For the Love of Movies

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For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is the first documentary to dramatize the rich saga of American movie reviewing. Directed by Boston Phoenix critic, Gerald Peary, For the Love of Movies offers an insider's view of the critics' profession, with commentary from America's best-regarded reviewers, Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times), A.O. Scott (The New York Times), Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), and Kenneth Turan (The Los Angeles Times). We also hear from young, articulate, Internet voices, including Harry Knowles (ainitcoolnews.com) and Karina Longworth (spout.com). Their stories are entertaining, humorous, and personal. Those who hear them may gain new respect for the film critic profession, knowing the faces and voices, and also the history.

From the raw beginnings of criticism before The Birth of a Nation to the incendiary Pauline Kael-Andrew Sarris debates of the 1960s and 70s to the battle today between youthful on-liners and the print establishment, this documentary illuminates the role that film criticism has played in the evolution of American film.

With James Agee, Jami Bernard, Vincent Canby, Bosley Crowther, David D'Arcy, Manny Farber, Owen Gleiberman, Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, Harlan Jacobson, Stanley Kauffmann, Stuart Klawans, Harry Knowles, Vachel Lindsay, Leonard Maltin, Janet Maslin, Elvis Mitchell, Wesley Morris, John Powers, Rex Reed, B. Ruby Rich, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Richard Schickel, Robert Sherwood, David Sterritt, Mike Szymanski, Scott Weinberg, Frank E. Woods, Lisa Nesselson, Otis Ferguson, Richard Corliss, Gene Siskel, Michael Wilmington.

'I enjoyed it immensely, I learned a lot. Very well done, edited, researched--and narrated!' Roger Ebert

'Quirky, beautifully constructed and indispensable, Gerry Peary's film, For the Love of Movies, chronicles the cultural and aesthetic history of the last fifty years of American film criticism. Infused with the same movie-madness that grips most film critics (Mr. Peary is also a world-class film critic), the piece engages with the various battles writers wage with one another for aesthetic dominion. Replete with examples from a half-century of American Cinema, the film explores the nature of filmic experience and the daily missives that constitute the film critic's work. Piece by piece, the film builds an argument for the deep value film criticism has added to the history of movies, and to our understanding of them. Not only a terrific film for the classroom, but a terrific film as well.' Robb Moss, The Rudolf Arnheim Lecturer on Filmmaking, Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University, Filmmaker, The Same River Twice and Secrecy

'A lively and thoughtful survey...For the Love of Movies offers a concise, entertaining account of mass-market movie criticism, and I think a lot of universities would want to use it in film and journalism courses.' David Bordwell, Professor of Film Studies, Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Author, Film Art and Film History

'I think it's a terrific film, and one that should prove very successful in filling in the woeful gaps in our students' knowledge of the history of American criticism and its purpose and future. It's absorbing throughout and should prove a big hit in film criticism classes, and even introductory film classes.' Peter Brunette, Reynolds Professor and Director, Film Studies, Wake Forest University

'Gerry Peary's For the Love of Movies is a highly informative and entertaining work that is a one-of-a-kind virtual course on film criticism in the U.S.. With archival footage and spirited interviews of all the important players, the story of this rarely exposed writing craft is revealed and studied. The influence of film critics on filmmakers and audiences is under-appreciated no longer.' William E. Pence, Director of Film, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College

'I will be teaching a graduate course in American Movie Criticism at Columbia this spring and I plan to show my students the excellent new documentary, For the Love of Movies. Not only does this film capture the temptations and the quandaries of writing film criticism at this point in time, but it also does a superb job of summarizing the history of the practice in this country and the distinctive, sometimes eccentric, flavor of the participants. I recommend the film to all who have even the slightest interest in the subject.' Phillip Lopate, Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University

'Gerald Peary's For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is an eye-opening look at the state of contemporary film criticism and a revealing overview of its history since the early days of the film medium. Peary entertainingly and insightfully profiles leading critics past and present as part of his searching investigation of the craft and politics and cultural influence of film criticism. In this time when newspapers are laying off film critics and much of the action is shifting to the Internet, Peary's film provides an important look at how film criticism can survive. I enthusiastically recommend this lively documentary for all educational programs, because it fills a major need in a time of cultural crisis.' Joseph McBride, Film Historian and Associate Professor, Cinema Department, San Francisco State University

'Well-researched, informative, and entertaining, For the Love of Movies is a must-see for those of us who like reading, writing, and talking about films almost as much as we like watching them.' Diane Waldman, Mass Communications and Journalism Studies, University of Denver

'A requiem for the heavyweights of a dying vocation...The documentary rewinds the forgotten prehistory of film criticism, but its narrative spine is the legendary grudge match between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, the Tracy and Hepburn--or maybe Trotsky and Stalin--of American film criticism.' Thomas Doherty, American Studies, Brandeis University, The Chronicle of Higher Education

'Relays a fascinating history and successfully characterizes the role of a film critic...Ultimately, the film decides that it is and has always been a field that is about the eponymous 'love of movies.' The critics do their job because of their passion for film but also the entire profession is really for the continued improvement of the film industry. Directors and actors benefit have an added incentive to make a movie as good as possible and critics have a long tradition, dating back to Sherwood's time, of giving their opinions in the movie-making process. Most importantly, these critics spark conversations, whether it be between Kael and Sarris or a cab driver and AO Scott, and elicit ideas and dialogue over the common viewing of films. With these reasons, they certainly make a convincing case for the continued importance of this profession.' HopkinsCinemAddicts, blog of the Johns Hopkins University Film and Media Studies Program

'Peary has assembled a remarkably thorough historical overview of film criticism...Whether looking at the old or new guard, popular or academic oriented, Peary explores what it takes to be a critic (e.g., finding one's own voice) by letting more than two dozen critics (including Roger Ebert and Kenneth Turan) discuss their work in fresh as well as archival interviews. Film criticism may be a profession under siege (30 newspaper reviewers have been let go in the last few years), but this pithy yet edifying tribute gets a thumbs up for all movie-goers.' Jeff Dick, Library Journal

'Expansive and illuminating...An enlightening and surprising exploration of the history of film criticism as it has variously flourished in print media from the silent era to up to the online blogosphere-dominated present...The interviews of the main feature are richly interspersed with archival footage (of both films and famous critics, like Pauline Kael), and the Special Features section is generously packed with extended interviews with both traditional and newer online critics. Given the wide breadth of interests it will appeal to everyone from students and practitioners of film criticism to average movie-goers. For the Love of Movies is highly recommended not only for collections serving film studies and communications, but also for more general public and academic library collections.' Rob Sica, Eastern Kentucky University, Educational Media Reviews Online

'Illuminating...There's good stuff here for cinema buffs...Recommended.' Video Librarian

'For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism briskly covers a great deal of ground, and often engages with illuminating insights...Could wind up being a valuable teaching tool for educators in film studies programs, and might also attract receptive auds in cable and pubcast venues.' Joe Leydon, Variety

'It's a treat to see the best-known film critic on the planet, Roger Ebert, give a never-before-seen interview. The sound bites are distinctive, the insider's perspective is refreshing, the historical overview is welcome, and the overall impression is positive.' Peter Martin, Cinematical

'For the Love of Movies does an excellent job in telling the history of not just film criticism, but of American film itself, not an easy task when you consider the breadth of that history.' Tim Basham, Paste Magazine

'This is a documentary meant for viewers who appreciate the voice of critics. If you are such a person, keep a pen handy for jotting down suggested readings and viewings mentioned throughout. Putting a face (and voice) to these reviewers gives us a sense of the personalities behind their opinions.' William Lee, Cinema Verdict

'A unique journey...Considering most of [Gerald Peary's] commentators are better known by their bylines than by sight, viewers are offered a unique perspective into the motivations and character of critics when they are finally allowed to speak candidly about their own love for film.' Pat Tarantino, Patriot Ledger

'The movie's a lively and important first step in assaying the worth of a field on the verge of extinction...The question bears asking, though. What can the better working critics offer to a world where everyone is digitally empowered to give an opinion? It depends on whether you think context, clarity, and broad understanding of film history, world history, and culture are important.' Ty Burr, The Boston Globe

'Anticipated peer reviews raised the stakes for [Gerald Peary's] passion project, but his larger challenge was to assemble a story that would entertain not just critics but those pedestrians who don't know Cineaste from bouillabaisse.' Chris Faraone, Boston Phoenix

'A must-see for anyone who loves films, and has enjoyed reading the serious film criticism that once was so important in American cinema.' The Charleston Gazette

'An unapologetic sermon on the importance of film criticism in American culture...The subject matter (at least to my taste) is so fascinating, I'd be happy to watch it again.' Emma Rose Johnson, Blast magazine

''Is cinema more important than life?' Francois Truffaut asked. Anyone tempted to answer 'yes' will enjoy this documentary.' Walter Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

'[For The Love of Movies] is finally here and it does the job nicely. Which is to say intelligently, competently, lovingly, and, after a fashion, comprehensively. Meaning that it tells the story as thoroughly as the budget and running time have allowed. For those who don't know much about the lore of the realm, it's nutritious food and then some.' Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere

'This film really made us wonder what was left on the cutting room floor, because there's some great stuff being said here from some really important critics! If you're a serious (or developing) student of film, this documentary is required viewing.' Black Box Office

'Gerald Peary's seminal cinematic exploration of the wealth of American film criticism provides a wonderful roadmap of where we have been and observes the many directions the whole endeavor is now moving.' Chale Nafus, Austin Film Society

'It informs, enlightens and generates enthusiasm, but its real success will come when a viewer opens their paper (or web browser) and dives into a review with a new perspective.' Star City Blog

Citation

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Main credits

Geller, Amy (film producer)
Peary, Gerald (screenwriter)
Peary, Gerald (film director)
Clarkson, Patricia (narrator)

Other credits

Edited by Sabrina Zanella-Foresi, Aleksandar Lekic; music by Bobby B. Keyes; cinematography by Craig Chivers [and 3 others].

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

film criticism, evolution of American film, Boston Phoenix, Gerald Peary, Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Kenneth Turan, Harry Knowles, Karina Longworth, film history, Birth of a Nation, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Patricia Clarkson, James Agee, Jami Bernard, Vincent Canby, Bosley Crowther, David D'Arcy, Manny Farber, Owen Gleiberman, Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, Harlan Jacobson, Stanley Kauffmann, Stuart Klawans, Vachel Lindsay, Leonard Maltin, Janet Maslin, Elvis Mitchell, Wesley Morris, John Powers, Rex Reed, B. Ruby Rich, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Richard Schickel, Robert Sherwood, David Sterritt, Mike Szymanski, Scott Weinberg, Frank E. Woods, Lisa Nesselson, Otis Ferguson, Richard Corliss, Gene Siskel, Michael Wilmington,"For the Love of Movies",Bullfrog Films,doc,art

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Upstairs of my house, I had my
feet up against the base of a

00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:29.562
screen hanging from
the ceiling.

00:00:29.562 --> 00:00:30.970
It was weighted down
at the bottom.

00:00:30.970 --> 00:00:33.120
And on the screen there
was this woman.

00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:35.310
She was being tied to
a pair of polls.

00:00:35.310 --> 00:00:39.260
She was screaming and
thrashing about.

00:00:39.260 --> 00:00:41.250
And I was scared for her.

00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.050
I didn't know what
was going on.

00:00:43.050 --> 00:00:47.010
There was this thump,
thump sort of sound.

00:00:47.010 --> 00:00:48.925
And trees started breaking.

00:00:48.925 --> 00:00:51.790
Then all of a sudden,
it was calm.

00:00:56.540 --> 00:00:58.340
I don't remember walking.

00:00:58.340 --> 00:01:01.890
I don't remember my parents'
faces out of the crib.

00:01:01.890 --> 00:01:03.740
I remember Kong.

00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:05.646
That's what stuck.

00:01:05.646 --> 00:01:45.350
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:01:45.350 --> 00:01:48.030
I got started in film criticism
I worked at the

00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:50.060
Public Radio station
in Detroit.

00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:51.070
They needed a film critic.

00:01:51.070 --> 00:01:52.560
I was in school.

00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:53.960
I said, I'll do it.

00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:55.670
OK, great, you can do it.

00:01:55.670 --> 00:02:00.770
And the idea of going to movies
for free, it was like

00:02:00.770 --> 00:02:01.760
the express train to heaven.

00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:02.320
What are you kidding?

00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:03.230
No stops.

00:02:03.230 --> 00:02:06.060
I look at movies in
my spare time.

00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:10.810
I look at DVDs and laser discs
at home because I love movies.

00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:12.440
I have no idea how many
movies I've seen,

00:02:12.440 --> 00:02:13.690
thousands of movies.

00:02:16.750 --> 00:02:21.000
We inhabit a film crazy
universe, a world taken over

00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:22.406
by the movies.

00:02:29.070 --> 00:02:33.920
These crowds to watch a film
could be anywhere on earth.

00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:37.810
People lined up to see a
favorite art film, a Hollywood

00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:43.650
blockbuster, an admired
director and stars.

00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:48.150
The one common factor that
everyone has, whether he's a

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peasant in Bolivia or a Pope
in the Vatican, is that, in

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some way, film has
touched him.

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In some way.

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For a few people, film
has a different,

00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:02.840
perhaps deeper, meaning.

00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:05.710
It's their profession
to get to a movie.

00:03:05.710 --> 00:03:07.620
And they respond to cinema as a

00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:09.990
personal crusade and calling.

00:03:09.990 --> 00:03:10.915
I live for discovery.

00:03:10.915 --> 00:03:13.180
I live for finding somebody,
putting it all

00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:14.400
together in a way way.

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If I can see three movies
this weekend, why

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should I just see one?

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I am a junkie.

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If movies could kill
you, I would have

00:03:20.730 --> 00:03:23.410
been dead years ago.

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They are the film critics.

00:03:26.394 --> 00:03:32.050
Amelie from Montmartre is this
utterly delightful film.

00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:34.724
I absolutely hated Amelie.

00:03:34.724 --> 00:03:36.306
It's exactly the sort
of people the film

00:03:36.306 --> 00:03:36.990
are nostalgic for.

00:03:36.990 --> 00:03:37.955
She's just so lovely.

00:03:37.955 --> 00:03:40.280
Everything that happens to
her is just so lovely.

00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:44.900
The job of film critic is to
expand the movie and to inform

00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:49.618
the reader about what more
it is then just a movie.

00:03:49.618 --> 00:03:52.010
Now, what's smart about it is
that is knows that nostalgia.

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It's not oblivious to it.

00:03:53.860 --> 00:03:56.160
It's very consciously re-working
all of these

00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:59.470
beloved tropes from
French cinema.

00:04:03.430 --> 00:04:07.740
It's celebrated for being
life-affirming and very human.

00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:10.135
And, in fact, it has no
human dimensions.

00:04:10.135 --> 00:04:13.010
I mean, all the characters
have just one trait.

00:04:13.010 --> 00:04:14.260
It's like a cartoon.

00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:24.470
Criticism, ultimately, is about
your relationship to

00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:27.630
this work, your relationship
to the world, this works

00:04:27.630 --> 00:04:29.900
relationship to the world, this
works relationship to

00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:31.230
other works.

