Well, ladies and gentleman, it has come to this: blog writers are being accused of causing the “death” of film criticism. At least that is what author Thomas Doherty, a professor of American studies at Brandeis University, tells us in his article “The Death of Film Criticism,” in the February 28, 2010, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. It seems that Professor Doherty is all riled up about the “viral salon of bloggers and chat-roomers” who have taken over as film critics. He laments, “In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.” Indeed.
At this point in time and space, it seems almost ridiculous to have to defend bloggers, or blogging, or any other thing about writing that happens on the Internet, but here we go again. Of course, as in any other venue, there are those who do a better job than others, but it is obvious that the stodgy “old guard” feel we are rattling their cages. Their sacred Ivory Tower is slowly but inevitably teetering toward obsolescence, but that’s what they get for making academia such a breeding ground for ostriches in the first place.
Professor Doherty notes that film critics used to have “the ballast of traditional credentials,” meaning they had to suffer through university courses being taught by individuals who followed a narrow focus to get their terminal degrees in film studies and then wanted to transfer that same limited awareness of field and subject matter to their unsuspecting students. How many film course students, myself included, had to suffer through viewings of The Red Shoes, Un Chien Andalou, or Battleship Potemkin, we can never know, but none of us has anything to lose but our chains. Vive la Revolution!
Doherty’s “bleak diagnosis for the ink-and-paper crowd” echoes the cries we hear from publishers and editors of printed matter. Daily newspapers, magazines, journals, and books are all in competition with electronic versions that are quicker and more accessible for many of today’s readers. With things like Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and the Sony Reader Pocket Edition available, it would seem that Doherty rightly notes that “the writing is on the digital wall.”
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Bravo... Well Said!
I've become so tired of these dinosaurs bashing something, for the life of them, that they don't seem to "get". Even with their higher education & credentials, they portrait this technophobia either because they couldn't foresee the future or because they were of the mindset that computers were just a hobby for nerds. So, they sat up in their Ivory Towers without a care in the world of what this robust future might do to their beloved careers all in the spirit of the attitudes that their bosses had which was to hold a tight fist around their market share and not sacrifice a tiny bit of their profits to establish an online identity and further progress their supposed integrity by supporting a technology that can ultimately benefit the consumer by not being a "bible" but by being a guide to a vast sea of knowledge. Now we are starting to see this science fiction become reality and those lazy dinosaurs have to do whatever they can do to burn the witches at the stake.
2 - El Bicho
Very good article, Victor. Please contribute more to this section.
While Doherty has a valid point about some bloggers who traffic in film reviewing, to paint with such a broad brush is rather foolish. His ancestor probably bemoaned when people gave up the oral tradition and started to write things down. Change is not always bad. Adopt, adapt and improve!
3 - Victor Lana
Fantastic comments, gentlemen. Thank you.
4 - Heloise
You wrote: "Doherty’s “bleak diagnosis for the ink-and-paper crowd” echoes the cries we hear from publishers and editors of printed matter. Daily newspapers, magazines, journals, and books are all [a dying breed]"
The brackets are what I was thinking there. I recall about two years ago that old woman Helen somebody who is like 90 saying that bloggers have ruined journalism.
After she made that comment the mighty printing presses began to fall right atop her comments. I read this just as I was about to enter my two movie reviews.
BTW I had to read Beowulf and saw The Battle of Algier snd translated the French copy for fun! So, for those who use the argument that we are not classically educated cum film school are crazy.
I've noticed that my reviews (I don't read them before I create mine) are in line with the "top critics" who no doubt went to the school of film critics. His argument is moot totally. They are shaking in their academic boots. In fact I just read a factoid that women are underrepresented in the film critic industry. If I waited for someone to give me a job or ask me to review films for a living...I'd still be waiting.
I've been going to the the Arts movie houses of Chicago for nearly 40 years. I have had An Education in film, thank you very much.
Good article. I am going to read the linked one too.
Heloise
5 - Victor Lana
Heloise, her name is Helen Thomas. They've been propping her up to ask questions for many years. She's like that leader of some planet on the old Star Trek series who was propped up but someone else was doing the talking.
Thanks for your comments.
6 - Alan Kurtz
"In cyberspace," writes Thomas Doherty in a catchy paraphrase, "everyone can hear you scream." I question this premise. While it's fair to say, "In cyberspace everyone can scream," to be heard requires someone to be listening. In fact, the overwhelming majority of us screaming in cyberspace are simply ignored. It reminds me of Edvard Munch's fin-de-siècle expressionist artwork, where The Screamer facing the viewer has attracted not the slightest notice from the couple behind her. If she were alone on the bridge, we could reckon that, like a tree falling in the distant forest, the sound is too remote to reach anyone's auditory apparatus. But this couple isn't that far removed, well within the range for a woman's scream to penetrate their eardrums. Unless they're both deaf, they fail to react because they choose not to hear. They are oblivious. That is the true state of cyberspace.
7 - Jonathan Sullivan
VERY interesting article. Film criticism isn't even close to dead, if anything more it's booming more than ever...it just doesn't pay. The true people who love film do it because they like to do it; they (usually) don't have egos and assume that they can sink a movie because they didn't like it.
And as the idea of needing a film degree to write about it is completely stupid. That's just holier than thou talk from college graduates who were wrongly fed the idea that a degree makes you instantly better than people. You don't need a degree to review films, write novels, or do anything creative, unless you want to teach it; you just need the passion.
8 - Victor Lana
Thanks for your comments, Alan and Jonathan. Alan brings up Munch and it has me thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, the screamer is mute. He wants to scream, tries, but is unable to connect with anyone but the viewer of the work.
