The Latest Chapter of the Death of Film Criticism
Over on The Hot Blog, David has a piece up on the laying off of J. Hoberman from the Village Voice that says, essentially, what many of us who have struggled to continue to work on this side of the industry have been thinking for a long time. The age of the print critic (really, of the print film journalist) is coming to a rapid end; those who survive will be the ones who can adapt to the internet, to blogging, to interacting with readers in comments. As David has done, and Roger Ebert, and Anne Thompson, and many others.
You have to be able to compete against all the enthusiastic young writers who realized that the Internet and self-publishing through blogging gave them a foot in the door to work as film writers by building an audience for their writing, even as it gouged the idea of journalists getting paid a decent salary and benefits. And I don’t intend that as a slam against some of the highly talented, smart younger writers out there making a name for themselves. It’s a shift that was as inevitable as every other change technology has brought to our business, and you either embrace and try to succeed, or you get rolled over by it. Not a lot of sense bemoaning how things used to be, because they just aren’t.
Hoberman getting laid off is shocking to us on a personal level, because for so many of us our love of film, our love of writing about film, was nourished in part by writers like Hoberman and McCarthy. I often don’t agree with Hoberman, but I love to read him … and there are countless films I would never have been turned on to were it not for his championing them.
One of the commenters on David’s post had this to say: “One of our two biggest papers laid off their film critic last year. Now it just features viewers’ opinion on a meter.”
That, even more than the firing of writers like McCarthy and Hoberman, is a troublesome indicator of the value your average person places on the intellectual and artistic value of people who seriously study film being at the center of such discussions. Many of us in the industry are mourning not just Hoberman getting laid off, but the statement the Voice is making in determining that he was expendable at all. If he is nothing more than a line on an account book, so easily discarded, so are we all, right? Not that many of us haven’t been aware of that for some time; many of my colleagues started working on either trying to solidify their particular throne on the internet, or on diversifying into multiple baskets, several years ago. The writing has been on the wall for a while now, folks. I’d say a majority of film writers I know are either writing for multiple outlets, or working in other areas of the industry as well. Or they have good day jobs where they actually get a paycheck and health insurance, and they write strictly on the side, dreaming of a day when they can do it full time that will likely never come.
The age of the internet has done a lot of good things, but on the other hand it feeds the skewed and inaccurate perception that writing about film doesn’t require any more skill than the ability to type on a keyboard, or click a checkbox to rate what you think of a film. Right. And all it takes to make a good movie is the ability to point a camera at something and push a button; why do we need Scorsese and Fincher or the Coen Brothers, really? Look at all the awesomeness on YouTube! And writing? Pfffft. David Foster Wallace? Christopher Hitchens? Michael Chabon? David Sedaris? Hell, Tolkien? Anyone can do that, right? For that matter, let’s just do away with smart writing altogether and feed our brains off fan-fiction written by teenagers. As for intellectual film history and analysis … who needs David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, there’s millions of teenagers with access to Wikipedia out there! This, unfortunately, is the value that a large percentage of the population on the Internet puts on things of intellectual merit. The idea of excellence, of craft, of really thinking and honing your work, is largely disappearing as page views and ad dollars secure their status as the new arbiters of What’s Important.
Look, access to a computer, the ability to use a keyboard, even having an opinion as to whether a film is good or bad, does not a critic make. Sorry kids, but it just does not. Any more than my kitchen, with all its pans and pots and chefs’ knives, and a refrigerator and pantry full of food and spices, qualifies me to be a chef. I’m a good cook for my family, sure. But a chef I will never be. And thousands of readers who can click a button to “rate” a film cannot begin to replace the masterful ability to analyze film that someone like Hoberman brings to the table. Hoberman’s canning is sad news, and I hope he lands somewhere, so that we can continue to benefit from our agreements and disagreements with his astute, often brilliant takes on film.
Meanwhile, if you want to show Hoberman some support, take the suggestion Matt Zoller Seitz made on Facebook to heart and buy one of Hoberman’s books. Buy it new — he doesn’t get royalties if you buy used. And his books are all well worth reading, whether you’re a critic or just a lover of film.
Been saying it for years: Writing about film will become a calling, not a career.
Those who NEED to write, and love movies, will find a way to do it. Blogs, low-paying local papers, capsule reviews tied to passenger pigeons, whatever. They’ll put food on the table doing something else, but they’ll write.
I say all of this sadly, of course. Even Ebert couldn’t keep his show on the air (problem with that was, it was basically People The Average Viewer Doesn’t Know from Adam, With A Few Minutes of Ebert). When Ebert goes, either when his clock runs out (eventually — I hope not for many years) or when the Sun-Times cans him (less likely), how many people will be left who can make a living on writing about movies? Not many, if any.
The younger writers you’re talking about who do make a living at it really have to hustle, I would think. They have to see and review every damn thing that’s out there. That’ll lead to burnout fast, and after they give their youth to being among the first to weigh in on “Alvin and the Chipmunks 4: Chipmunk Harder” there’s no guarantee they won’t be canned. Poor bastards. This is why, when (infrequently) asked for advice by a fledgling film critic, I say “Don’t quit your day job.”
I see one new movie a week and review it, and I don’t make a living at it, but I enjoy doing it. I don’t get assigned stuff I don’t want to see, and my editor leaves my stuff alone; it runs as I wrote it. People frequently pick up the weekly I write for just for my reviews. Especially at my age, I’ll take autonomy over insecurity, quality over quantity.
Rob, I’m absolutely with you on the automony over insecurity, quality over quantity thing. That’s a huge reason I moved here to MCN when I left Cinematical. I looked at what was happening with film writing and decided I did not want to work the insane hustle so many of my friends and colleagues do.
David has always given me freedom and autonomy in my writing, and I value that greatly at this point in my writing life. And right now, it allows me the flexibility to also transition into making films while juggling taking care of my pack of kids. I consider myself lucky.
There is still a great deal of opportunity for paid positions writing film criticism, for anybody with talent. There is The New York Times, the New Yorker, so many local papers, local TV and radio stations, blogging positions with websites that do actually have readers. All that is needed is talent.