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It's about all these shifting
ways of being in the world.

00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:37.760
That's what criticism
is about.

00:04:37.760 --> 00:04:39.310
It's about thinking.

00:04:39.310 --> 00:04:43.980
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:04:43.980 --> 00:04:48.210
Those who review past unnoticed
in the crowds,

00:04:48.210 --> 00:04:51.180
perhaps as it should be.

00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:54.780
But would criticism be more
valued if their faces and

00:04:54.780 --> 00:05:02.130
voices were known, and their
back story, and history?

00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:14.680
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:19.520
100 years ago, silent movies
played everywhere in America,

00:05:19.520 --> 00:05:26.784
sad ones and funny ones,
and very odd ones.

00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:35.560
But you were on your own
choosing among them.

00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:40.540
The professional of film critic
hadn't been invented.

00:05:40.540 --> 00:05:44.120
All that changed around
1907, a decade after

00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:46.100
the birth of cinema.

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Trade papers assigned writers
to comment on this newly

00:05:49.290 --> 00:05:51.312
popular mass entertainment.

00:05:51.312 --> 00:05:59.200
[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The first critiques were
little more than plot

00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:05.680
synopses, written by general
reporters to coax advertising

00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.230
from the new motion
picture companies.

00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:11.600
Earliest criticism was written
by people who had not grown up

00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.180
in an era of film.

00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:17.580
They were discovering film,
so to speak, as they were

00:06:17.580 --> 00:06:20.930
writing about it.

00:06:20.930 --> 00:06:22.955
Were movies nothing more
than filmed theater?

00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:30.690
Or were they a vastly different
kind of medium,

00:06:30.690 --> 00:06:32.931
going where theater
never ventured?

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What should be talked about
in a movie review?

00:06:42.700 --> 00:06:47.130
One writer developed a point
of view, Frank E. Woods, a

00:06:47.130 --> 00:06:50.260
columnist at the New York
Dramatic Mirror.

00:06:50.260 --> 00:06:54.230
Woods was arguably the first
movie reviewer in America.

00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:58.100
Movies at that point were
really just novelty.

00:06:58.100 --> 00:07:01.850
He did have a kind of a vision
that movies might be more than

00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:03.560
a 10 or 11 minute reel.

00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:05.465
They had the potential
for being art.

00:07:08.610 --> 00:07:12.590
He focused his articles on movie
acting, lecturing that

00:07:12.590 --> 00:07:15.330
it should be more subdued and
subtle than live theater.

00:07:18.090 --> 00:07:20.600
He studied the one and
two reelers coming

00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:22.960
out of biograph pictures.

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And wrote and praised of those
directed by D.W. Griffith.

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It is not the personality of
particular players that makes

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for success.

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First, it's the story,
second the direction.

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Woods was the first critic to go
to work for the very people

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he reviewed.

00:07:44.520 --> 00:07:48.080
He would join Griffith and
Company in a dramatic move

00:07:48.080 --> 00:07:51.400
from New York to Hollywood.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:07:56.170 --> 00:08:01.670
Few realized that Griffith's
1915 epic was co-written by a

00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:02.920
film critic.

00:08:05.830 --> 00:08:07.320
He talked it up.

00:08:07.320 --> 00:08:08.140
It was a great work.

00:08:08.140 --> 00:08:09.890
This is a huge thing
that we're doing.

00:08:09.890 --> 00:08:13.260
It's unprecedented in American
film, all that.

00:08:13.260 --> 00:08:18.270
So probably the beginnings of
the buzz about Birth began

00:08:18.270 --> 00:08:22.330
with Frank Woods at some
cafe in Los Angeles

00:08:22.330 --> 00:08:25.200
as they were shooting.

00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:29.000
Woods invested a fair amount of
money in Los Angeles real

00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:31.150
estate and became rather rich.

00:08:31.150 --> 00:08:35.130
By early '20s, he was gone from
Griffith's life, and gone

00:08:35.130 --> 00:08:37.190
from the movie.

00:08:37.190 --> 00:08:41.850
Into the film world came Vachel
Lindsay, who wrote what

00:08:41.850 --> 00:08:46.570
is really the first serious
book about film in this

00:08:46.570 --> 00:08:49.300
country called The Art of
the Moving Picture.

00:08:49.300 --> 00:08:52.680
It was published in 1915.

00:08:52.680 --> 00:08:56.680
Lindsay was a poet smitten
by the cinema.

00:08:56.680 --> 00:09:01.020
Among his verse were peons
to movie stars.

00:09:01.020 --> 00:09:04.940
There was an unhidden crush on
Mary Pickford, whose films he

00:09:04.940 --> 00:09:06.500
watched again and again.

00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:13.670
Lindsay compared Little
Mary to a Botticelli.

00:09:13.670 --> 00:09:18.430
Painting in motion he called
film, poetry of the eye.

00:09:18.430 --> 00:09:25.210
As in this adaptation of a Poe
short story which she admired.

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He saw something that
others saw too.

00:09:27.920 --> 00:09:31.510
But he saw it more keenly, and
more memorably, and he wrote

00:09:31.510 --> 00:09:38.010
about, that the arrival of film
was a key moment in the

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history of human
consciousness.

00:09:42.016 --> 00:09:46.010
That it was going to change
the way people thought,

00:09:46.010 --> 00:09:52.190
dreamed, fantasized,
the way they

00:09:52.190 --> 00:09:54.250
shaped their inner selves.

00:09:56.923 --> 00:10:06.490
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:09.920
The person who defined the beat
of a modern film critic

00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:12.840
was Robert Sherwood.

00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:16.980
In 1920, the 25-year-old started
a decade of weekly

00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:20.975
reviews for Life, a New
York humor magazine.

00:10:23.650 --> 00:10:28.870
The 1920s were a time of
prosperity, nowhere more than

00:10:28.870 --> 00:10:31.110
in a booming Hollywood.

00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:34.370
Sherwood's playful, upbeat
voice was in tune with

00:10:34.370 --> 00:10:36.733
filmdom's spirit and energy.

00:10:36.733 --> 00:10:41.080
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:43.900
Buster Keaton has helped to keep
the much molested human

00:10:43.900 --> 00:10:47.290
race in good humor at a time
when it has nothing to think

00:10:47.290 --> 00:10:50.680
about but high taxes, United
States senators, banana

00:10:50.680 --> 00:10:54.930
shortages, and senor
Mussolini.

00:10:54.930 --> 00:10:56.080
He was a real movie fan.

00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:59.690
He was kind of genial
reviewer, kind of a

00:10:59.690 --> 00:11:02.210
good-natured reviewer.

00:11:02.210 --> 00:11:05.420
For the first time with
Sherwood, Hollywood actively

00:11:05.420 --> 00:11:06.830
courted a film critic.

00:11:09.512 --> 00:11:14.680
He left New York on a cross
country train and visited the

00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:16.210
studios as their guest.

00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:21.760
His wedding showed off
his media power.

00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:25.630
It was attended not only by
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald,

00:11:25.630 --> 00:11:28.540
but by filmdom's royal
couple, Douglas

00:11:28.540 --> 00:11:30.125
Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.

00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:37.100
He then went on to become, I
think, the man who won more

00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:38.980
Pulitzer Prizes than any single

00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:41.250
individual in American history.

00:11:41.250 --> 00:11:44.220
I mean, for his plays,
and his biography of

00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:46.220
Roosevelt and Hopkins.

00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:52.090
He actually wrote The Best Years
Of Our Lives, the movie.

00:11:52.090 --> 00:11:55.750
The screenplay was written by
Robert E. Sherwood, Pulitzer

00:11:55.750 --> 00:11:57.952
Prize winning playwright
of Petrified

00:11:57.952 --> 00:12:00.070
Forest an Idiot's Delight.

00:12:00.070 --> 00:12:02.350
Sherwood was the first
film critic to

00:12:02.350 --> 00:12:04.880
taste fame and glory.

00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:09.670
But he'd reviewed in the 1920s
for a more modest reason.

00:12:09.670 --> 00:12:11.860
He really enjoyed going
to the movies.

00:12:14.490 --> 00:12:16.940
For the self-conscious highbrows
who know nothing

00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:20.820
about motion pictures, I have
no respect whatsoever.

00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:26.391
I should go to the movies even
if I were not paid to do so.

00:12:30.130 --> 00:12:32.780
I've sometimes been accused
around my magazine of having

00:12:32.780 --> 00:12:36.590
an unhealthy attraction to dark,
disturbing, edgy movies.

00:12:36.590 --> 00:12:37.790
And it's probably true.

00:12:37.790 --> 00:12:42.330
I think that may go back to an
experience I had where my

00:12:42.330 --> 00:12:43.930
parents used to take me
and my brothers to

00:12:43.930 --> 00:12:45.510
drive-ins in the late '60s.

00:12:45.510 --> 00:12:48.630
And I remember I saw Rosemary's
Baby when I was

00:12:48.630 --> 00:12:50.340
nine years old.

00:12:50.340 --> 00:12:54.240
Ruth Gordon really freaked
me out in that movie.

00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:54.450
Oh, you're pregnant.

00:12:54.450 --> 00:12:56.430
No, not yet-

00:12:56.430 --> 00:12:58.430
With that little whiny voice.

00:12:58.430 --> 00:13:00.350
Wonderful, you're young
and healthy-

00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:03.240
She's sort of banal, just the
old lady next door, and then

00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:07.340
she turns out to be this
devil worshiper.

00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:08.970
He chose you out of all world.

00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:12.432
Out of all the woman in the
whole world, he chose you.

00:13:12.432 --> 00:13:16.235
The movie seems to about this
forbidden world of mystery.

00:13:16.235 --> 00:13:18.470
And I wanted to see
more of it.

00:13:18.470 --> 00:13:22.704
And I wanted to figure out why
it beckoned me so much.

00:13:22.704 --> 00:13:29.278
That was probably the birth of
why I became a movie critic.

00:13:29.278 --> 00:13:33.960
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.360
I think everybody thinks
they're a film critic.

00:13:36.360 --> 00:13:38.210
What actually qualifies you to
be a film critic, at least

00:13:38.210 --> 00:13:39.590
professionally, is that
somebody will

00:13:39.590 --> 00:13:40.610
pay you to do it.

00:13:40.610 --> 00:13:43.130
There actually is no
real qualification.

00:13:43.130 --> 00:13:44.890
There's no degree you get.

00:13:44.890 --> 00:13:49.030
My qualification is that I'm
more of a nice person than a

00:13:49.030 --> 00:13:50.480
nasty person on a good day.

00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:53.280
And I know a little bit about
how movies are put together.

00:13:53.280 --> 00:13:55.220
And I've seen an awful
lot of them.

00:13:55.220 --> 00:13:58.720
There's no diploma, or
credential, or license, or

00:13:58.720 --> 00:13:59.970
union card.

00:13:59.970 --> 00:14:03.840
I guess what qualifies me is
that I always loved movies,

00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:06.540
and especially loved
arguing about them

00:14:06.540 --> 00:14:07.430
after I'd seen them.

00:14:07.430 --> 00:14:12.870
Why are you not playing first
base and Jason Giambi is?

00:14:12.870 --> 00:14:16.620
Or why are you not playing
shortstop and Derek Jeter is?

00:14:16.620 --> 00:14:17.490
He got two job.

00:14:17.490 --> 00:14:19.246
I got the job.

00:14:19.246 --> 00:14:38.680
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:14:38.680 --> 00:14:41.840
Who didn't go to pictures
in the '30s and '40s?

00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:44.455
The great studio era.

00:14:53.380 --> 00:14:56.050
But what movie to see?

00:14:56.050 --> 00:15:00.170
Most Americans had a simple
need for a review.

00:15:00.170 --> 00:15:03.840
They checked the family
newspaper to see what actors

00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:08.000
were in it, and did it
sound entertaining?

00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:12.870
Newspapers, loads of them,
competed in every city.

00:15:12.870 --> 00:15:15.300
Audiences could pick and
choose among all

00:15:15.300 --> 00:15:18.070
kinds of film critics.

00:15:18.070 --> 00:15:21.650
In those days, criticism
was clearly

00:15:21.650 --> 00:15:24.130
divided into two kinds.

00:15:24.130 --> 00:15:30.640
One was popular, general
criticism, written by very

00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:33.070
pleasant people who were
members of the

00:15:33.070 --> 00:15:36.660
audience, so to speak.

00:15:36.660 --> 00:15:40.810
In New York, many opted in the
'30s and '40s for populist

00:15:40.810 --> 00:15:44.530
Kate Cameron in The Daily
News, famous for her

00:15:44.530 --> 00:15:46.280
straightforward rhetoric
and the star

00:15:46.280 --> 00:15:48.870
system of rating movies.

00:15:48.870 --> 00:15:52.510
The other group was the
intellectual writers,

00:15:52.510 --> 00:15:56.130
equipped, cultivated people,
who were writing for small

00:15:56.130 --> 00:15:59.660
circulation magazines.

00:15:59.660 --> 00:16:02.400
Open a tiny periodical,
and you'd find an

00:16:02.400 --> 00:16:04.446
unusual critic voice.

00:16:07.570 --> 00:16:11.940
I first saw Storm Over Asia
intact in Amsterdam.

00:16:11.940 --> 00:16:13.800
I've seen it three
times since.

00:16:13.800 --> 00:16:17.900
My reaction has always been the
same, an exciting film,

00:16:17.900 --> 00:16:20.510
which beats any American
audience film.

00:16:20.510 --> 00:16:24.020
It makes the boasted, dramatic
technique of America appear a

00:16:24.020 --> 00:16:25.943
schoolboy's exercise.

00:16:25.943 --> 00:16:31.500
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:35.030
Some saw cinema as a high,
modernistic art form.

00:16:35.030 --> 00:16:39.020
They praised European masters,
such as [? Mernow ?], Dryer,

00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:41.460
and Pudovkin.

00:16:41.460 --> 00:16:44.800
Others dipped into the
American vernacular.

00:16:44.800 --> 00:16:47.750
They wrote of Hollywood and
the hard-boiled, cynical

00:16:47.750 --> 00:16:50.930
language of Chandler
and Hammett.

00:16:50.930 --> 00:16:54.110
The critic of the late '30s
that I've always liked the

00:16:54.110 --> 00:16:57.270
best was a guy named
Otis Ferguson,

00:16:57.270 --> 00:16:58.590
wrote The New Republic.

00:16:58.590 --> 00:17:02.080
He's one of the first critics to
actually speak in sort of a

00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:04.150
people's language
about movies.

00:17:04.150 --> 00:17:05.750
He's just really entertaining.

00:17:05.750 --> 00:17:07.579
Pretty much everything
he wrote was

00:17:07.579 --> 00:17:09.710
sharp and it was incisive.

00:17:09.710 --> 00:17:14.170
Ferguson's language was lean
and tough, in praise of

00:17:14.170 --> 00:17:16.555
fast-paced genre films.

00:17:16.555 --> 00:17:20.700
A ring champ gets implicated
in a murder and blows town.