Besides that, I think lots of people are reading online and checking out blogs. The fact that Doherty wrote this article is testimony to that; however, I think print is far from dead (and who wants it to be).
I think we must celebrate the many voices that have entered the conversation because of this wonderful venue. Supposedly, academia loves discourse, but I guess it's only if you have letters following your name.
9 - Heloise
Victor, she asked JFK questions. I know who she is. Just couldn't spit out her last name.
10 - Heloise
I did go back and read the linked article. He's a damn good writer. But his point was moot. The real question: are people reading blogger's reviews and taking advice? Hell yes. And does he read us here? Hell yes.
11 - Victor Lana
Heloise, you are right! He reads us and so do many others in academia. He even mentions that some of his colleagues are kind of selling out and joining the pack. Hmm, I wonder why.
Yeah, Helen Thomas has been called on for questions by every President since JKF, and so many people are sitting there and never get to ask a question. And she's always in the front row.
I think at Obama's last press conference she fell asleep, but she still got to ask her question (how that worked I'm not sure). Damn, she's persistent!
12 - Alan Kurtz
Victor Lana (#8), why would a mute woman scream? Perhaps you should stick to fiction.
13 - Victor Lana
Alan, that's the whole point. She can't but wants the world to hear her. Just my take. Thanks.
14 - Alan Kurtz
So you're saying (metaphorically) that those of us screaming in cyberspace are mute, meaning incapable of speech, but are trying nevertheless to connect with an audience? Now you really have lost me.
15 - Deano
Is it the quantity of alternate voices and opinions that bothers him or the quality? Because I think it touches upon two utterly different issues - one being the fact that traditional publishing, which has reach by virtue of its size, subscribership, and revenues, has always served as an aggregator and gatekeeper for formal "criticism" - what gets looked at, why, how it is interpreted and nuance, what deserves recognition, what deserves scorn, what is style etc. This is undergoing radical change.
The second is the quantity of voices. The digital realm eliminates the barriers or gate-keepers that restrict reach - you don't need a newspaper to reach 10,000 people anymore, so the effect is a great leveling of the barriers that make newspapers things of value - their ability to reach a wide audience and restrict / dictate the quality of writing and/or who's voice may be heard.
The result is wide almost universal reach at minimal cost, and allowing myrid voices to be heard. Not all the voices are pretty, nor are they traditional, nor do they necessarily fit the established norms and many are just plain badly written and poorly communicated. The market conditions and barrier that previously restricted them are gone now.
Good writing, good communication, innovative approaches and ideas will rise up - as with every new medium. Claiming that the current crop of bloggers or online writers are automatically better or worse then anyone who previously came before based on the nature of their medium and not their talent or ability is foolish and short-sighted.
16 - Boeke
I thought it was obvious that "Scream" was silent. Silly me.
17 - jeannie danna
“the writing is on the digital wall.”
Good article.
I watched a year ago as, Kieth Olbermann -MSNBC, sneered when he called someone a "blogger."
Now, blogs are being quoted from, by people standing on the floors of the House and Senate.
Bloggers have come a long way, in a short time, and it didn't cost everyone here a ticket to get into the private club.
18 - Alan Kurtz
Forgive me, Screamer. I didn't realize you were a mute. You see how heaven plans. Me, a poor blind man, and you … a mute. An incredibly big mute.
19 - Miss Bob Etier
“In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.” That one statement negates all Professor Doherty wrote. The fact is, in cyberspace only those who chose to hear you scream do so (as has already been noted). If Doherty cannot make the point that "in cyberspace anyone can scream," how can we trust any of his other opinions? In an attempt to be clever, he sacrificed credibility. --Bob E.
20 - Miss Bob Etier
Oooops! I forgot to thank you, Victor Lana, for reminding me of those painful days in college watching "Un Chien Andalou" and "Battleship Potemkin." How well I remember polishing my fiction skills with essays of appreciation. --Bob E.
21 - Victor Lana
Hey, Bob, to listen to those professors, you'd think these flicks were the best thing since sliced bread (or sliced eye). Ah, those weren't the days.
22 - roger nowosielski
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," by Harlan Ellison, also comes to mind.
23 - Nick
Some bloggers are better critics than some traditional media film reviewers, in my opinion.
24 - A Geek Girl
"At this point in time and space, it seems almost ridiculous to have to defend bloggers, or blogging"
I just wanted to point out that you're defending writing on the Internet to a man who just put an article on the Internet.
Irony and ignominy? I think so.
The true reason for his bitterness is clear in this statement.
"Knowles boasts two and a half million readers a day"though maybe "hits" is a better measurement"which explains why Hollywood ads are now more likely to quote from Web sites than from print critics."
Hollywood prefers bloggers. Yes. They. Do.
He doesn't seem to be aware that his use of a quote by Schickel creates a complete contradiction.
"Schickel concurs: "What I see of Internet reviewing is people of just surpassing ignorance about the medium expressing themselves on the medium."
I just did the review for Schickel's latest documentary.
DVD Review: The Eastwood Factor by Richard Schickel
And he was nice enough to give me an interview.
Author/Filmmaker Richard Schickel on Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, and More
He's a very fascinating man with a great sense of humor. I enjoyed our interview very much. I can't imagine him calling me ignorant. Ever.
It makes no sense at all to complain on the Internet about people who write on the Internet to people who read the Internet.
I always thought the Screamer was a man? Just sayin'
25 - Victor Lana
Geek Girl, thanks for your illuminating comment, which clarifies the way Doherty has a green-eyed monster thing going here.
You write, "I always thought the Screamer was a man? Just sayin'." And that made me laugh, but I also thought he/she was inspiration for the silent killer's mask in Scream. Hmmm.