Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Assassination of the Film Critic by the Coward Establishment.


During the last couple of weeks a lot has been made about the fact that newspapers and print mediums have been firing critics en masse.
Literature reviews are scarce in mainstream newspapers, culture critics have been replaced by uneducated gossip writers and not counting established film writers like Roger Ebert, the idea of film criticism has been reduced to PR clippings that focus on Angelina's latest scandal while promoting her new movie.
It's truly a shame that society has reduced the debate of arts to a cult instead of encouraging it, since talk about art inspires art.
As Nick James reminds us "Never mind that it was a bunch of critics that transformed cinema in the 1950s to create the nouvelle vague, or that another bunch paved the way for Britain's "Angry Young Men" to transform British cinema in the 1960s."
Roger Ebert writes a fantastic, funny piece in his blog and "Sight and Sound" offers a fascinating take by James on how the British are facing this phenomenon. Both articles are a meta reminder that without these people there wouldn't be pieces demanding pieces were being written and what a boring world would that be.

3 comments:

marcela said...

Sabés q algo muy parecido sucede con los críticos de arquitectura? Los reemplazan por periodistas de mala muerte en revistas como Casa y Hogar de El Heraldo...

Notas Sobre Creación Cultural e Imaginarios Sociales said...

Yo se vos, es una crisis a nivel mundial y es como un círculo vicioso por que lo que más ocupamos en este momento es detener el pensamiento fácil y sin crítica, por que por esto mismo es que luego las personas se confían de lo superficial y eventualmente los mercados colapsan y la gente se queda sin casas.
Se que suena exagerado pero si las personas dejan de tener otras perspectivas sobre el mundo y esperan que les entreguen toda la información digerida se vuelven poco cuidadosos con sus elecciones, ya que desde comprar una casa o pagar el tiquete del cine todo se reduce a decisiones en las que tenemos que razonar.

Michael Parsons said...

It is a sad state of affairs, this world we live in. People like Perez Hilton are popular for spreading toxic drivel.

I like a well thought out piece of writing any day. As Margaret Cho said.

"If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world."

(the word verification was awardic)