00:17:20.700 --> 00:17:24.160
And shows up on a sort of
boys town date ranch.

00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:26.310
There's a gal on the ranch that
who has all the little

00:17:26.310 --> 00:17:30.520
toughies nailed, and hates
evil like anything.

00:17:30.520 --> 00:17:32.820
Generally, the film holds
together enough to make some

00:17:32.820 --> 00:17:36.160
nice, fast watching.

00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:40.810
He went to war in the merchant
marine was killed very early.

00:17:40.810 --> 00:17:45.390
And it was kind of a great
career that was cut off by the

00:17:45.390 --> 00:17:46.870
tragedy of World War II.

00:17:49.730 --> 00:17:51.960
Otis Ferguson, he was
very patriotic.

00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:55.300
And the job was open for
about 14 seconds.

00:17:55.300 --> 00:18:01.792
And I phoned up The New Republic
and said, now you've

00:18:01.792 --> 00:18:03.320
got a new movie critic.

00:18:03.320 --> 00:18:06.070
Manny Farber became criticism's
most renowned

00:18:06.070 --> 00:18:11.310
stylist, his words sparked by
jazz and modern painting.

00:18:11.310 --> 00:18:13.680
Farber writes nothing
that could be

00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:15.450
considered standard English.

00:18:15.450 --> 00:18:19.890
Everything is shoot the
shoots and fun house

00:18:19.890 --> 00:18:21.440
mirrors in his prose.

00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:23.900
Everything seems to have
been cobbled together

00:18:23.900 --> 00:18:26.360
syntactically, lexically.

00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:31.195
I circumvented writing about the
story or the plot, and I

00:18:31.195 --> 00:18:35.000
dived into the center
of the movie.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.410
I felt if I could describe
something, a gesture, or an

00:18:39.410 --> 00:18:43.640
action, or a scene, or
a piece of scenery,

00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.990
I was on safe ground.

00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:53.020
Like Otis Ferguson, Farber
wrote with special flavor

00:18:53.020 --> 00:18:57.250
about low budget crime
melodramas, what he called

00:18:57.250 --> 00:18:58.640
termite art.

00:18:58.640 --> 00:18:59.816
Come on take it off!

00:18:59.816 --> 00:19:00.950
I don't like games!

00:19:00.950 --> 00:19:03.920
The best action films are
slicing journeys into the

00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:08.770
lower depths of American life,
dregs, outcasts, lonely hard

00:19:08.770 --> 00:19:10.910
wanderers caught
in a buzz saw.

00:19:10.910 --> 00:19:12.950
What makes a two bit heel like
you think a heater would give

00:19:12.950 --> 00:19:13.870
an edge over me?

00:19:13.870 --> 00:19:16.870
With material that is hopelessly
worn out, the

00:19:16.870 --> 00:19:19.770
underground director becomes
beautifully graphic.

00:19:19.770 --> 00:19:21.540
What's waiting for
you, Harris?

00:19:21.540 --> 00:19:22.790
The chair?

00:19:22.790 --> 00:19:23.800
The gas chamber?

00:19:23.800 --> 00:19:25.260
Or just a rope?

00:19:25.260 --> 00:19:27.620
The best thing that can be said
of a critic, that what

00:19:27.620 --> 00:19:30.330
they write is so singular and
interesting that you can't

00:19:30.330 --> 00:19:32.630
turn it into advertising.

00:19:32.630 --> 00:19:35.200
With Manny, you can't even tell
some times whether he

00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.991
likes the movie or hates
it, doesn't matter.

00:19:41.150 --> 00:19:44.540
The Southern tries simply to
be a poetic, realistic

00:19:44.540 --> 00:19:49.740
chronicle of a farm year's hope,
work, need, anxiety,

00:19:49.740 --> 00:19:54.490
pride, love, disaster,
and reward.

00:19:54.490 --> 00:19:58.740
Is a chronicle chiefly of soil,
seasons, and weather.

00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:00.980
It is one of the most sensitive
and beautiful

00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:04.200
American made films I've seen.

00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:07.710
Every film critic who thinks
about the history of what we

00:20:07.710 --> 00:20:10.790
do, and the great figures of the
past, has to think about

00:20:10.790 --> 00:20:14.780
James Agee, who was really just
the first great American

00:20:14.780 --> 00:20:15.800
movie critic.

00:20:15.800 --> 00:20:20.200
He didn't invent it, but showed
what it could be as a

00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:23.460
form of journalism, and a form
of literature, and a way of

00:20:23.460 --> 00:20:25.410
talking about the world.

00:20:25.410 --> 00:20:28.670
He reviewed for both Time
Magazine and The Nation,

00:20:28.670 --> 00:20:31.060
aligning highbrow and
popular taste.

00:20:34.540 --> 00:20:39.470
In 1949, Agee wrote for Life
magazine his most celebrated

00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:44.290
article, comedy's greatest era,
a homage to the slapstick

00:20:44.290 --> 00:20:46.250
comedies of years gone by.

00:20:50.550 --> 00:20:55.320
His famous essay on the comic
mind, and Laurel and Hardy

00:20:55.320 --> 00:20:57.470
taking the piano across
the rope bridge

00:20:57.470 --> 00:20:59.760
when they meet a gorilla.

00:20:59.760 --> 00:21:01.270
I see a monkey.

00:21:01.270 --> 00:21:02.798
A what?

00:21:02.798 --> 00:21:04.280
A monkey.

00:21:04.280 --> 00:21:10.826
It's a kind of x-ray of the
human sense of humor.

00:21:10.826 --> 00:21:14.600
And the gorilla sense
of humor.

00:21:14.600 --> 00:21:17.560
Ahead of other American critics,
he credited the

00:21:17.560 --> 00:21:22.540
movies he most admired to the
personality behind the camera.

00:21:22.540 --> 00:21:24.670
The best films were
personal ones,

00:21:24.670 --> 00:21:28.360
made by forceful directors.

00:21:28.360 --> 00:21:39.040
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:21:39.040 --> 00:21:42.230
Meanwhile, back at daily papers,
where was The New York

00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:45.648
Times in all of this?

00:21:45.648 --> 00:21:50.230
In 1940, The Times promoted a
young reporter, whose words

00:21:50.230 --> 00:21:53.490
and reviews would have
real impact.

00:21:53.490 --> 00:21:56.560
Representing 18 daily newspaper
film critics is

00:21:56.560 --> 00:21:59.340
their president Bosley Crowther,
popular critic of

00:21:59.340 --> 00:22:00.710
The New York Times.

00:22:00.710 --> 00:22:02.880
Katharine Hepburn is back
in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's

00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:04.463
production of The Philadelphia
Story.

00:22:08.530 --> 00:22:11.050
And for it, the New York film
critics are indeed happy to

00:22:11.050 --> 00:22:13.680
make this award for the
best performance by

00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:15.518
an actress in 1940.

00:22:15.518 --> 00:22:17.430
[APPLAUSE]

00:22:17.430 --> 00:22:23.340
If Mr. Crowther and the New York
critics don't know how

00:22:23.340 --> 00:22:27.470
hysterically happy I am to be
chosen their girl of the year,

00:22:27.470 --> 00:22:28.844
they're crazy.

00:22:28.844 --> 00:22:33.290
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:22:33.290 --> 00:22:38.210
Bosley Crowther for twenty-five
years was the big

00:22:38.210 --> 00:22:41.310
authority on film in New
York, and everywhere.

00:22:41.310 --> 00:22:43.310
He influenced Hollywood too.

00:22:43.310 --> 00:22:46.190
He influenced the Oscars
and everything.

00:22:46.190 --> 00:22:49.490
He was a very lively and
entertaining writer.

00:22:49.490 --> 00:22:51.260
Some of his turns of
phrase are kind

00:22:51.260 --> 00:22:52.950
of absurdity wonderful.

00:22:52.950 --> 00:22:55.570
There was some John Ford he
reviewed, which he refers to

00:22:55.570 --> 00:22:57.420
as, a dilly of a cavalry
picture.

00:22:57.420 --> 00:22:59.170
I could never write
that sentence.

00:22:59.170 --> 00:23:01.100
But I kind of wish
that I could.

00:23:01.100 --> 00:23:09.520
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:23:09.520 --> 00:23:13.330
Crowther was a booster for
subtitled foreign films coming

00:23:13.330 --> 00:23:19.190
from France, India,
Italy, Japan.

00:23:19.190 --> 00:23:22.170
But best were Crowther's
sustained attacks on movie

00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:27.010
censorship, McCarthyism,
the blacklist.

00:23:27.010 --> 00:23:29.920
He was a good democratic,
a good liberal.

00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:31.940
He supported the right causes.

00:23:31.940 --> 00:23:36.290
And when those were embodied in
film, so much the better.

00:23:36.290 --> 00:23:40.400
On the other hand, Crowther
looked past b genre movies.

00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:43.363
He had little feel for
cynical film noirs.

00:23:43.363 --> 00:23:44.289
Go!

00:23:44.289 --> 00:23:46.141
[GUNSHOTS]

00:23:48.730 --> 00:23:55.160
For Crowther, a moral theme,
anti-fascism, anti-prejudice,

00:23:55.160 --> 00:24:00.260
was far more important than
cinematic style or direction.

00:24:00.260 --> 00:24:04.090
He reigned at the times for 20
years before his aesthetics

00:24:04.090 --> 00:24:08.690
were challenged by young Turk
film critics, including Andrew

00:24:08.690 --> 00:24:11.278
Sarris and Pauline Kael.

00:24:11.278 --> 00:24:15.870
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:24:15.870 --> 00:24:20.240
Pauline, and Andy, and I, looked
at movies in a kind of

00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:21.980
amoral way.

00:24:21.980 --> 00:24:25.015
We just wanted to see,
aesthetically, what that movie

00:24:25.015 --> 00:24:26.840
was doing or not doing.

00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:33.070
And we didn't give a raps about
what its effect was on

00:24:33.070 --> 00:24:36.230
the morals of a 12-year-old
who happened to see it.

00:24:36.230 --> 00:24:39.342
We were just movie people.

00:24:44.560 --> 00:24:49.530
Diabolique was the first
French film I ever saw.

00:24:49.530 --> 00:24:51.080
And first of all, it was
set in a school.

00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:51.810
And I went to a girls school.

00:24:51.810 --> 00:24:54.540
And you had Simone Signoret
and Vera Clouzot skulking

00:24:54.540 --> 00:24:56.413
around having some sort of
strange relationship.

00:24:56.413 --> 00:25:01.370
[SPEAKING FRENCH]

00:25:01.370 --> 00:25:04.010
That sort of vaguely reminded me
of some of the teachers in

00:25:04.010 --> 00:25:04.700
the girl's school.

00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:08.000
And then the bathtub scene,
which was the most terrifying,

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:10.870
even after seeing Psycho,
everything else, when you

00:25:10.870 --> 00:25:14.230
think someone's dead, and
then they rise, when

00:25:14.230 --> 00:25:16.990
Paul Maurice rose.

00:25:16.990 --> 00:25:18.170
And I screamed.

00:25:18.170 --> 00:25:21.630
Everyone in the audience
screamed.

00:25:21.630 --> 00:25:26.490
I knew then, if I hadn't known
before, that the totally

00:25:26.490 --> 00:25:32.035
convulsive effect of the
immediacy of movies.

00:25:32.035 --> 00:25:43.250
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:25:43.250 --> 00:25:46.920
In France in the 1950s, young
critics around the film

00:25:46.920 --> 00:25:50.230
magazine Cahiers Du Cinema were
coming up with the same

00:25:50.230 --> 00:25:52.010
approach as Agee.

00:25:52.010 --> 00:25:54.440
They built a philosophy
around, the

00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:57.560
so-called auteur theory.

00:25:57.560 --> 00:26:00.910
The auteur theory states that
the director is the guiding

00:26:00.910 --> 00:26:04.220
intelligence, the guiding
spirit, the person who

00:26:04.220 --> 00:26:06.910
determines what the film
is going to be like.

00:26:06.910 --> 00:26:09.620
And that you can see a through
line through all his work, no

00:26:09.620 --> 00:26:11.680
matter who the writer is, no
matter who the cinematographer

00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:14.350
is, no matter who the actors
are, that the director's

00:26:14.350 --> 00:26:17.210
spirit overwhelms
everything else.

00:26:17.210 --> 00:26:21.050
The director not only matters,
but matters more than just

00:26:21.050 --> 00:26:23.370
about everything else that might
go into the movie, such

00:26:23.370 --> 00:26:26.320
as the screenplay, the lighting,
the actors and the

00:26:26.320 --> 00:26:27.570
words they say.

00:26:30.260 --> 00:26:34.180
Andrew Sarris became enamored of
the French idea that a film

00:26:34.180 --> 00:26:36.630
director can be as
much an artist as

00:26:36.630 --> 00:26:38.610
a painter, or novelist.

00:26:41.872 --> 00:26:44.980
I love French culture and
French criticism.

00:26:44.980 --> 00:26:48.710
It's often crazy, often off
the wall, but it's always

00:26:48.710 --> 00:26:50.690
entertaining.

00:26:50.690 --> 00:26:51.644
He reads French.

00:26:51.644 --> 00:26:55.200
He happens upon the Cahier crowd
and their writings, and

00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:58.280
gets excited by what he sees,
and says, I got to bring this

00:26:58.280 --> 00:27:00.870
to the folks back home.

00:27:00.870 --> 00:27:04.310
Alongside Jonas Mekas, advocate
of underground

00:27:04.310 --> 00:27:08.860
cinema, Sarris wrote in the '60s
for The Village Voice.

00:27:08.860 --> 00:27:12.510
It was there that he tried out
his new aesthetic on Alfred

00:27:12.510 --> 00:27:16.550
Hitchcock's Psycho.

00:27:16.550 --> 00:27:18.800
I saw it without any warning.

00:27:18.800 --> 00:27:23.090
I saw it the first day
of its release.

00:27:23.090 --> 00:27:25.250
I was still living with
my mother in Queens.

00:27:25.250 --> 00:27:31.110
And I was very susceptible to
that maternal figure looming

00:27:31.110 --> 00:27:35.216
in the doorway with
a big knife.

00:27:35.216 --> 00:27:36.650
And I screamed.

00:27:36.650 --> 00:27:38.030
I literally screamed.

00:27:38.030 --> 00:27:41.300
It literally scared the
hell out of me.

00:27:41.300 --> 00:27:44.840
But then when I sat down to
write it, I was aware that

00:27:44.840 --> 00:27:47.910
Hitchcock had been reevaluated
in France.

00:27:47.910 --> 00:27:51.700
In line with French critics,
Sarris claimed that Hitchcock

00:27:51.700 --> 00:27:54.060
was a metaphysical artist,
an auteur.

00:27:57.370 --> 00:28:00.630
He insists upon a moral
reckoning for his characters

00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:02.716
and for his audience.

00:28:02.716 --> 00:28:04.920
The bathroom.

00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:07.100
We can violate the commandments
at our own

00:28:07.100 --> 00:28:13.391
psychic peril, but we must pay
the price in guilt at the end.

