Watching the remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs this week, I made a note regarding one of the film’s underlying themes that I simply didn’t have time to address in my review. In addition to the original films observations about violence, sexuality, religion and blaming the victim, this version added a subtext that seemed oddly out of place, a commentary on the average man’s version of Hollywood. Beyond the setting, the second biggest change between this Straw Dogs and the original is the changing of the main character’s occupation from a college mathematician, as played by Dustin Hoffman, to the Hollywood screenwriter that James Marsden plays. At first this change seems minor, just an attempt to portray David as sort of a yuppie, but this fact keeps getting brought up over and over again. As David does research to write a historical drama about the battle of Stalingrad, one of his hillbilly tormenters asks him “You writin’ or something?” He goes on to inquire if David’s written any action movies, and finally says “What you done that I would’ve seen?” to which David disdainfully replies, “Probably nothing.” Later, as Kate Bosworth’s character discusses acting in a failed TV show, a slutty cheerleader says “I don’t know how come it’s not on, everyone I know watched it.” Eventually, as our villain asks David “Why would you want to write a movie about a bunch of Russkis?” I decided that this theme exploring Hollywood’s disconnect from American audience had to be so prevalent for a reason. I did my research and discovered that writer/director Rod Lurie is himself a former film critic. As such, he is fully aware that the lines he put into these character’s mouths are actual feelings expressed by audiences every single day. He is fully aware that there is an anti-intellectual “us vs. them” mentality regarding American audiences’ feeling towards critics, and he is lashing out against it by having these thoughts come from characters we’re meant to look down upon. (Ironically, he’s doing it in a film which seems to be intentionally mismarketed to appeal to the types of audience members he is making fun of.)
This is nothing new, in fact it’s the opposite end of what filmmakers have been doing to critics for years. M. Night Shyamalan represented the critic community in a whiny, horrible, unlikable character in Lady and the Water, and Roland Emmerich had worthless characters in Godzilla named after Siskel and Ebert. (Gene Siskel’s beautiful response to this was “ if you're going to go through the trouble of putting us in a monster movie, why don't you at least take advantage of having the monster either eat or squash us.”) This happens. When you hurt people’s feelings for a living, you’re bound to make a few enemies. Directors like Emmerich or Michael Bay constantly make bad films which generate a ton of revenue, and audiences don’t understand the poor scores their favorite films get from the critics. There’s a rift, and as a result, common filmgoers frequently find themselves at odds with the critics, even though people consult them now more than ever. This obviously leads to frustration in the critic community, who find themselves hated by filmmakers and filmgoers alike. This is an issue, but making fun of the audience the way Lurie has is not the answer. Instead, we should take a look at why we’ve come to this impasse, and analyze the state of film criticism as it stands today. The way I see it, the problem is two-fold, and fellow critics, we ain’t exactly innocent here.
First, let’s look at the parts that aren’t our fault. For all the consulting that people supposedly do, there’s very few who will actually read the reviews. Instead, they simply wish to look at the number of stars, or whether the thumb is up or down. Aggregate websites like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic only exacerbate the problem, as they make it easy to simply look at a number and say “Oh, that must be objectively good.” What they should be able to say, if the critic is doing their job is "AO Scott liked this movie for X reasons, but that doesn't really seem like it would appeal to me." They can make the decision from there. It is even possible and common for one critic to give a positive review and another to give a negative review and cite the exact same reasons, but many people don’t realize this. They’re content to look at the blurbs on the poster and in the ads without checking the source of the quotes so that they can hold no responsibility when they pick a movie that doesn’t fulfill their expectations. Recently at the theater I witnessed an elderly lady yelling at the ticket-taker because the movie she had just seen received a high rating from the newspaper, but she found it to be “foul and perverse.” When she left, I asked the young attendant what film she had seen, and she willingly bought a ticket for the dirty comedy Horrible Bosses. When you buy a ticket for a film that features a character named Motherfucker Jones, you should know what you are getting into, lady.
