Creative Destruction

Source: No Kiss Kiss, All Bang Bang Why Film Critic Armond White Loves Spielberg and Attacks Spike Lee -- New York Magazine

This guy reminds me all too much of that critic from Lady In the Water. He seems the kind of guy who lives to find ways to creatively bash films, especially audience and critic favorites. When it comes down to it, the whole point of the field which the Critics represent is not the destruction of public opinion about bad movies. People do that fine themselves. A glance at the internet will quickly show you how much competition these folks have in that field.

The thing about it is, though, that what people really need is better awareness of work that is good, interesting, or both. They don't need somebody to kill bad films; word of mouth will do that. They don't need some hero to save the audience from themselves; for better or worse, the audience likes what it likes, and there's nothing anybody can do about that except encourage better films.

They need more somebody there who can unlock the hidden grace in a movie most people ignore or revile. They need somebody who gets to see the films they don't have the chance or primary inclination to see, the stuff they often don't know exists.

All too often, critics are just overthinking films, overanalyzing things, failing to let themselves suspend disbelief for fear of suspending rational thought as well. The trick is, films reflect experience and experience is not experienced in an entirely rational way, either. Our perceptions are rife with illusions and neurological shortcuts our brain takes. Our feelings are never far from hand when it comes to how we think, how we remember. Our rational mind is imperfect in its knowledge and its breadth. We process so much of what we see in the movie below the threshold of conscious thought.

We don't need somebody tell us what we should feel about a movie. We decide that for ourselves. Take the movie I mentioned, for example. That, and other films of Shyamalan's have been reviled in the media, especially since the mentioned movie killed that particular critic. But me? Sometimes his movies are a bit awkwardly constructed, a bit off. But they're often filled with well constructed scenes and good, original storytelling. My feeling is that Shyamalan is trying to figure out how to do broader kinds of science fiction and fantasy than just the sort of subtle, hints around the edges stuff he did earlier in his career. His agreement to direct The Last Airbender, an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated series with a plethora of such elements would fit that. He's a filmmaker learning to deal with the challenges of broadening his horizons in front of our eyes.

The results, if not always perfect, are often marvellous to me. I could offer him some advice on how to make the fantastic elements of Lady in the Water work better, but in truth, I'm glad to have seen it.

Ultimately, this notion that a critic or any viewer can hold forth on ultimate truth in film or any other story medium is bullshit. We live our movies for ourselves, and who we are changes what story we get. Not abitrarily, mind you, but enough that two different people will ultimately only see similar stories when they watch, at best, and sometimes wildly different ones. We must realize how subjective art is, if we are to recognize the challenges in channeling the audience's feelings and imagination.