00:28:13.391 --> 00:28:17.080
[SCREAM]

00:28:17.080 --> 00:28:21.130
Supporting the auteur theory,
Sarris brought undervalued

00:28:21.130 --> 00:28:26.010
American directors into the
light, John Ford, Howard

00:28:26.010 --> 00:28:30.960
Hawks, the long-deceased
D.W. Griffith.

00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:34.320
With his book, The American
Cinema, Sarris provided a way

00:28:34.320 --> 00:28:37.050
to approach American film, to
look at it through the eyes of

00:28:37.050 --> 00:28:39.610
the director, through the eyes
of the auteur theory.

00:28:39.610 --> 00:28:40.560
I knew The American Cinema.

00:28:40.560 --> 00:28:43.220
I practically memorized it
when I was in college.

00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:45.540
I just used to refer
to as the book.

00:28:45.540 --> 00:28:48.000
He actually haven't made obvious
points, but true

00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.060
points, about how certain
directors are really good.

00:28:51.060 --> 00:28:52.610
And you can actually see
what's good about them.

00:28:52.610 --> 00:28:54.030
And that they have certain
things that work

00:28:54.030 --> 00:28:55.280
over and over again.

00:28:57.430 --> 00:29:01.140
Can we conclude that, in the
United States, the auteur

00:29:01.140 --> 00:29:05.410
theory is an attempt by an adult
males to justify staying

00:29:05.410 --> 00:29:08.320
inside the small range of
experience in their boyhood

00:29:08.320 --> 00:29:10.370
and adolescence?

00:29:10.370 --> 00:29:13.790
The author of this attack on
Sarris was a shoot from the

00:29:13.790 --> 00:29:17.450
hip Californian who'd run an art
house cinema in Berkeley.

00:29:17.450 --> 00:29:21.590
Pauline Kael.

00:29:21.590 --> 00:29:27.580
She called the auteur theory
silly, dangerous, anti-art.

00:29:27.580 --> 00:29:29.190
I didn't know anything
about her.

00:29:29.190 --> 00:29:30.630
She was off in San Francisco.

00:29:30.630 --> 00:29:36.650
And she sounded to me very
bitchy, very tough.

00:29:36.650 --> 00:29:37.930
What she is is a sniper.

00:29:37.930 --> 00:29:40.470
She is a master of
insult humor.

00:29:40.470 --> 00:29:44.320
And when she tore apart Andrew
Sarris in circles and squares

00:29:44.320 --> 00:29:46.130
one of the reasons it was
effective, although it's

00:29:46.130 --> 00:29:49.070
wrongheaded, it's because
it was so funny.

00:29:49.070 --> 00:29:53.190
It may be a very nice time for
you, Andy, to admit that you

00:29:53.190 --> 00:29:56.600
no longer subscribe to
the auteur theory.

00:29:56.600 --> 00:29:59.490
I always thought my life
would be like a movie.

00:29:59.490 --> 00:30:02.690
I would walk in, and then
there would be Katharine

00:30:02.690 --> 00:30:04.640
Hepburn adjusting
her stocking.

00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:08.020
And I would get a flash
of her beautiful legs.

00:30:08.020 --> 00:30:10.400
And that would be the beginning

00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:11.970
of a beautiful romance.

00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:14.720
And that situation actually
presented itself because

00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:15.880
Pauline called me.

00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:18.680
I was a little startled that she
called me because I'd read

00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:20.020
her attack on me.

00:30:20.020 --> 00:30:20.710
It hadn't been published yet.

00:30:20.710 --> 00:30:21.770
But I'd read it.

00:30:21.770 --> 00:30:23.350
She wanted to meet me.

00:30:23.350 --> 00:30:24.540
I said, well, I don't know.

00:30:24.540 --> 00:30:28.990
And she said, won't your
lever let you come?

00:30:28.990 --> 00:30:33.735
She was still clinging to this
homophobic interpretation of

00:30:33.735 --> 00:30:38.770
auteurism of the auteurs
were all, I don't

00:30:38.770 --> 00:30:40.240
know, little sissies.

00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:41.905
And I thought that
was very nervy.

00:30:41.905 --> 00:30:44.060
So I said sure, I'll
come there.

00:30:44.060 --> 00:30:46.310
But I took one look at
Pauline and she was

00:30:46.310 --> 00:30:47.560
not Katharine Hepburn.

00:30:50.570 --> 00:30:54.540
You never stop to think what
you look like when you have

00:30:54.540 --> 00:30:56.270
these fantasies.

00:30:56.270 --> 00:31:00.490
You are not Spencer
Tracy either.

00:31:00.490 --> 00:31:03.260
Actually, I married
a beautiful girl.

00:31:03.260 --> 00:31:07.204
But that's just luck
on my part.

00:31:07.204 --> 00:31:20.360
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:31:20.360 --> 00:31:23.740
There's one thing that Kael
and Sarris agreed upon.

00:31:23.740 --> 00:31:25.960
And so did younger critics.

00:31:25.960 --> 00:31:29.060
It was that Bosley Crowther,
still at The New York Times

00:31:29.060 --> 00:31:33.150
since the '40s, felt
increasingly out of touch.

00:31:33.150 --> 00:31:36.480
He really didn't know what to
make of the French films when

00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:38.390
they started to come out with
Godard and Truffaut.

00:31:38.390 --> 00:31:39.010
He was upset.

00:31:39.010 --> 00:31:42.500
He was sort of morally
shocked by them.

00:31:42.500 --> 00:31:46.930
From my vantage point as a small
magazine critic, hot

00:31:46.930 --> 00:31:54.220
house critic, whatever,
he was the enemy.

00:31:54.220 --> 00:31:58.460
It really worked in that movie,
since those funny cars

00:31:58.460 --> 00:32:00.290
bucketing across the plain.

00:32:00.290 --> 00:32:03.490
The whole notion of
Clyde's impotence.

00:32:03.490 --> 00:32:06.920
And as he becomes handier
with a gun, his

00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:08.610
potency kind of revives.

00:32:11.980 --> 00:32:16.006
Bosley Crowther just utterly
savaged this movie in The New

00:32:16.006 --> 00:32:16.950
York Times.

00:32:16.950 --> 00:32:19.800
He thought it was immoral
because it sort

00:32:19.800 --> 00:32:22.280
of celebrated gangsters.

00:32:22.280 --> 00:32:25.570
This blending of farce with
brutal killings is as

00:32:25.570 --> 00:32:28.760
pointless as it is
lacking in taste.

00:32:28.760 --> 00:32:31.230
There was an enormous amount
of restiveness at

00:32:31.230 --> 00:32:32.110
the Times with him.

00:32:32.110 --> 00:32:34.980
They were tired of apologizing
for him.

00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:38.310
At same time, a much-read
freelance essay in The New

00:32:38.310 --> 00:32:42.150
Yorker boosted the career
of Pauline Kael.

00:32:42.150 --> 00:32:46.920
The rag doll of death as the gun
blasts keep the bodies of

00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:51.160
Bonnie and Clyde in motion
is brilliant.

00:32:51.160 --> 00:32:54.040
It is a horror that seems
to go on for eternity.

00:32:54.040 --> 00:32:58.090
And yet, it doesn't last a
second beyond what it should.

00:32:58.090 --> 00:33:03.930
Bonnie and Clyde has put the
sting back into death.

00:33:03.930 --> 00:33:09.030
In late 1967, Crowther was
retired by the Times.

00:33:09.030 --> 00:33:13.998
That's when The New Yorker hired
its new film critic.

00:33:13.998 --> 00:33:16.900
You know, we've always
taken high

00:33:16.900 --> 00:33:19.170
culture very, very seriously.

00:33:19.170 --> 00:33:22.350
But we haven't taken popular
culture that seriously.

00:33:22.350 --> 00:33:24.900
And in recent years we've
begun to understand that

00:33:24.900 --> 00:33:28.190
perhaps popular culture affected
people even more

00:33:28.190 --> 00:33:30.260
deeply than high culture.

00:33:30.260 --> 00:33:39.390
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:33:39.390 --> 00:33:42.130
Most of the movies I watched
were on television.

00:33:42.130 --> 00:33:45.240
Certainly, when I was little,
and I remember The Boy with

00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:47.050
Green Hair, Joseph Losey.

00:33:47.050 --> 00:33:49.630
I watched this with
my brother.

00:33:49.630 --> 00:33:52.500
Even thinking about it now it
really kind of spooks me out.

00:33:52.500 --> 00:33:56.030
A kid who wakes up one morning
and his hair has turned green.

00:33:56.030 --> 00:33:57.280
Hey gramp!

00:34:00.494 --> 00:34:04.190
I've got green hair!

00:34:04.190 --> 00:34:07.170
Here's this kid who's not
from outer space.

00:34:07.170 --> 00:34:08.280
He's a regular kid.

00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:09.070
He's like me.

00:34:09.070 --> 00:34:11.120
I could wake up the next morning
with green hair.

00:34:13.750 --> 00:34:16.260
My brother and I still, to this
day, can call each other

00:34:16.260 --> 00:34:18.650
up on the phone and say,
I won't cut it off.

00:34:18.650 --> 00:34:20.980
And I won't dye it!

00:34:20.980 --> 00:34:23.429
It still clenches my stomach
when I think about it.

00:34:23.429 --> 00:34:25.842
It was fantastically
frightening.

00:34:25.842 --> 00:34:36.449
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:34:36.449 --> 00:34:37.670
I wasn't a film geek.

00:34:37.670 --> 00:34:40.520
I wasn't somebody who grew
up watching all of the

00:34:40.520 --> 00:34:41.869
old movies on TV.

00:34:41.869 --> 00:34:45.170
I wasn't somebody who grew
up hanging around

00:34:45.170 --> 00:34:46.980
all the film houses.

00:34:49.830 --> 00:34:52.290
I was constantly at the movies,
constantly at film

00:34:52.290 --> 00:34:54.090
societies, revival houses,
but I didn't

00:34:54.090 --> 00:34:55.750
attempt to write criticism.

00:34:55.750 --> 00:34:57.314
I wanted to be a
fiction writer.

00:34:57.314 --> 00:35:01.070
I wrote a couple of reviews at
the age of 12 of North by

00:35:01.070 --> 00:35:03.190
Northwest and Hole in the
Head that I submitted

00:35:03.190 --> 00:35:04.220
to the local paper.

00:35:04.220 --> 00:35:06.660
And they wouldn't print the
reviews because they said,

00:35:06.660 --> 00:35:08.600
well, what if you
dislike a movie?

00:35:08.600 --> 00:35:11.920
Then the advertisers
will get mad.

00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.320
I think there are two ways you
can get into film criticism.

00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:16.960
One is that you have always
wanted to do it, grown up

00:35:16.960 --> 00:35:19.250
reading it, grown up thinking,
that's the thing to do.

00:35:19.250 --> 00:35:21.440
Or you've done everything
else before.

00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:23.160
I'm in the everything
else before camp.

00:35:23.160 --> 00:35:24.550
I was always a journalist.

00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:26.720
I was always writing.

00:35:26.720 --> 00:35:29.660
But I started actually writing
about classical music.

00:35:29.660 --> 00:35:30.550
I was a violist.

00:35:30.550 --> 00:35:32.440
And I was a pianist.

00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:36.540
I knew a lot of people, a lot of
black people, who read film

00:35:36.540 --> 00:35:39.280
criticism, who read film
criticism, who go to movies.

00:35:39.280 --> 00:35:40.900
It's shocking, but we do.

00:35:40.900 --> 00:35:43.680
And there wasn't anybody,
any black person, really

00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:44.540
writing about it.

00:35:44.540 --> 00:35:46.350
And that's one of the reasons I
wanted to do it, was to sort

00:35:46.350 --> 00:35:49.260
of prove that there was a place
for black people in it.

00:35:49.260 --> 00:35:50.690
It was kind of as
simple as that.

00:35:54.650 --> 00:36:05.540
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:36:05.540 --> 00:36:09.210
In the late '60s and early '70s
being a film critic meant

00:36:09.210 --> 00:36:11.870
writing against the background
of the war in Vietnam.

00:36:14.696 --> 00:36:17.390
Film criticism and the film
critics were all involved in

00:36:17.390 --> 00:36:21.970
this ferment, this turbulence,
this chaos of the times, and

00:36:21.970 --> 00:36:24.590
in the passion of the times,
because people really, really

00:36:24.590 --> 00:36:25.480
cared about things.

00:36:25.480 --> 00:36:28.110
That's one thing the
Vietnam War did.

00:36:28.110 --> 00:36:30.040
It really focused everybody's
energies.

00:36:32.775 --> 00:36:33.242
Mayor's press conference!

00:36:33.242 --> 00:36:34.492
Best baloney in town!

00:36:36.980 --> 00:36:41.610
From Chicago, to LA, to San
Francisco, to Boston, anti-war

00:36:41.610 --> 00:36:44.620
opposition spread the growth
of alternative weeklies.

00:36:44.620 --> 00:36:47.420
I'd like you to start
considering sending me to

00:36:47.420 --> 00:36:49.270
France to cover the Cannes
Film Festival.

00:36:49.270 --> 00:36:50.510
I think it'd be a
very prestigious

00:36:50.510 --> 00:36:51.760
thing for the paper.

00:36:53.780 --> 00:36:57.390
Every weekly had an ambitious
film reviewer who got lots of

00:36:57.390 --> 00:37:01.922
space to write politically,
analytically, personally.

00:37:06.350 --> 00:37:13.720
Boston, home of legendary art
houses, managed two weeklies.

00:37:13.720 --> 00:37:16.530
A lot of really great film
critics came out of Boston.

00:37:16.530 --> 00:37:19.620
It was also kind of unofficial
post-graduate program.

00:37:19.620 --> 00:37:23.270
It's obviously a good place
for critics to start.

00:37:23.270 --> 00:37:24.310
Owen Gleiberman was here.

00:37:24.310 --> 00:37:26.500
Lisa Schwarzbaum was here.

00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:28.140
David Thomson was here.

00:37:28.140 --> 00:37:32.480
David Denby, Janet Maslin,
David Ansen, there was a

00:37:32.480 --> 00:37:34.930
tremendous excitement about
film in Boston.

00:37:34.930 --> 00:37:37.280
It was just one of those places
that had a magical

00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:40.630
combination of great revival
theaters, a terrific

00:37:40.630 --> 00:37:43.780
alternative press, and all these
colleges, which were the

00:37:43.780 --> 00:37:47.310
natural breeding ground
for film buffs.

00:37:47.310 --> 00:37:51.130
Meanwhile, in New York, Vincent
Canby became the Times

00:37:51.130 --> 00:37:53.690
first string critic.

00:37:53.690 --> 00:37:56.400
The worst thing you can ask
critics when they come out of

00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:57.930
a screening is what
did you think?

00:37:57.930 --> 00:37:59.010
What did you think?

00:37:59.010 --> 00:38:01.890
Because I don't think I know
that I know what I think until

00:38:01.890 --> 00:38:03.160
I'm writing.

