Category: Film Criticism

Last January I described eight reasons I read film criticism. I thought about this post the other day after I checked Letterboxd (which I am now finally using, obviously) to see if anyone I follow had logged The Seen and Unseen and was delighted to find a review by Michael Sincinski. But why did that make me so happy? And which of my categories did this fit into? The closest fit would seem to be #2 “to check my own impressions of a film I just watched against that of the critical community” because of my timing, but I wasn’t motivated by fear of missing something. I definitely do enjoy Sicinski’s writing, but #7 “for pleasure” didn’t seem quite right either. All of a sudden the movie The Eight Mountains popped into my head. It’s about climbing mountains in the Italian Alps, among other things, and documents a ritual whereby climbers leave messages for those who will follow in notebooks buried at the summit of each peak before beginning their descent:

In the film this facilitates intergenerational communication between the man pictured in the screengrabs above, Luca Marinelli’s Pietro Guasti, and his late father Giovanni (Filippo Timi), who he had ceased speaking to years before he died, as do the maps that the latter used to record where he had gone:

Movies, like food, are for me very consciously a substitute for travel. I can’t afford to pop off to Turin on a whim, but I can watch a movie shot there or pick up a bottle of Barolo pretty much any time I like and learn something about the region that way. I also think of cinema as a terrain to explore in its own right. Film criticism is like the lines on Giovanni’s map: it says, “this place is worth going to!” It’s also like the messages in the notebooks he and Pietro find on their climbs: “I passed this way, too, and here is what I saw.” Which is to say that that engaging with it doesn’t always have to have a deliberate purpose–sometimes you follow a trail just to see where it leads and then you read whatever you find at the end of the road because it’s there.

Earlier this year I mentioned that I like to listen to movie podcasts during my walks to and from work. Recently I discovered that I especially enjoy those which are recorded at film festivals and feature critics talking to each other about what they’ve seen, such as The Film Comment Podcast and Nicholas Rapold’s The Last Thing I Saw. While I sincerely admire the ability of professional critics to see four plus movies in a single day while jet lagged and then write cogently about them on tight deadlines, I’ve long been skeptical that this practice, economically necessary though it may be, is optimal for the reviewers or the filmmakers they’re covering. The conversational (and therefore provisional) nature of podcasts and epistolary exchanges like the ones which are a staple of MUBI’s Notebook‘s festival coverage strike me as a much better match for the realities of seeing a series of new works in rapid succession under less than ideal circumstances because they foreground the challenges inherent in doing so. It makes sense for a critic to casually mention that they saw a given film at the end of the festival while battling exhaustion in this context whereas it wouldn’t in a formal review. The conditions under which a person sees a film absolutely do affect their opinion of it, sometimes profoundly, and it can be helpful to the listener/reader to know about them. I also wonder if it makes it easier for the critic to revise their opinion later.

Anyway, these thoughts and the pile of food and movie magazines in my living room got me thinking about what my ideal film publication would look like. Currently I subscribe to the following: Cineaste, the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (via my membership in the Society of Cinema and Media Scholars), Cinema Scope, and MUBI’s Notebook magazine. I learn plenty from all of them, but the arrival of a new issue in the mailbox doesn’t make me *happy* the way the latest Bon Appétit, Cook’s Illustrated, and Food & Wine do. I believe that this is because the latter are more successful at fulfilling the purpose that “print magazines” currently serve in my life. Their function is to slowly accumulate until such time as I want something to flip while I’m eating lunch or hanging out with family during the holidays or on vacation. I make note of recipes that I want to try and products which might make good presents for my loving wife and file away information about what ingredients, cuisines, and chefs seem to be trendy right now. Then we put them on a shelf to wait until we’re ready to cook out of them.

I use film magazines basically the same way, but less successfully. The problem is that most want to be read closely. This is understandable, especially in the case of a scholarly publication like JCMS, but even this I treat it the same way I do American Libraries, which also arrives in my mailbox unbidden by dint of a professional association membership–I skim for names I recognize and topics of particular interest to me and only really read pieces of writing I find them in. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against in-depth journal articles! But I’d rather seek them out via database searches when I’m researching something than take time away from whatever book I’m reading just because they’re there.

