe, just maybe, there's something to the comments being leveled at their films in the first place.

"what makes you an expert?"
I think it is a valid question. Most film scholars would point to their various credentials, but that really isn't a valid reply. Education can teach us the sciences, but with the arts there are only "the craft", the factual history, and the history of "expert" opinions. These may add up to formulas for ocsar winners, or popcorn audience pleasers, but we know that film can also something more than those.

When I watch a film by David Lynch, Kim ki Duk, Tarkovsky, Tsukamoto, the Quay brothers... I feel there is very little connection to the standards and points of view that fill our cinema texts. Andre Bazin was a monumental figure, and his views are of value--but neither he, nor any of his countless imitators can say their views are anything more than elaborate opinions. Film is a medium of sight and sound that can be deeply personal, it is absurd to try and deconstruct every film to measure against one another--even the ability for an outsider to "desconstruct" a deeply personal work is highly questionable.

Of course there are films that are made to be judged by the critics, as they are made in compliance with the familiar notions of what a film "is". But it that assumption that has made the experts look like fools when they come into contact with, for example, a film from one of the previously mentioned artists or another of their kind.

In the end, who is it that needs critics? Film makers may learn from them, but more likely they learn from trail and error, passing on what they've gathered to the next generation with the films made. Audiences can feel educated about a film by reading criticisms... But personally, I would rather let a film stand on it's own two feet. No critical essay has ever matched the enthusiatic conversation or debate with friends after leaving the theater--the relating of how a film touched us on a personal level, already knowing our histories and personalities, the "reasons" for that touch being good or bad take on a depth that reveals truly great film not to be an object to be taken apart, but a living moment unique to ever set of eyes in the theater.

Daniel,
I think your points are for the most part correct--I didn't mean to sound as if I was concerned with the "director's intent" of the film, but rather that often it seems to me that articles in magazines such as Film Comment (which I have read for many years) are often... Playing the game. The criticisms are well written and thought out, but very rarely do the critics seem to have much connection with the heart of the film.

I agree that academic or the silly reviewers for newspapers cannot actually hurt a films box office much. And most of the time when director's whine, it's because their feelings are hurt. But I do think that there is room for criticism of how films are criticized. A more personal and passionate approach would give more insight than the current trend of attempting to squeeze cinema into a box of academia.

Well, for those of you asking what those critics are for exactly, let me just point out that if I don't read some kind of reviews, I'm going to have to just go see whatever is advertised the mostly heavily, god forbid, or at best, films that feature actors and directors whose work I have appreciated in the past (therefore never discovering anything new). The point is, I won't even know about anything else if I don't have reviews to read, but thanks to certain critics I have discovered all manner of excellent films that I wouldn't even have heard of otherwise. And yes, it's helpful to know if those heavily-advertised films are by chance decent, or if they probably suck. To me, when some directors complain about what the critics say, all I hear is, "I want audiences to have to wander helplessly into the theater without any third-party evaluation of the film, so that I don't have to actually make good films." Sure, a lot of people do make their theater decisions based on marketing at the moment, but that's their fault. It's not a perfect system as it is (if anything, because critics or "reviewers" have caved too much lately) but it's better than nothing.

Obviously the most rational thing to do is to put a curse on the critics' colons.