00:38:03.160 --> 00:38:07.380
Canby was the most powerful
film critic in the United

00:38:07.380 --> 00:38:09.960
States for a period of a
quarter of a century.

00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:12.510
Canby was the make
or break critic.

00:38:12.510 --> 00:38:16.540
Canby had such effortless
style and grace.

00:38:16.540 --> 00:38:17.740
The touch was always right.

00:38:17.740 --> 00:38:21.830
You always felt like he
found the right tone.

00:38:21.830 --> 00:38:24.210
Andreas Winkelman is repairing
the roof of a

00:38:24.210 --> 00:38:25.460
cottage in which he lives.

00:38:29.850 --> 00:38:32.960
He stares off at the sun that
hangs low and dim in the

00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:34.400
Scandinavian sky.

00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:38.790
The sun disappears into the
grey, blue haze but it's as if

00:38:38.790 --> 00:38:42.550
Andreas had willed it invisible,
much as he tried to

00:38:42.550 --> 00:38:45.560
will himself invisible.

00:38:45.560 --> 00:38:48.640
With this lovely image,
Ingmar Bergman begins

00:38:48.640 --> 00:38:50.986
The Passion of Anna.

00:38:50.986 --> 00:38:56.660
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:38:56.660 --> 00:39:00.584
Whether it was Fellini, or
it was Bergman, or it was

00:39:00.584 --> 00:39:07.450
Truffaut, or it was Kurosawa,
it was fun to be a movie

00:39:07.450 --> 00:39:12.120
reviewer then, because those
were defining movie moments

00:39:12.120 --> 00:39:15.230
for a reviewer, or for
the serious audience.

00:39:15.230 --> 00:39:18.760
I would get into a taxi and the
taxi driver would really

00:39:18.760 --> 00:39:21.720
want to argue about a review
I had written.

00:39:21.720 --> 00:39:27.150
Or would tell me my wife doesn't
make a single decision

00:39:27.150 --> 00:39:28.890
about going to the movies
until she knows what

00:39:28.890 --> 00:39:30.530
you think about it.

00:39:30.530 --> 00:39:33.822
And I really had access to
a huge audience then.

00:39:33.822 --> 00:39:39.860
It was an example of the magic
of movies, how seriously films

00:39:39.860 --> 00:39:43.640
were taken at the time, and of
the power of film critics to

00:39:43.640 --> 00:39:44.888
shape that debate.

00:39:44.888 --> 00:39:48.100
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:39:48.100 --> 00:39:51.020
This was at a time when the
women's movement was also

00:39:51.020 --> 00:39:52.180
coming to the fore.

00:39:52.180 --> 00:39:53.990
And I was excited about that.

00:39:53.990 --> 00:39:59.540
So I began sort of seeing thing
dually, both as a film

00:39:59.540 --> 00:40:02.400
lover and a film scholar,
and as a feminist.

00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:05.930
Molly Haskell to women like
me, was this kind of

00:40:05.930 --> 00:40:12.310
mysterious goddess, gorgeous,
smart, living the

00:40:12.310 --> 00:40:13.560
intellectual life.

00:40:16.350 --> 00:40:17.620
Haskell was among critics

00:40:17.620 --> 00:40:21.200
championing women film directors.

00:40:26.100 --> 00:40:31.730
The trouble with most of the
women's films now is that they

00:40:31.730 --> 00:40:33.400
are programmatic.

00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:37.090
They tell us how women should
feel, but they don't explore

00:40:37.090 --> 00:40:39.457
the real sexual tensions.

00:40:42.440 --> 00:40:45.970
For Kael, feminism was too
narrow a prism for the

00:40:45.970 --> 00:40:50.440
exploding American cinema.

00:40:50.440 --> 00:40:54.130
I hope that men will not give up
exploring their fantasies,

00:40:54.130 --> 00:40:57.830
because that's one of the most
fertile fields in movies.

00:40:57.830 --> 00:41:01.690
Alienating politically conscious
women, Kael praised

00:41:01.690 --> 00:41:05.470
the most Goodfella filmmakers,
Peckinpah,

00:41:05.470 --> 00:41:10.500
Altman, Scorsese, Coppola.

00:41:10.500 --> 00:41:15.140
A movie like The Godfather, a
movie like Mean Streets, these

00:41:15.140 --> 00:41:18.870
movies, they're really
brilliant works.

00:41:18.870 --> 00:41:22.680
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker
called it, a triumph of

00:41:22.680 --> 00:41:24.960
personal filmmaking.

00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:25.890
I'll giver her credit.

00:41:25.890 --> 00:41:27.450
She was the first one
that picked up on

00:41:27.450 --> 00:41:29.200
Scorsese for Mean Streets.

00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:33.170
I was not overwhelmed
by Mean Streets.

00:41:33.170 --> 00:41:38.340
And she picked up on good things
about Brian de Palma,

00:41:38.340 --> 00:41:40.530
and a lot of other people.

00:41:40.530 --> 00:41:42.850
What's it like going to the
movies with Pauline Kael?

00:41:42.850 --> 00:41:44.420
Well, it's absolutely fine.

00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:48.390
She kind of sits there and
scribbles little notes on the

00:41:48.390 --> 00:41:50.510
paper, which, of course,
I disapprove of

00:41:50.510 --> 00:41:52.110
completely as a filmmaker.

00:41:52.110 --> 00:41:54.760
I mean, I think the critic
should come and see the movie

00:41:54.760 --> 00:41:57.520
and just sort of let
it wash over them.

00:41:57.520 --> 00:42:03.390
Kael, who had started out
bashing autuerism became, in a

00:42:03.390 --> 00:42:05.510
way, the greatest auteurist
of all.

00:42:05.510 --> 00:42:07.180
She just had a different
bunch of auteurs.

00:42:07.180 --> 00:42:09.160
Pauline was an incredible
auteurist.

00:42:09.160 --> 00:42:13.010
All you have to do is read her
rave reviews of Brian de Palma

00:42:13.010 --> 00:42:15.790
one after another to realize
that she could totally see

00:42:15.790 --> 00:42:17.040
movies through that lens.

00:42:19.530 --> 00:42:22.680
Kael fueled the old
Sarris rivalry.

00:42:22.680 --> 00:42:25.350
She looked for critics to
support her way of seeing

00:42:25.350 --> 00:42:29.920
cinema, her directors
rather than his.

00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:33.040
I sent her the review, about
four or five of them.

00:42:33.040 --> 00:42:36.630
And I remember this amazing two
page handwritten letter

00:42:36.630 --> 00:42:39.390
she sent me back, going on at
length about what she liked

00:42:39.390 --> 00:42:40.640
about the reviews.

00:42:43.420 --> 00:42:47.940
And offering me any support
she could give me.

00:42:47.940 --> 00:42:49.740
Pauline helped me get
my first job at the

00:42:49.740 --> 00:42:52.020
Boston Phoenix in 1981.

00:42:52.020 --> 00:42:55.090
You felt like she was this great
writer, and why was she

00:42:55.090 --> 00:42:56.290
so concerned about you?

00:42:56.290 --> 00:42:58.980
And, of course, the answer
turned out to be very complex.

00:42:58.980 --> 00:43:00.760
She may have admired
your writing.

00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:04.750
But you may have not been so
aware of is that you work

00:43:04.750 --> 00:43:08.840
potentially being lined up
as one of her recruits.

00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:11.620
Almost every critic I know at
one point or another, if they

00:43:11.620 --> 00:43:13.950
made it, and she hadn't decided
she hated them in

00:43:13.950 --> 00:43:17.330
advance, got a telephone call
from Pauline Kael, where she

00:43:17.330 --> 00:43:18.680
said she liked their work.

00:43:18.680 --> 00:43:22.660
And she actually befriended
them and guided them.

00:43:22.660 --> 00:43:26.800
And so considering this
ecclesiastical tone that of

00:43:26.800 --> 00:43:31.660
her acolytes took, I created
the term Paulette.

00:43:31.660 --> 00:43:36.322
The so-called Paulettes
versus the Sarrisites.

00:43:40.390 --> 00:43:43.300
He brought in film buff writers
that hadn't had any

00:43:43.300 --> 00:43:46.250
social life of any kind, any
sexual pr social life, which

00:43:46.250 --> 00:43:49.100
was a lot of what film buffdom
was in those days.

00:43:49.100 --> 00:43:51.090
The first time I was at the
meetings at the National

00:43:51.090 --> 00:43:53.800
Society of Film Critics, I
walked into the room as this

00:43:53.800 --> 00:43:55.930
guy from LA who basically
didn't

00:43:55.930 --> 00:43:57.530
know any famous critics.

00:43:57.530 --> 00:44:00.270
And on one half of the room were
all the people who I knew

00:44:00.270 --> 00:44:01.390
were Paulettes.

00:44:01.390 --> 00:44:03.660
And on the other half of the
room, sort of around Sarris

00:44:03.660 --> 00:44:05.160
were just like the
non-Paulettes.

00:44:05.160 --> 00:44:08.075
You basically had to choose
side, where on the table were

00:44:08.075 --> 00:44:10.670
you going to sit.

00:44:10.670 --> 00:44:13.390
Pauline was Dionysian.

00:44:13.390 --> 00:44:15.250
Andy was Apollonian.

00:44:15.250 --> 00:44:17.800
He wanted to make the claim for
movies that they were just

00:44:17.800 --> 00:44:19.290
like books, like literature.

00:44:19.290 --> 00:44:21.170
So let's study them.

00:44:21.170 --> 00:44:24.040
Let's catalog these directors.

00:44:24.040 --> 00:44:25.890
Kael hated all that.

00:44:25.890 --> 00:44:28.770
She want to treat movies in
a way that was as free, as

00:44:28.770 --> 00:44:33.875
spontaneous, and alive, and
playful as movies themselves.

00:44:33.875 --> 00:44:36.180
As with so many intellectual
arguments, the fight between

00:44:36.180 --> 00:44:39.340
Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael
was essentially about power.

00:44:39.340 --> 00:44:41.600
And it's imposing a vision of
the world that, in fact, is

00:44:41.600 --> 00:44:43.320
not a very precise vision
of the world.

00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:45.490
But it's their vision
of the world.

00:44:45.490 --> 00:44:48.650
Some critics like to see
a movie several times.

00:44:48.650 --> 00:44:51.450
I see it once, and also because
I don't really want to

00:44:51.450 --> 00:44:53.660
see it again before
the writing.

00:44:53.660 --> 00:44:57.150
I don't believe her entirely,
but she has said that she

00:44:57.150 --> 00:44:58.870
never sees a film
more than once.

00:44:58.870 --> 00:45:00.690
I can remember the details.

00:45:00.690 --> 00:45:04.190
And in the act of writing I fix
the movie very clearly in

00:45:04.190 --> 00:45:07.900
my mind, so that I enjoy writing
about it from the

00:45:07.900 --> 00:45:09.670
first experience.

00:45:09.670 --> 00:45:14.420
I find that almost masochistic,
you know?

00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:17.650
If I love a film, I can't
wait to see it again.

00:45:17.650 --> 00:45:20.180
I don't understand that attitude
, or that she never

00:45:20.180 --> 00:45:22.565
changes her verdict once
it's rendered.

00:45:25.660 --> 00:45:27.000
We made each other.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.610
We helped each other.

00:45:28.610 --> 00:45:32.905
We established an opposition,
a dielectric.

00:45:37.950 --> 00:45:40.410
Anyway, it turns out that
much of the time

00:45:40.410 --> 00:45:42.980
we were very close.

00:45:42.980 --> 00:45:44.230
For instance, we both
share kind of

00:45:44.230 --> 00:45:45.890
centrist political position.

00:45:45.890 --> 00:45:49.220
We both have been politically
incorrect on occasion.

00:45:49.220 --> 00:45:50.590
It's just a personal thing.

00:45:50.590 --> 00:45:54.184
It's just the way
it worked out.

00:45:57.320 --> 00:46:00.980
Years later, The New Yorker
critic job is split between

00:46:00.980 --> 00:46:04.540
David Denby and Anthony Lane.

00:46:04.540 --> 00:46:08.910
But Kael's debates with
Sarris still resonate.

00:46:08.910 --> 00:46:11.450
What's interesting, probably
more than almost anything else

00:46:11.450 --> 00:46:15.100
in American culture life, is it
played itself out over 20

00:46:15.100 --> 00:46:16.310
or 30 years.

00:46:16.310 --> 00:46:19.380
And radically shaped the way
people wrote about and thought

00:46:19.380 --> 00:46:20.750
about movies.

00:46:24.710 --> 00:46:28.870
Mourned by her followers, and
even her detractors, Pauline

00:46:28.870 --> 00:46:34.570
Kael died in 2001.

00:46:34.570 --> 00:46:37.450
There are lots of people who
write like her, people in her

00:46:37.450 --> 00:46:42.490
orbit, and still carry parts
of her away with them.

00:46:42.490 --> 00:46:47.250
Ever since The Iliad we believe
that the fall of an

00:46:47.250 --> 00:46:50.525
enemy is a tragic rather
than a comic event.

00:46:50.525 --> 00:46:53.055
And that's the way I
feel about Pauline.

00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:04.660
The first movie that really
scared me, I felt for a long

00:47:04.660 --> 00:47:07.450
time I had dreamed it, I'd tell
people about, there's no

00:47:07.450 --> 00:47:09.910
such movie.

00:47:09.910 --> 00:47:11.600
And it was really bloody.

00:47:11.600 --> 00:47:13.450
That's the other thing I
remember about it, because

00:47:13.450 --> 00:47:16.420
movies weren't bloody in those
days, for the most part.

00:47:16.420 --> 00:47:19.234
It would start with these two
couples in this car, this big

00:47:19.234 --> 00:47:23.900
convertible Chevy, going
to this picnic.

00:47:23.900 --> 00:47:26.920
The couples are separated by
these sort of seductive

00:47:26.920 --> 00:47:28.140
country folk.

00:47:28.140 --> 00:47:31.360
And as they're taken off to
these various events, this guy

00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:33.430
is sort of persuaded to
get into this barrel

00:47:33.430 --> 00:47:34.810
for a barrel roll.

00:47:34.810 --> 00:47:38.870
They seal the barrel up, drive
spikes into him, and roll it

00:47:38.870 --> 00:47:40.120
down the hill.

00:47:45.420 --> 00:47:48.070
Meanwhile, these two rednecks
are walking around singing,

00:47:48.070 --> 00:47:51.076
and playing banjo and guitar,
and singing about it.

00:47:51.076 --> 00:47:54.940
[SINGING]

00:47:54.940 --> 00:47:55.940
And I finally found
this movie.

00:47:55.940 --> 00:47:58.290
It was Herschel Gordon Lewis'
Two Thousand Maniacs.

00:47:58.290 --> 00:48:00.340
So it did exist.

00:48:00.340 --> 00:48:03.860
There's a whole world of movies
that exist grade b.

00:48:03.860 --> 00:48:05.990
They pray to be called
grade b.

00:48:05.990 --> 00:48:08.120
I remember seeing one called
The Black Six.

00:48:08.120 --> 00:48:11.360
And being at Scream
Blackula Scream.