So what would my ideal film publication look like? Here are some ideas completely divorced from the financial realities of running one, which: if this post has any merit (and I fully acknowledge that it might not!) whatsoever, it’s derived from the fact that this represents one would-be reader’s attempt to describe what kind of content he’d be willing to pay for. It is not PRESCRIPTIVE in any way. Without further ado, then:

• My favorite food magazines post all of their recipes online, which is essential for discoverability. While a print magazine is an essential part of my vision, it also needs to include an online component.
• Speaking of discoverability: for all the reasons described in the first paragraph of this post, my preferred form of film festival coverage is podcasts whereby critics talk to one another about the movies they’re seeing. These would ideally be accompanied on the website by full-text transcripts and good metadata so that the precise moments where these and other films are discussed can be retrieved via search later. I worry that a lot of great film criticism is going uncited because not all podcasters think about this sort of thing! Meanwhile, the festival coverage I’d most enjoy reading in the print magazine are “round-up” posts which assess the event as a whole after the fact, which might look something like Slate‘s Movie Club, and/or which include a significant travelogue component: I’d like to know where the writers stayed during the festival, what they ate, etc. The idea is to describe the festival to people who might actually go to it themselves in terms that would be useful to them when making plans.
• Visits to locations where films were shot might make for good travel-based film criticism as well.
• In addition to film festivals, events like anniversaries (e.g. the 50th anniversary of the release of whatever), Blu-Ray/DVD and book releases, and other major screenings like retrospectives could comprise the core of each issues. I remember Film Comment (which I’d happily re-subscribe to should it ever reappear as a print publication, by the way!) as being good at this, and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s “Global Discoveries on DVD” column in Cinema Scope is another example of what I’m thinking about here. I would like to see more screengrabs, though!
• Interviews would also be an excellent fit for the kind of publication I have in mind.
• I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I’d appreciate recommendations from movie people about what’s worth spending my time on. Ditto (non-film) books, music, plays, and other kinds of creative works–perhaps the hook could be analysis of movie characters are watching, listening to, looking at, etc. and what it means? If we expand this to also include what they’re eating and drinking, we’ve found a way to justify including recipes, too!
• When talking about what I like about the food magazines I subscribe to, I mentioned products which would make good presents. What about articles focused on costume and set design? “Here are things that you could incorporate into your own aesthetic were you so inclined,” but again with a film criticism focus: discussion of the reasons *why* these things were chosen for the movies they appear in and an assessment of how effective they are absolutely key.
• I love the New York Times‘ “Watching” newsletter because it’s hard to keep track of what is available on the major streaming video platforms. This seems like another logical focus for articles and recurring columns.
• Since I’m daydreaming here: I regularly consult the capsule reviews that Dave Kehr, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Pat Graham, and others wrote for the Chicago Reader Film section and would love to have access to a similarly comprehensive but more up to date resource for brief, reliable takes on what is and isn’t worth seeing. This would presumably be an online-only feature.
• This post started with podcasts, but focused only on one type of them. I also enjoy those which feature thematically discrete seasons like Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This and Rico Gagliano’s MUBI Podcast.
• Lest all this sound too commercial, I think there’s a big place in this vision for non-mainstream forms of filmmaking as well as for events that not everyone has heard of. Drawing just from my own recent experiences, for instance, I can easily imagine articles about the Finger Lakes Environmental and Maine International Film Festivals which guide would-be visitors to where to stay and eat while they’re in town. Michael Sicinski’s writing on experimental film in Cinema Scope is another model.
• In a similar vein, one of my favorite columns in Lucky Peach, a defunct publication that I dearly miss, were the regular dispatches from “Southeastern Pennsylvania correspondent” Mark Ibold. I’d appreciate regular updates on what’s going on in film hubs like New York City and Paris.
• Also speaking of Lucky Peach: movie-inspired short fiction! And/or film criticism in comic form.
• Comics might also be a good format for deep-dives into different kinds of filmmaking techniques, e.g. Spike Lee’s signature dolly shot that I recently mentioned in connection to Inside Man. Think of the shot diagram that Daniel Goldhaber drew up for Vadim Rizov’s Filmmaker Magazine interview with him as the basis of an entire article.
• Last but not least, I think it would be cool to feature profiles of movie theaters around the country written and/or accompanied by writing by local critics. This could once more be travel-oriented, or not: maybe this is a reversal of the “dispatches from film hubs” idea above designed to educate readers in the capital cities of moviedom about what’s going on in the provinces. But either way I definitely like the notion of providing a national platform for writers who might not already have one.