In the woman’s defense though, perhaps she didn’t. There is a failure of many critics' part to do their jobs. Being so concerned with tomatometer scores and poster blurbs, modern day film critics are forgetting that part of their job is to act as an interpreter between filmmaker and audience. The reason we study film when most people don’t is to act as a guide to themes, metaphors and authorial intent. (Or in this case, to inform the audience that a main character’s first name is “Motherfucker.”) Essentially, there are some films which require a wide breadth of knowledge about themes, subtext, storytelling, cinematography, and general film history to understand and enjoy. A lot of "internet critics" are unwilling to put in the work required to have those qualities, and a lot of "real critics" are unwilling to put the knowledge they have to work. (I am fully aware of my hypocrisy here. More on that later.) This is why Roger Ebert is the go-to example for a “good” critic, because this role of go-between is one where he excels. Anyone who has ever watched Citizen Kane or Casablanca and didn’t understand what the fuss was about needs to watch the films again with Ebert’s commentary, in which he actually heightens the appreciation of the movie, and gives context that will cause more people to enjoy these films. Critics, it is your responsibility to add to the film experience. Many of the “reviews” published today are devoid of any real criticism, just musings from people who are all too happy to simply give a plot summary and then say "I liked it!" without giving any reason or explanation.
In Brad Bird’s film Ratatouille, the role of the secondary antagonist is filled by pompous food critic named Anto Ego, played brilliantly by Peter O’Toole. Ego is actually one of the few sympathetic portrayals of critics in the history of film, and his monologue puts to words another often overlooked part of criticism better than I ever could:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.
A critic who devotes his life to trying to get people not to see bad movies is going to wind up unliked and unhappy. (And maybe passive-aggressively remaking Dustin Hoffman films) It can be frustrating knowing that people will continue to watch and give money to films like Alvin and the Chipmunks or the Transformers franchise. That's why rather than trying to keep people from seeing bad movies, critics should be encouraging them to also watch good movies that they otherwise may not have tried. It's part of the job of the critic to seek out and champion for those who have talent, rather than tear down those who do not. Kevin Smith, for example, is a filmmaker who owes his entire career to critics encouraging people to watch Clerks years ago. (It would be nice if Smith would remember this once in awhile.) We are never going to keep bad movies from making money, and really, we shouldn't have to. (Unless that film is highly offensive, i.e. Mars Needs Moms) The best thing to do is to make sure good movies make money as well.
Above all, the purpose of the critic is to advance and maintain the promotion of film as an art form. It is to defend the presence of film in society, and this doesn't necessarily mean promoting "art" movies. If you can honestly make an argument for there being artistic integrity/quality in say, a Michael Bay film, then do it. (I'm sure you could easily count his work with explosions as at least artistically relevant) So many people assume that being a critic is easy, which it is, if you're a hack. For many of us, it's a labor of love and an art form that is slowly dying in front of our eyes. Maybe it's pretentious of me, but I think that the act of writing about movies can be just as much of an art form as making movies themselves. It's incredibly hypocritical of me to say that the internet has cheapened Film Criticism in general, but in a way it has. Anyone with a gimmick and a youtube page can become a "critic," gain a ridiculously large fanbase, and have their words taken as gospel, regardless of whether or not they're actually saying anything. (Or maybe I'm just jealous that Nostalgia Critic is more popular than Current Releases.) There's no real love or passion, it's just an easy way to gain some marginally small notoriety.
So, the problem is laziness, on both the part of the readers and the part of the writers. It’s become commonplace to say that it’s become easier than ever to stay informed, but the truth is that it’s just become easier to be misinformed. The best way for critics to combat this is to build a stronger community of critics, promoting the works of writers they admire. A blog post here, a tweet there, it all goes a long way when it comes to bringing audience closer to writer. Today’s critic needs to be as critical of themselves and of each other as they are the material they’re reviewing. Websites like mymoviecritic.com are fighting the fight by attempting to expose audiences to critics who share their individual tastes, critics need to be doing the same thing. It is essential to journalistic integrity that critics never pander, but it is crucial to the survival of the art form that some attempt be made to meet with the masses. We can’t all direct remakes when we get angry, so maybe it’s time we changed how we do things a little.
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