00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:14.580
Maybe one of things that has
me doing this now is that I

00:48:14.580 --> 00:48:16.250
always wanted a chance to write
about that experience,

00:48:16.250 --> 00:48:20.150
how that formed me, how that
formed what could laughingly

00:48:20.150 --> 00:48:22.494
be called my sensibility.

00:48:32.380 --> 00:48:36.270
Yes, I tried the other theory
about how you should be

00:48:36.270 --> 00:48:40.000
involved with somebody who has
no relationship to movies, and

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:41.000
I got divorced.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:44.000
It's slightly easier if you the
woman I've been involved

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:45.510
with is interested in film.

00:48:45.510 --> 00:48:48.930
But, in fact, it's not a whole
lot easier, because, in fact,

00:48:48.930 --> 00:48:51.250
the demands of being a film
critic are often that you're

00:48:51.250 --> 00:48:54.170
going to see so much stuff that
even a woman who loves

00:48:54.170 --> 00:48:57.330
movies wouldn't dream of wanting
to go see that 300th

00:48:57.330 --> 00:49:01.620
movie that you, yourself, know
in advance isn't going to be

00:49:01.620 --> 00:49:04.600
very good, but it's your
job to go anyway.

00:49:04.600 --> 00:49:07.760
My significant other is indeed
a film historian.

00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:10.720
And one of my favorite things to
do is go to the movies with

00:49:10.720 --> 00:49:14.870
him and then blab on about it
into the wee hours afterwards.

00:49:14.870 --> 00:49:17.680
All of my closest friends have
lives that have something to

00:49:17.680 --> 00:49:19.290
do other than with the movies.

00:49:19.290 --> 00:49:20.380
It's nice to be able to have

00:49:20.380 --> 00:49:22.430
conversations that are esoteric.

00:49:22.430 --> 00:49:23.640
But it's more important to have

00:49:23.640 --> 00:49:24.830
smart, interesting friends.

00:49:24.830 --> 00:49:27.400
And, by the way, they
should like to hike.

00:49:27.400 --> 00:49:38.560
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:49:38.560 --> 00:49:41.920
In 1975, an enterprising
television

00:49:41.920 --> 00:49:44.770
show debuted in Chicago.

00:49:44.770 --> 00:49:49.990
It was a program devoted
to film criticism.

00:49:49.990 --> 00:49:51.810
The name of our show is Opening
Soon at a Theater Near

00:49:51.810 --> 00:49:54.700
You, Two Film Critics Talking
About the Movies.

00:49:54.700 --> 00:49:56.362
And this is Roger Ebert,
the film critic from

00:49:56.362 --> 00:49:57.570
the Chicago Sun Times.

00:49:57.570 --> 00:49:59.630
And right over here is Gene
Siskel, the film critic from

00:49:59.630 --> 00:50:01.610
the Chicago Tribune and
Channel Two News.

00:50:01.610 --> 00:50:03.660
Part of our show is to
sort of be a news

00:50:03.660 --> 00:50:05.070
magazine about movies.

00:50:05.070 --> 00:50:08.270
A lot of people watching the
show saw for the first time

00:50:08.270 --> 00:50:11.560
people who took the movie
seriously, who disagreed about

00:50:11.560 --> 00:50:14.530
them, who had arguments, who
defended their arguments.

00:50:14.530 --> 00:50:17.025
That was very useful
for the audience.

00:50:17.025 --> 00:50:21.380
if Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to
take his medication orally,

00:50:21.380 --> 00:50:25.820
I'm sure we can arrange that he
can have it some other way.

00:50:25.820 --> 00:50:28.400
Louise Fletcher brings another
component to the film

00:50:28.400 --> 00:50:29.030
completely.

00:50:29.030 --> 00:50:31.970
She has sort of a sexual
attraction to Nicholson.

00:50:31.970 --> 00:50:34.910
So you really don't know any
kind of direction and way the

00:50:34.910 --> 00:50:36.130
film is going to go.

00:50:36.130 --> 00:50:38.320
So I thought her performance
surprised me, and was one of

00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:39.840
the pleasant surprises
in the film.

00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:41.560
It's a little bit disappointing
film, I think.

00:50:41.560 --> 00:50:44.020
It wasn't quite the overwhelming
experience that

00:50:44.020 --> 00:50:44.550
I'd expected.

00:50:44.550 --> 00:50:45.750
And I think one of
the problems-

00:50:45.750 --> 00:50:47.430
You have two guys fighting
about the movies.

00:50:47.430 --> 00:50:51.630
And gene brought a real
tension on to the set.

00:50:51.630 --> 00:50:52.450
He played to win.

00:50:52.450 --> 00:50:55.620
He wanted his opinion
to be listened to.

00:50:55.620 --> 00:50:57.990
And he wanted people to think
that he was right.

00:50:57.990 --> 00:51:00.910
And, of course, I felt
exactly the same way.

00:51:00.910 --> 00:51:05.960
And it created a genuine
chemistry that I think people

00:51:05.960 --> 00:51:08.560
did relate to.

00:51:08.560 --> 00:51:11.410
The Ebert/Siskel show was very
important for kind of

00:51:11.410 --> 00:51:13.530
establishing the romance
of movie criticism.

00:51:13.530 --> 00:51:16.920
They were the first movie
critics who became sort of big

00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:21.220
TV celebrities, and became TV
celebrities because they were

00:51:21.220 --> 00:51:23.000
movie critics.

00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:27.810
It was in 1975 with Jaws that
Hollywood realized the value

00:51:27.810 --> 00:51:30.880
of TV to launch its marketing
campaign.

00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:37.560
It will attack and
devour anything.

00:51:37.560 --> 00:51:41.140
Crowds lined up the opening
day, enticed there by

00:51:41.140 --> 00:51:45.480
Universal Pictures half minute
ads on primetime programs.

00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:51.040
Jaws, see it before
you go swimming.

00:51:55.640 --> 00:51:58.310
And magazine cover stories
became part of the

00:51:58.310 --> 00:52:00.270
advertising.

00:52:00.270 --> 00:52:06.010
Two years later, Star Wars,
the mega hit of mega hits.

00:52:06.010 --> 00:52:09.260
The reviews were favorable,
but who cared

00:52:09.260 --> 00:52:11.720
what critics said?

00:52:11.720 --> 00:52:15.180
Rabid fans claimed it as their
own, becoming Star Wars

00:52:15.180 --> 00:52:18.040
experts, walking
advertisements.

00:52:18.040 --> 00:52:21.290
They're obsession qualified fans
to make judgment on the

00:52:21.290 --> 00:52:22.680
film, not critics.

00:52:25.970 --> 00:52:29.990
Teenagers became the objects
of TV ad campaigns, which

00:52:29.990 --> 00:52:33.140
lured them to the theaters for
adolescent comedies and

00:52:33.140 --> 00:52:36.570
slasher movies.

00:52:36.570 --> 00:52:38.230
Friday the Thirteenth.

00:52:38.230 --> 00:52:41.220
The average level of Hollywood
films went down a shocking

00:52:41.220 --> 00:52:43.110
amount in the 1980s.

00:52:43.110 --> 00:52:45.970
They had younger executives who
believed that their job

00:52:45.970 --> 00:52:48.060
was just to appeal
to a very young,

00:52:48.060 --> 00:52:49.480
basically teenage, crowd.

00:52:49.480 --> 00:52:51.910
I think their ideal viewer
during most of that period was

00:52:51.910 --> 00:52:56.790
a 15-year-old male in
a shopping mall.

00:52:56.790 --> 00:52:58.160
The auteur's preferred.

00:52:58.160 --> 00:53:00.940
now were those who made
lots of money.

00:53:00.940 --> 00:53:03.990
Lucas, and Spielberg, especially
combined with

00:53:03.990 --> 00:53:06.185
bankable stars like
Harrison Ford.

00:53:08.930 --> 00:53:12.650
But outside of Hollywood,
reviewers in the '80s and '90s

00:53:12.650 --> 00:53:15.840
found a new calling, supporting
independent

00:53:15.840 --> 00:53:19.010
American cinema.

00:53:19.010 --> 00:53:22.460
There really was an independent
film revolution.

00:53:22.460 --> 00:53:23.965
It's very real.

00:53:23.965 --> 00:53:26.350
It's produced a lot of great
films, a lot of great

00:53:26.350 --> 00:53:27.380
filmmakers.

00:53:27.380 --> 00:53:32.710
And, not so incidentally, a
lot of great criticism.

00:53:32.710 --> 00:53:36.500
Even The New York Times embraced
the independent.

00:53:36.500 --> 00:53:40.680
It's Marge who is this film's
idea of a folk hero, seriously

00:53:40.680 --> 00:53:44.580
pregnant, wearing a hat with ear
flaps toddling intrepidly

00:53:44.580 --> 00:53:47.070
through the snow to investigate
grizzly crime

00:53:47.070 --> 00:53:52.080
scenes, Marge is this film's ace
detective, as well as its

00:53:52.080 --> 00:53:54.150
moral center.

00:53:54.150 --> 00:53:57.910
In 1993, Vincent Canby
retired as The Times

00:53:57.910 --> 00:53:59.970
first string reviewer.

00:53:59.970 --> 00:54:02.910
Janet Maslin took over, and
stayed on until the new

00:54:02.910 --> 00:54:04.300
millennium.

00:54:04.300 --> 00:54:09.750
The chief film critic of the
newspaper of record was Janet

00:54:09.750 --> 00:54:11.860
Maslin, a woman.

00:54:11.860 --> 00:54:12.990
I liked her writing.

00:54:12.990 --> 00:54:15.330
I liked her graciousness.

00:54:15.330 --> 00:54:22.840
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:54:22.840 --> 00:54:27.120
While critics concentrated on
theatrical releases, thousands

00:54:27.120 --> 00:54:30.970
of old movies piled up
at the video store.

00:54:30.970 --> 00:54:34.720
This extraordinary invention had
transformed the way films

00:54:34.720 --> 00:54:37.076
were made available
to an audience.

00:54:37.076 --> 00:54:39.270
As people were taking these
movies and watching them in

00:54:39.270 --> 00:54:42.590
their homes, it was probably
less necessary for them to

00:54:42.590 --> 00:54:47.250
have a dialogue with a critic.

00:54:47.250 --> 00:54:51.390
In the '90s, young film buffs
went on their own, writing for

00:54:51.390 --> 00:54:54.630
their own, in amateur fan
zines, guides for

00:54:54.630 --> 00:54:56.930
what to see on video.

00:54:56.930 --> 00:54:59.230
The reviewers weren't
Kael and Canby.

00:54:59.230 --> 00:55:04.600
They were kids, Max and Andrew,
a startling new

00:55:04.600 --> 00:55:07.950
concept, everyone's a critic.

00:55:12.660 --> 00:55:15.880
The first movie I ever saw is
also the first movie that

00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:17.960
Steven Spielberg ever
says he saw.

00:55:17.960 --> 00:55:22.260
Maybe a lot of people our age
saw this movie, The Greatest

00:55:22.260 --> 00:55:24.910
Show on Earth, Cecil
B. DeMille.

00:55:24.910 --> 00:55:27.030
I went to see it with my mom.

00:55:27.030 --> 00:55:30.914
And there's a scene where the
circus train derails.

00:55:30.914 --> 00:55:37.370
[CRASHING NOISES]

00:55:37.370 --> 00:55:40.930
And all the animals escape.

00:55:40.930 --> 00:55:44.450
The animals are free, yeah!

00:55:44.450 --> 00:55:46.415
And you know, I never wanted
to see this movie again

00:55:46.415 --> 00:55:50.140
because I have this very clear
three and a half year old,

00:55:50.140 --> 00:55:53.080
four-year-old's memory
of that scene.

00:55:53.080 --> 00:55:55.914
I don't want to lose it.

00:55:55.914 --> 00:56:03.370
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:56:03.370 --> 00:56:06.090
I saw Titanic at a press
screening on a lot at

00:56:06.090 --> 00:56:08.370
Paramount in a very big theater
with a very huge

00:56:08.370 --> 00:56:10.790
screen, a lot of journalists
there.

00:56:10.790 --> 00:56:13.860
And I was kind of actually mixed
about it when I saw it.

00:56:13.860 --> 00:56:15.840
James Cameron is a brilliant
craftsmen.

00:56:15.840 --> 00:56:18.366
I felt that the script
was lacking.

00:56:18.366 --> 00:56:20.240
Why can't I be like you, Jack?

00:56:20.240 --> 00:56:22.990
Just head out for the horizon
whenever I feel like it.

00:56:22.990 --> 00:56:25.870
You know, I think
she was there.

00:56:25.870 --> 00:56:28.990
Oh yeah, I'm a believer.

00:56:28.990 --> 00:56:32.890
I got a phone call from my
editor saying we've gotten- a

00:56:32.890 --> 00:56:35.860
long letter has just come
in from James Cameron.

00:56:35.860 --> 00:56:38.520
He's faxing it over.

00:56:38.520 --> 00:56:42.300
And he basically is calling
for the paper to fire you.

00:56:42.300 --> 00:56:44.460
There's always been a
history of animus

00:56:44.460 --> 00:56:47.355
between critics and Hollywood.

00:56:47.355 --> 00:56:48.620
You're certainly not
enjoying yourself.

00:56:48.620 --> 00:56:52.056
No, as a matter of
fact, I'm not.

00:56:52.056 --> 00:56:54.230
Oh, it's nothing to do
with you, darling.

00:56:54.230 --> 00:56:55.930
No, it's that review that Blair

00:56:55.930 --> 00:56:56.895
wrote on our last picture.

00:56:56.895 --> 00:56:57.850
Have you seen it?

00:56:57.850 --> 00:56:59.610
Yes, darling, but those things
are written about everybody.

00:56:59.610 --> 00:57:00.870
You shouldn't pay attention
to them.

00:57:00.870 --> 00:57:02.080
Well I don't as a
general thing.

00:57:02.080 --> 00:57:03.560
But this guy's gone out of
his way to be nasty.

00:57:03.560 --> 00:57:05.556
Here, get his first line.

00:57:05.556 --> 00:57:07.530
From slumdom to stardom.

00:57:07.530 --> 00:57:10.080
There's definitely a tension
that you have between the

00:57:10.080 --> 00:57:13.820
machine that cranks out the
product and the people who are

00:57:13.820 --> 00:57:17.580
responsible for interpreting
its meaning.

00:57:17.580 --> 00:57:19.410
You wrote this review yourself,
didn't you?

00:57:19.410 --> 00:57:20.760
Certainly, my name's on it.

00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:22.450
Open your mouth.

00:57:22.450 --> 00:57:23.700
Open!

00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:27.970
Now chew!

00:57:27.970 --> 00:57:31.540
They're very assertive,
sometimes aggressive, very,

00:57:31.540 --> 00:57:35.020
usually intellectual, very
heady, kind of philosophical

00:57:35.020 --> 00:57:39.110
people, who I think believe
that their weight is worth

00:57:39.110 --> 00:57:40.350
more than it is.