And there you have it! If I am somehow your target audience, now you know what I want!

Lately I’ve been pondering just what exactly I use film criticism for and what implications, if any, this has for what I do here at this blog. I came up with the following eight functions that it performs for me:

1. To help me select movies to watch. I try to see one film in theaters each week, and when deciding which one to choose I find it helpful to quickly scan festival dispatches and reviews to get a sense for how everything playing in Ithaca has been received. What I’m looking for here is evidence of quality and significance: which of them are the most likely to contain something I’ve never seen or heard before and/or open my mind to new ideas and feelings? Positive indicators include strong opinions by critics whose opinions I respect, success on the festival circuit, and association with national cinemas, film movements, etc. that I want to know more about. Capsule reviews and articles that mention multiple titles work just fine for this, and I don’t usually need or want to read anything closely at this point, so the ratings provided by review aggregators like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes are useful here for identifying example positive and negative reactions. My other go-to tool for this kind of research is the Film Blogs, Etc. 2.0 Google Custom Search Engine I created a few years ago. The main thing I need is to be able to search by title, which makes text superior to formats like podcasts and video essays, except where the latter are well-indexed so that I can identify where they talk about the film I’m interested in. This all goes for new movies I watch at home via streaming video or physical media as well either because they never screened theatrically in Ithaca or because I missed them. Here, though, it’s also helpful here when people clearly state “see this movie now playing on platform x!” like Bilge Ebiri did on Twitter with Athena or like Manohla Dargis did by including Kimi in her “Best Films of 2022, So Far” selections for the New York Times, since I might not otherwise know to go looking for them.
2. To check my own impressions of a film I just watched against that of the critical community. Sometimes, but not always, I seek out reviews immediately after I see a movie. The question I’m trying to answer here is typically “what am I missing?” because I’m curious about either why I haven’t heard more about a movie I liked or what others valued in one I didn’t. Capsule reviews and festival dispatches still work just fine here (the Chicago Reader‘s capsule reviews from the Dave Kehr/Jonathan Rosenbaum era, which are discoverable via Film Blogs, Etc. 2.0, are great for this for older films), but this is a situation where I will read longer reviews closely and where I’d be happy to spend time listening to a podcast episode or watching a video essay. Again, though, I need to be able to find them in the first place, so searchability remains key. In addition to the tools I use for category one research, I will also consult the indexes of the film books I own in the case of older titles as well.
3. To conduct more in-depth research into specific directors, film movements, movies, etc. When I am moved to learn more about a specific film topic in order to write about it myself or just because, I supplement all the resources I use for category one and two research with the books and databases I have access to as an employee of Cornell University. Which: I definitely think I take the fact that I’ve worked somewhere I can pop up- or downstairs to grab a book out of the PN 1995 range of a library’s stacks pretty much continually since 2000 for granted! While these types of works are often written by critics, this is where we cross into the domain of academic film studies. In any event, my overarching goal here is to gain an understanding of what has been published on a given topic. I’m also always glad to come across pieces like Kristin Thompson’s recent deep dive into Men and Dan Kois’s discussion of the supernatural elements of Tár when doing this kind of research.
4. To learn more about how movies WORK. There is a theoretical aspect to this category which is again often the domain of film studies, but lately I’ve found myself consulting videos that I find on YouTube and elsewhere which describe how to execute specific filmmaking techniques by way of better practical understanding what I’m seeing in my viewing adventures and so that I can write about movies accurately. This is particularly important to me when working on something for Educational Media Reviews Online or another “real” publication (i.e. not this blog). To cite a point of confusion I see fairly regularly, I don’t want to be guilty of mislabeling a dolly shot as a zoom or vice versa. As with the categories above, I’m typically researching specific topics here and it would be lovely if someone created a handbook specifically for people like me who write about film, but would there actually be a market for such a thing? Or is this something like the snapshot button for screengrabs that I want on all streaming video platforms, but which the vendor community assures me no one else does?
5. To stay informed about what’s going on in the world of film generally. I try to keep up with what’s happening on the festival circuit and the hot topics du jour by subscribing to film magazines like Cineaste and Cinema Scope, newsletters like Film Comment (which I hope will be a magazine again someday soon), and blogs like David Hudson’s invaluable Criterion Daily and MUBI’s Notebook. This category is unique from the ones above in that I’m NOT looking for anything in particular here initially, but it’s adjacent to category one in that these resources are often how I learn about films available via streaming. All of this is why I listen to podcasts which cover current films such as The Cinematologists and The Film Comment Podcast, too.
6. To help me improve my own film writing. I happily acknowledge that my writing has plenty of room for growth, and I try to make time for re-reading books like Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies expressly to learn from them. There are also many critics whose reviews I’ll read closely from start to finish even if I’m just figuring out what to see or if I’ve already answered the question that inspired me to read more about something I just watched because I enjoy the way they think and write.
7. For pleasure. One of the reasons I consume film criticism is of course because I enjoy it! I read many books about movies just because they sound interesting, and podcasts like Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This and Rico Gagliano’s MUBI Podcast are my favorite things to listen to while walking to and from work.
8. To be part of a community. I really should make more of an effort to engage with my fellow cinephiles! After all, there is absolutely no substitute for seeing a movie, then repairing to a diner or bar to talk about it, and the virtual equivalent of this is better than nothing. Even if there’s likely to be a limit on how many people I can convince to accompany me to any given screening at my beloved local theaters Cinemapolis and Cornell Cinema, plenty of people are willing to travel to upstate New York for events like the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and the Nitrate Picture Show and I want them to drop me a line when they do.

