MADness—the Blog

The circumstances in which the art of criticism is practiced are always changing, but the state of the art is remarkably constant.

That’s A.O. Scott writing in today’s N.Y. Times.  Scott remains one of the lead film critics at the Times, but his other gig, as co-host of the long-running television show At the Movies, was recently terminated.  That announcement had come not long after news of the firing of two critics at Variety.  Critics have been losing jobs for years, and the situation now looks increasingly dire.  Not that any of this is breaking news.  Google “film critic” and “endangered species” and you’ll get thousands of hits.

So the question comes up:  Do critics matter?  Well, that depends, doesn’t it?

Critics don’t matter to the film business.  They don’t make or break films.  Among the many factors that affect a film’s box office, the critical reaction has such a small influence you may as well round it off to zero.  I doubt critics ever had much impact on business (even James Agee, Tony), but a film today is a hit, or not, regardless of what the critics say.  Last year’s Transformers sequel got terrible reviews but raked in $400 million in domestic grosses, about double that worldwide.  Opening the same weekend was The Hurt Locker; after all the critical acclaim—and a Best Picture Oscar later—the film has grossed $16 million here, about $36 million total.  People don’t go to movies because critics like them, and they don’t stay home when critics don’t.

Critics do matter, though, to the art of movies.  The first assessment of a film’s quality, typically, is the opening weekend reviews.  Sometimes the assessment changes over time, sometimes not, but the leading arbiters of film art are the leading film critics—the ones working at top daily and weekly newspapers, a few other publications, and a few websites.  (Others—book authors, scholars, etc.—get their say too, but later.)

What the critics say doesn’t matter to the business people.  It doesn’t matter to the mass audience.  But it does matter to some important groups.  One, people (like me) who like to read about movies.  Word gets around, and that word is often influenced by what critics say, since they have the first shot.  Another group is filmmakers, at least the ones who care about what people are saying (yes, Kevin Smith appears to be one of them).  I don’t doubt that some filmmakers hate critics, some don’t read critics, and some others appreciate critics—but that’s still a lot of filmmakers for whom critics matter.  If you consider yourself working in the art of film, you may want to be careful what you read, but you would certainly have an interest in what’s being said.

I think the question Do critics matter? really comes down to this:  Does art matter?

I know my answer to that question, and there’s much more to be said, but that’ll have to do for now.