00:57:40.350 --> 00:57:42.705
Now I know some people found
this movie fun, but me I'd

00:57:42.705 --> 00:57:45.430
rather spend two hours having
root canal work done.

00:57:45.430 --> 00:57:49.560
What's fun about a movie full of
ugly, slimy, mean-spirited,

00:57:49.560 --> 00:57:51.870
gloppy little monsters
who run amok and

00:57:51.870 --> 00:57:53.390
attack innocent people?

00:57:53.390 --> 00:57:56.586
I mean, are we desperate for
entertainment that this is the

00:57:56.586 --> 00:57:58.930
trash we pass for fun?

00:57:58.930 --> 00:58:01.460
There's no way you can win
answering your critics.

00:58:01.460 --> 00:58:03.390
I think with all reviews, I read
the good ones once, the

00:58:03.390 --> 00:58:05.425
bad ones twice, and put
them away and never

00:58:05.425 --> 00:58:06.320
look at them again.

00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:09.034
They all think they can make
better movies than people who

00:58:09.034 --> 00:58:10.010
make movies.

00:58:10.010 --> 00:58:14.030
And this is what drives the
people who make movies crazy.

00:58:14.030 --> 00:58:18.380
No matter how much people may
have disagreed with what I

00:58:18.380 --> 00:58:21.380
felt about the film, people were
less comfortable with the

00:58:21.380 --> 00:58:24.440
director, kind of, running
film criticism.

00:58:24.440 --> 00:58:26.720
People liked the idea an
independent voice.

00:58:26.720 --> 00:58:29.040
And they didn't want Jim Cameron
having a say in who

00:58:29.040 --> 00:58:29.680
the film critic was.

00:58:29.680 --> 00:58:32.500
So it was interesting that his
attack on me got me an

00:58:32.500 --> 00:58:35.320
enormous amount of support,
whereas my original review had

00:58:35.320 --> 00:58:37.795
gotten me a lot of
hostile mail.

00:58:43.130 --> 00:58:49.795
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:58:49.795 --> 00:58:54.220
What I see of internet reviewing
is people just

00:58:54.220 --> 00:58:57.860
surpassing ignorance about the
median expressing themselves

00:58:57.860 --> 00:58:59.400
on the medium.

00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:02.200
Nobody's quite accountable
for what they're writing.

00:59:02.200 --> 00:59:05.626
I'm computer illiterate
at the moment.

00:59:05.626 --> 00:59:07.910
I say at the moment, probably
until I die.

00:59:07.910 --> 00:59:10.570
I understand a lot of my
stuff is on the web.

00:59:10.570 --> 00:59:14.592
But I just don't look at it.

00:59:17.250 --> 00:59:20.590
As fan zine writers went digital
in the late '90s,

00:59:20.590 --> 00:59:24.612
their opinions moved with
them on to the internet.

00:59:24.612 --> 00:59:30.760
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:33.320
Movie websites flooded
the internet.

00:59:33.320 --> 00:59:38.430
They promised everything, a
streaming theme park for those

00:59:38.430 --> 00:59:39.640
who logged in.

00:59:39.640 --> 00:59:40.890
We have this screening room.

00:59:40.890 --> 00:59:43.340
You can actually look at
movie clips up there.

00:59:43.340 --> 00:59:45.990
We have a lot of feature film
trailers and clips from

00:59:45.990 --> 00:59:46.510
popular films.

00:59:46.510 --> 00:59:47.980
So it's previous coming
attractions.

00:59:47.980 --> 00:59:48.630
Exactly.

00:59:48.630 --> 00:59:51.010
And also have interesting chat
rooms, where people really get

00:59:51.010 --> 00:59:52.890
into it about why like or
don't like a movie.

00:59:52.890 --> 00:59:54.340
Exactly.

00:59:54.340 --> 00:59:57.710
Quickly, some websites claimed
far more allegiance than

00:59:57.710 --> 00:59:59.520
traditional print critics.

00:59:59.520 --> 01:00:04.250
I'm at two and a half million
readers a day, and six million

01:00:04.250 --> 01:00:06.770
different viewers over the
course of a month.

01:00:06.770 --> 01:00:11.700
I've got readers in every
country on the planet.

01:00:11.700 --> 01:00:16.825
In 1997, Harry Knowles started
a film reviewing website in

01:00:16.825 --> 01:00:19.150
his Austin, Texas bedroom.

01:00:19.150 --> 01:00:23.140
It featured Harry's raw,
unrevised, stream of

01:00:23.140 --> 01:00:26.135
consciousness typings.

01:00:26.135 --> 01:00:29.840
He's more of a clearinghouse
than a critic, more of a we

01:00:29.840 --> 01:00:32.960
had trouble finding a parking
space, and then I ate three

01:00:32.960 --> 01:00:36.210
chili dogs, and my dad saved a
seat for me, and I saw this

01:00:36.210 --> 01:00:40.120
girl, then after a while the
movie started, and so forth,

01:00:40.120 --> 01:00:42.830
which is a valid approach.

01:00:42.830 --> 01:00:46.370
Knowles spoke especially to
young people with similar

01:00:46.370 --> 01:00:48.110
aesthetics.

01:00:48.110 --> 01:00:51.820
You've had filmmakers like
Michael Bay, which old guard

01:00:51.820 --> 01:00:54.370
film critics despise.

01:00:54.370 --> 01:00:57.630
To a younger generation of
film critics it's not a

01:00:57.630 --> 01:00:59.660
radical, nonsensical editing.

01:00:59.660 --> 01:01:00.970
They can see where he's going.

01:01:00.970 --> 01:01:04.550
It's going so fast, I don't
think he held on a shot in

01:01:04.550 --> 01:01:05.950
Armegeddon for longer
than two seconds.

01:01:08.690 --> 01:01:11.780
When you had films like Fight
Club, a straight divisional

01:01:11.780 --> 01:01:14.340
shift in terms of generation.

01:01:14.340 --> 01:01:18.120
The older film critics thought
that it was a nonsensical,

01:01:18.120 --> 01:01:21.710
that you need violent conflict
to become a man.

01:01:21.710 --> 01:01:26.080
This new generation saw the
movie as an experience.

01:01:30.470 --> 01:01:33.900
But he was certainly the person
who galvanized the

01:01:33.900 --> 01:01:39.300
revolution of do it yourself
criticism, or untrained

01:01:39.300 --> 01:01:43.190
critics, or just average movies
writing about the

01:01:43.190 --> 01:01:46.020
movies they were seeing.

01:01:46.020 --> 01:01:49.710
Knowles was the first web critic
noticed by the studios.

01:01:49.710 --> 01:01:55.170
He was flown to Hollywood for
a private look at new films.

01:01:55.170 --> 01:01:58.170
For whatever reasons, studios
now feel that I'm an important

01:01:58.170 --> 01:02:01.312
piece in the advanced
buzz of the film.

01:02:01.312 --> 01:02:05.760
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:02:05.760 --> 01:02:08.190
Other internet critics
followed.

01:02:08.190 --> 01:02:10.590
They joined a long time
Hollywood tradition for

01:02:10.590 --> 01:02:13.310
smaller media, the
press junket.

01:02:13.310 --> 01:02:17.000
The studios have to get people
into movies, and they have to

01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:19.954
get people into movies
on the first weekend.

01:02:19.954 --> 01:02:22.324
I'm here for the junkets, for
Miramax, Fox, and I think,

01:02:22.324 --> 01:02:24.450
Warner Brothers.

01:02:24.450 --> 01:02:27.420
What they need to do is to
give an unambiguous,

01:02:27.420 --> 01:02:30.380
unadulterated message that this
film will be one of the

01:02:30.380 --> 01:02:32.810
greatest experiences you've
had in your life.

01:02:32.810 --> 01:02:35.570
There really aren't all that
many legitimate critics who

01:02:35.570 --> 01:02:38.530
will tell you that.

01:02:38.530 --> 01:02:42.880
Find critics who love to take
trips, who are thrilled to be

01:02:42.880 --> 01:02:46.260
in five star hotels, and who
will put their name on some

01:02:46.260 --> 01:02:48.540
hyperbolic description
of a movie.

01:02:48.540 --> 01:02:50.510
And that's exactly
how it happens.

01:02:50.510 --> 01:02:53.250
Before the New York critics see
a film, they've already

01:02:53.250 --> 01:02:56.013
got quote ads made up from
people who nobody has ever

01:02:56.013 --> 01:03:02.110
heard of, who pounce on the
buffet table, see the movie,

01:03:02.110 --> 01:03:04.720
and give them a quote on
their way out the door.

01:03:04.720 --> 01:03:06.660
"Riveting," Swampscott
Shopper.

01:03:06.660 --> 01:03:10.020
"Best film of Barbara
Streisand's career," Venice

01:03:10.020 --> 01:03:11.430
Beach supermarket throwaway.

01:03:11.430 --> 01:03:13.640
And you wonder why don't they
have The New York Times, The

01:03:13.640 --> 01:03:16.182
Los Angeles Times or National
Public Radio, or The Boston

01:03:16.182 --> 01:03:17.490
Phoenix in there.

01:03:17.490 --> 01:03:18.730
First of all, the
critics probably

01:03:18.730 --> 01:03:19.460
don't like those movies.

01:03:19.460 --> 01:03:23.190
Secondly, this is an audience
that, for them, any film

01:03:23.190 --> 01:03:24.540
critic is a film critic.

01:03:24.540 --> 01:03:29.460
I've been quoted in A.I, The
Rat Race, Cats and Dogs,

01:03:29.460 --> 01:03:31.560
Scary Movie: 2.

01:03:31.560 --> 01:03:35.960
The internet has made the
proliferation of these people

01:03:35.960 --> 01:03:39.250
possible in a way it
never was before.

01:03:39.250 --> 01:03:41.210
Friends of mine, say, oh,
yeah, Cats and Dogs,

01:03:41.210 --> 01:03:42.170
funnier than Babe.

01:03:42.170 --> 01:03:44.450
Well, you know, I didn't think
Babe was a funny movie.

01:03:44.450 --> 01:03:45.780
It was a charming movie.

01:03:45.780 --> 01:03:48.120
And I didn't say Cats and Dogs
was better than Babe.

01:03:48.120 --> 01:03:49.902
I said it was funnier.

01:03:49.902 --> 01:03:51.690
The critics are considered
enemies

01:03:51.690 --> 01:03:52.750
by most film companies.

01:03:52.750 --> 01:03:54.230
They don't want us
to see the films.

01:03:54.230 --> 01:03:55.940
They don't care whether
we show up or not.

01:03:55.940 --> 01:03:59.290
If you like movies, and you
go to movies, and you can

01:03:59.290 --> 01:04:03.160
sensibly put down how you feel
about the movies in print, and

01:04:03.160 --> 01:04:06.070
explain it, you don't need
any qualifications

01:04:06.070 --> 01:04:08.390
to be a film critic.

01:04:08.390 --> 01:04:10.814
Makes you wonder, why
am I doing all this?

01:04:10.814 --> 01:04:12.790
You know?

01:04:12.790 --> 01:04:21.188
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:04:21.188 --> 01:04:26.580
It's an internet world, login
look around, and there are

01:04:26.580 --> 01:04:28.940
critics on the net for
everybody, and

01:04:28.940 --> 01:04:32.800
for every movie interest.

01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:35.350
There is no longer a monolithic
popular culture.

01:04:35.350 --> 01:04:36.665
Everybody doesn't listen to The

01:04:36.665 --> 01:04:38.130
Beatles White Album anymore.

01:04:38.130 --> 01:04:40.370
Everybody doesn't read The
New York Times anymore.

01:04:40.370 --> 01:04:42.830
I don't think that just because
somebody's writing on

01:04:42.830 --> 01:04:46.490
a website it makes them any less
valid than somebody else,

01:04:46.490 --> 01:04:49.780
because what starts to happen
with criticism after a while,

01:04:49.780 --> 01:04:52.690
you do it regularly enough,
you build an audience.

01:04:52.690 --> 01:04:55.720
I'm inspired by the fact that
the web has provided so many

01:04:55.720 --> 01:04:59.250
outlets for so many really
good writers.

01:04:59.250 --> 01:05:03.460
And it you go online, you can
see young people who give you

01:05:03.460 --> 01:05:07.250
a lot of faith in the future.

01:05:07.250 --> 01:05:10.290
They've been cruising on the
internet longer than I have,

01:05:10.290 --> 01:05:14.820
so they're actually able to
guide us older people into all

01:05:14.820 --> 01:05:16.240
sorts of resources there.

01:05:16.240 --> 01:05:19.170
And I think that's very
exciting, to become part of

01:05:19.170 --> 01:05:23.620
that community, and a very
interactive community.

01:05:23.620 --> 01:05:27.530
Deep in the new millennium,
traditional media are still

01:05:27.530 --> 01:05:31.820
there, but more digital by the
day, because that's where

01:05:31.820 --> 01:05:34.590
their readers are going.

01:05:34.590 --> 01:05:37.250
You don't need the
presses anymore.

01:05:37.250 --> 01:05:38.690
You have the internet.

01:05:38.690 --> 01:05:41.020
And any writer has
the potential of

01:05:41.020 --> 01:05:42.820
having 50 million readers.

01:05:42.820 --> 01:05:45.840
A lot of people that I know do
read print reviews, but we

01:05:45.840 --> 01:05:47.340
read them online.

01:05:47.340 --> 01:05:49.450
I have an RSS feed
of The New York

01:05:49.450 --> 01:05:50.940
Times film review section.

01:05:50.940 --> 01:05:52.970
And so I read every review
that's printed in

01:05:52.970 --> 01:05:53.740
The New York Times.

01:05:53.740 --> 01:05:55.830
But I never buy the newspaper.

01:05:55.830 --> 01:05:58.770
Eagle vs. Shark is an oddball
romantic comedy

01:05:58.770 --> 01:06:00.950
directed Taika Cohen.

01:06:00.950 --> 01:06:02.410
It's a little bit like
a New Zealand

01:06:02.410 --> 01:06:04.040
version of Napoleon Dynamite.

01:06:04.040 --> 01:06:05.330
It tells the story-

01:06:05.330 --> 01:06:07.130
The Times A. O. Scott
was a [INAUDIBLE]

01:06:07.130 --> 01:06:10.450
print critics to do podcasts.

01:06:10.450 --> 01:06:14.690
There's more, blogging is a
required part of a print

01:06:14.690 --> 01:06:16.800
critic's job.

01:06:16.800 --> 01:06:20.410
For the first time with blogs,
fans can directly challenge a

01:06:20.410 --> 01:06:23.410
critic back and forth.

01:06:23.410 --> 01:06:26.670
What I say is just the start
of a conversation.

01:06:26.670 --> 01:06:29.880
John Reader, he could write
a comment on my review.

01:06:29.880 --> 01:06:32.200
And he knows that I'm
going to read it.

01:06:32.200 --> 01:06:35.560
And he can start a discussion
with other readers right there

01:06:35.560 --> 01:06:38.170
with the review as
a reference.