Now comes the tricky part: so what? First off, it’s now obvious to me that my personal brand of cinephile still has theatrical moviegoing at its core. I may spend way more hours watching things on the TV in my own living room than I do on the big screen with other people, but as a child of the home video era, that has always been true for me. In the meantime, I think the time I spend picking out one film each week to see after work and trying to formulate intelligent thoughts about it afterward is probably what makes cinephile more of a PURSUIT for me than just a proclivity. Take that away, and maybe this blog ceases to exist: see by way of evidence the apparently direct correlation between how many movies I see in theaters and how much I post here.

I am reminded by this exercise just how valuable it is to talk about what I’m listening to and reading! The only reason I know about the Slate article by Dan Kois I mention above, for instance, is because Glenn Kenny mentioned it in his “Notable Films of 2022” blog post. I obviously believe that film blogs still have a place in the world of 2023, but they need care and feeding. Hopefully this post is a step in that direction. On a related note, I fully expected one of my conclusions to be that maybe the time has come to finally check out Letterboxd. I’m still not sure I see a void that it would fill, though, at least not as long as Twitter continues to exist in more or less its current form and people like Glenn, the other folks mentioned in this post, and additional denizens of my RSS feed like Zach Campbell continue to plug away at their blogs. I don’t personally feel the need to catalog EVERYTHING I’m seeing, and if I have other ways to plug into the film community outside of Ithaca, what would it do for me? What would be great is if one of the review aggregators would start including “top critics” from Letterboxd on their platform or if someone else would perform a similar service.

Last but not least, one important through-line I see here is the utility of specialization. Although I was surprised to see how many uses I identified for podcasts, the distinguishing feature of all the ones I listen to is that they are film-specific. This kind of focus is also what differentiates, for instance, the people I follow on Twitter and/or add to my Film Crickets list from the ones I don’t. I absolutely do not think that film writers need to restrict themselves just to talking about movies, but for a feed to be useful, the majority of content on it has to be on topic. Ditto for search results, which: this is something that I very much hope the creators of podcasts and video essays are thinking about! Sometimes I’m waiting for the next episode, but usually I’m looking for information about a title, person, or technique. Full-text transcripts with timestamps would be ideal for this, but failing that a good index is essential.