01:06:38.170 --> 01:06:41.450
The thing that critics have
been saying for years that

01:06:41.450 --> 01:06:46.390
differentiates them from, quote,
the masses, was that

01:06:46.390 --> 01:06:49.230
they had critical thought.

01:06:49.230 --> 01:06:53.040
If everyone can become a
critic than that means

01:06:53.040 --> 01:06:56.810
critical thinking is spread.

01:06:56.810 --> 01:07:00.230
But the democracy of reviewing
can mean a backlash against

01:07:00.230 --> 01:07:03.620
veteran critics, those who
favor movies which played

01:07:03.620 --> 01:07:04.745
decades ago.

01:07:04.745 --> 01:07:07.810
That DeMille uses hordes
of real people.

01:07:07.810 --> 01:07:10.305
He has an actual cast
of thousands.

01:07:10.305 --> 01:07:13.215
It is the wrath of God!

01:07:13.215 --> 01:07:18.550
[HORSE NEIGHING]

01:07:18.550 --> 01:07:22.570
Nowadays, CGI, Gladiator, of
course, half the Colosseum and

01:07:22.570 --> 01:07:23.960
most people don't exist.

01:07:23.960 --> 01:07:25.600
They're created in
the computer.

01:07:25.600 --> 01:07:29.490
There's something very weird
about being 60-years-old in

01:07:29.490 --> 01:07:32.720
the current film climate, and
spending your life writing

01:07:32.720 --> 01:07:38.050
about things that are so
oriented toward the mass, and

01:07:38.050 --> 01:07:39.910
that you just can't relate to.

01:07:39.910 --> 01:07:42.200
There are several print critics
who are excellent,

01:07:42.200 --> 01:07:44.080
excellent writers, and excellent
film critics.

01:07:44.080 --> 01:07:47.940
But, by and large, they seem to
get a little jaded, and a

01:07:47.940 --> 01:07:50.840
little spoiled, and a little
just sick of film.

01:07:50.840 --> 01:07:52.870
And you know, it's like if a
teacher get sick of being a

01:07:52.870 --> 01:07:54.710
teacher, I don't want them
teaching my children.

01:07:57.520 --> 01:08:01.530
In an effort to stay current,
mainstream media started

01:08:01.530 --> 01:08:04.780
hiring younger and
younger talent.

01:08:04.780 --> 01:08:09.360
Why is ageism acceptable in
the print media and in the

01:08:09.360 --> 01:08:10.800
electronic media?

01:08:10.800 --> 01:08:14.010
Because there's so many younger
people that want to

01:08:14.010 --> 01:08:17.074
get ahead that it's just easy
to dump on older critics and

01:08:17.074 --> 01:08:19.529
say, you're out of touch
with the audience.

01:08:19.529 --> 01:08:21.770
You should hang it up.

01:08:21.770 --> 01:08:26.010
In 2007 The Chicago Tribune
replaced Michael Wilmington

01:08:26.010 --> 01:08:28.422
with a more youthful presence.

01:08:28.422 --> 01:08:31.565
I have a question for you, what
the hell is up with comic

01:08:31.565 --> 01:08:33.763
book movies this summer?

01:08:37.840 --> 01:08:40.210
Every editor I know is actually
looking for the

01:08:40.210 --> 01:08:43.490
smart, hot, young critic,
because it allows you to fire

01:08:43.490 --> 01:08:46.590
the expensive 60-year-old critic
and reach the youthful

01:08:46.590 --> 01:08:48.649
demographic.

01:08:48.649 --> 01:08:52.200
But these days, long time print
media are in economic

01:08:52.200 --> 01:08:56.016
trouble, losing readers,
pages, advertisers.

01:08:58.540 --> 01:09:03.050
Some see an end to a calling,
as newly-hired critics are

01:09:03.050 --> 01:09:07.649
often the first to be fired,
joining veteran reviewers

01:09:07.649 --> 01:09:08.910
among the non-employed.

01:09:15.250 --> 01:09:18.680
Behold the future of
film criticism.

01:09:18.680 --> 01:09:20.390
I'm Jamie Bernard.

01:09:20.390 --> 01:09:22.979
I've been a film critic for 20
years, most recently for The

01:09:22.979 --> 01:09:23.439
New York Daily News.

01:09:23.439 --> 01:09:24.879
I'm also an author.

01:09:24.879 --> 01:09:26.605
It's not like I don't
have any projects.

01:09:29.720 --> 01:09:33.060
A year and a half after I
stopped being a film critic, I

01:09:33.060 --> 01:09:39.189
started my own business, and
no one's the boss of me.

01:09:39.189 --> 01:09:42.200
Those who once held
print jobs must

01:09:42.200 --> 01:09:44.315
reinvent themselves online.

01:09:47.622 --> 01:09:48.710
There's so much of
it out there.

01:09:48.710 --> 01:09:50.290
I mean, there's a more
of it to choose from.

01:09:50.290 --> 01:09:52.689
There was a time when it was
just like Mount Rushmore,

01:09:52.689 --> 01:09:55.040
where there was Paul [? Leed, ?]
and Vincent Canby,

01:09:55.040 --> 01:09:57.780
and Andrew Sarris, and a handful
of people who were

01:09:57.780 --> 01:09:59.090
really important.

01:09:59.090 --> 01:10:02.410
Critics don't have authority
anymore at all.

01:10:02.410 --> 01:10:04.450
I can say this as somebody
who writes criticism.

01:10:04.450 --> 01:10:06.740
I have a master's degree
in cinema studies.

01:10:06.740 --> 01:10:10.230
At the same time, I'm no more
qualified to blog than a

01:10:10.230 --> 01:10:13.070
teenager in Vermont who is
still in high school.

01:10:13.070 --> 01:10:15.410
I'm not looking at the people
behind me for hope, or from my

01:10:15.410 --> 01:10:16.260
generation.

01:10:16.260 --> 01:10:18.740
I'm looking for the new kids who
are coming up, who are not

01:10:18.740 --> 01:10:19.780
bound by these rules.

01:10:19.780 --> 01:10:21.350
I'm looking for the next theory
that's going to come

01:10:21.350 --> 01:10:22.710
after the auteur theory.

01:10:22.710 --> 01:10:26.910
I'm looking for the next way
of making sense of cinema.

01:10:26.910 --> 01:10:33.640
Film critics, young and old,
amateur and professional, now

01:10:33.640 --> 01:10:36.746
co-exist in cyberspace.

01:10:43.168 --> 01:10:56.030
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:10:56.030 --> 01:10:57.800
I mean, what's great about film
criticism, it's creating,

01:10:57.800 --> 01:10:59.307
like, a dialogue about a film.

01:10:59.307 --> 01:11:00.490
And I think actually,
like, I think that

01:11:00.490 --> 01:11:03.650
legitimizes making films.

01:11:03.650 --> 01:11:05.430
Critics have been fair to me.

01:11:05.430 --> 01:11:08.004
I think I've been
fairly treated.

01:11:08.004 --> 01:11:09.540
I've been understood.

01:11:09.540 --> 01:11:11.040
I'm certainly not misunderstood,
what I've been

01:11:11.040 --> 01:11:12.030
trying to do.

01:11:12.030 --> 01:11:14.660
It's interesting to read, when
someone's seen the film

01:11:14.660 --> 01:11:17.480
several times, and is putting it
together in an interesting

01:11:17.480 --> 01:11:19.250
way, and has interesting
things to say.

01:11:19.250 --> 01:11:22.260
You can smell it like on
paragraph in if they have a

01:11:22.260 --> 01:11:26.890
sense of the history of cinema,
if they're tying into

01:11:26.890 --> 01:11:28.840
the history of the genre you're
operating in, or your

01:11:28.840 --> 01:11:30.420
own previous work,
or all that.

01:11:30.420 --> 01:11:33.510
All one has to do is look year,
after year, after year,

01:11:33.510 --> 01:11:37.830
and see all the different that,
when the year began,

01:11:37.830 --> 01:11:43.380
were very low, or not even on
the radar, and then watch what

01:11:43.380 --> 01:11:46.090
happens when critics start
championing films, whether

01:11:46.090 --> 01:11:49.660
they be Boys Don't Cry,
Crouching Tiger.

01:11:49.660 --> 01:11:52.235
It's hugely important
to me, the reviews.

01:11:52.235 --> 01:11:54.780
I'm extremely insecure.

01:11:54.780 --> 01:11:56.510
And constantly question
whether I

01:11:56.510 --> 01:11:57.650
should be making films.

01:11:57.650 --> 01:11:59.560
And always feeling that
there's better

01:11:59.560 --> 01:12:00.860
filmmakers out there.

01:12:00.860 --> 01:12:04.273
And getting positive feedback
is really important in terms

01:12:04.273 --> 01:12:07.920
of giving me confidence
to go on an continue.

01:12:07.920 --> 01:12:09.115
Film critics, they've
seen a lot movies.

01:12:09.115 --> 01:12:10.670
They know what you're up to.

01:12:10.670 --> 01:12:12.315
And they can point it
out in an actually

01:12:12.315 --> 01:12:13.320
pretty productive way.

01:12:13.320 --> 01:12:18.070
So actually I think I've been
very lucky to have any harsh

01:12:18.070 --> 01:12:21.193
criticism that's been directed
at me, and there has been

01:12:21.193 --> 01:12:24.438
some, I think I've basically
agreed with in the end.

01:12:24.438 --> 01:12:39.680
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:12:39.680 --> 01:12:43.780
It's the annual dinner of the
New York film critics, and

01:12:43.780 --> 01:12:47.174
industry professionals
join the toast.

01:12:47.174 --> 01:12:49.664
[APPLAUSE]

01:12:49.664 --> 01:12:52.652
[INAUDIBLE]

01:12:52.652 --> 01:12:55.142
[APPLAUSE]

01:12:55.142 --> 01:12:56.636
Lisa Schwartzbaum from

01:12:56.636 --> 01:13:02.114
Entertainment Weekly, [APPLAUSE]

01:13:02.114 --> 01:13:04.106
A.O. Tony Scott from
The New York Times.

01:13:04.106 --> 01:13:05.610
[APPLAUSE]

01:13:05.610 --> 01:13:08.430
Some people might find it a bit
odd that the people who

01:13:08.430 --> 01:13:11.800
judge movies, and evaluate
movies, all year round want to

01:13:11.800 --> 01:13:14.430
get together in a big room
full of moving people.

01:13:14.430 --> 01:13:16.410
But basically we're all
playing the same game.

01:13:16.410 --> 01:13:18.920
I think that those people who
are responsible people in the

01:13:18.920 --> 01:13:21.700
industry, and those of us who
are responsible commentators

01:13:21.700 --> 01:13:24.810
on the industry, we all want
to make the movies better.

01:13:24.810 --> 01:13:27.320
The only hope we had of this
not being a very, very

01:13:27.320 --> 01:13:29.950
expensive treat, it fell in the
forest with no one there

01:13:29.950 --> 01:13:33.050
to here it, was if people
who wrote about film,

01:13:33.050 --> 01:13:34.680
wrote about this one.

01:13:34.680 --> 01:13:37.930
This relationship between those
who think and write

01:13:37.930 --> 01:13:42.290
about film and those who make
it is a necessary one.

01:13:42.290 --> 01:13:45.391
And I think it's been proved
right here, thanks.

01:13:45.391 --> 01:13:54.049
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:13:54.049 --> 01:13:58.060
The times that film criticism
has influenced [INAUDIBLE]

01:13:58.060 --> 01:14:00.910
making, that doesn't matter.

01:14:00.910 --> 01:14:08.940
What does matter, I think, is
that good filmmakers are happy

01:14:08.940 --> 01:14:11.650
that they exist in a
culture in which

01:14:11.650 --> 01:14:14.110
good criticism exists.

01:14:14.110 --> 01:14:17.370
If you give people an expansive
world of all cinema,

01:14:17.370 --> 01:14:18.850
of all movies.

01:14:18.850 --> 01:14:21.980
If you include the
movies they love.

01:14:21.980 --> 01:14:25.430
And then show them the movies
they could love if they just

01:14:25.430 --> 01:14:28.150
expanded their vision a little,
then I think you're

01:14:28.150 --> 01:14:29.050
performing a service.

01:14:29.050 --> 01:14:30.930
At least, you're performing the
service that I've always

01:14:30.930 --> 01:14:32.385
wanted to as a critic.

01:14:32.385 --> 01:14:35.000
My advice to kids who are coming
through, and they all,

01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:38.506
you know, journalism kids who
come through and say, how do I

01:14:38.506 --> 01:14:38.920
get to be you?

01:14:38.920 --> 01:14:41.280
Is say, do everything
else first.

01:14:41.280 --> 01:14:41.970
See the world.

01:14:41.970 --> 01:14:43.210
Write about other stuff.

01:14:43.210 --> 01:14:44.200
Have some life.

01:14:44.200 --> 01:14:45.090
Wander around.

01:14:45.090 --> 01:14:46.080
Take the wrong direction.

01:14:46.080 --> 01:14:47.740
Keep going to the movies.

01:14:47.740 --> 01:14:48.700
Have some experience.

01:14:48.700 --> 01:14:50.010
Read books.

01:14:50.010 --> 01:14:51.770
Watch television.

01:14:51.770 --> 01:14:52.960
Go hiking.

01:14:52.960 --> 01:14:53.790
Do all of that.

01:14:53.790 --> 01:14:56.043
So that when you finally do get
to write about films, if

01:14:56.043 --> 01:14:58.480
that's what you still really,
really want to do, you have a

01:14:58.480 --> 01:14:59.770
perspective of which to do it.

01:14:59.770 --> 01:15:02.645
The only way I can get people
to read me, I believe, is to

01:15:02.645 --> 01:15:03.990
write as good a review
as I can.

01:15:03.990 --> 01:15:05.990
And hopefully the quality of
the review will make people

01:15:05.990 --> 01:15:06.650
want to read it.

01:15:06.650 --> 01:15:07.900
That's all I can do.

01:15:10.702 --> 01:15:12.630
I'm not a professional.

01:15:12.630 --> 01:15:16.690
I'm an amateur, in the French
sense of someone who is

01:15:16.690 --> 01:15:20.268
engaged in something
for the love of it.

01:15:20.268 --> 01:15:24.262
I'd rather do this than anything
else in the world.

01:15:35.394 --> 01:16:27.050
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:16:27.050 --> 01:16:27.770
Telephone rang.

01:16:27.770 --> 01:16:29.160
I picked it up.

01:16:29.160 --> 01:16:32.440
The reader said, we live near
the Willmette Theater, and

01:16:32.440 --> 01:16:33.890
they're playing Cries
and Whispers.

01:16:33.890 --> 01:16:35.315
What can you tell me about it?

01:16:35.315 --> 01:16:38.475
And I said, oh, I think that's
the year's best film.

01:16:38.475 --> 01:16:41.720
And the reader said, oh, that
doesn't sound like anything

01:16:41.720 --> 01:16:43.184
we'd like to see.

01:16:43.184 --> 01:16:45.500
Now how can you account
for that?

01:16:45.500 --> 01:16:48.228
That's human nature.

01:16:48.228 --> 01:20:34.929
[MUSIC PLAYING]

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