Film criticism

Film criticism is the analysis and

evaluation of films and the film medium.
The concept is often used interchangeably
with that of film reviews. A film review
implies a recommendation aimed at
consumers, however not all film criticism
takes the form of reviews.

In general, film criticism can be divided

into two categories: journalistic criticism
which appears regularly in newspapers,
magazines and other popular mass-media
outlets; and academic criticism by film
scholars who are informed by film theory
and are published in academic journals.
Academic film criticism rarely takes the
form of a review; instead it is more likely to
analyse the film and its place within the
history of its genre, or the whole of film
history.[1]

History
Film was introduced in the late 19th
century. The earliest artistic criticism of
film emerged in the early 1900s. The first
paper to serve as a critique of film came
out of The Optical Lantern and
Cinematograph Journal, followed by the
Bioscope in 1908.[2]

Film is a relatively new form of art, in

comparison to music, literature and
painting which have existed since ancient
times. Because of this, early writing on film
sought to argue that films could also be
respected as art. In 1911, Ricciotto
Canudo wrote a manifesto proclaiming
cinema to be the "Sixth Art" (later "Seventh
Art").[3] For many decades after, film was
still being treated with less prestige than
longer-established art forms.[4]
By the 1920s, critics were analyzing film
for its merit and value as more than just
entertainment. The growing popularity of
the medium caused major newspapers to
start hiring film critics.[2] In the 1930s, the
film industry developed concepts of
stardom and celebrity in relation to actors,
which led to a rise in obsession with critics
as well, to the point that they were often
seen on "red carpet" and at major events
with the actors.

It was in the 1940s that new forms of

criticism emerged. Essays analyzing films
with a distinctive charm and style to
persuade the reader of the critic's
argument.[2] It was the emergence of these
styles that brought film criticism to the
mainstream, gaining the attention of many
popular magazines; this made film reviews
and critiques an eventual staple among
most print media. As the decades passed,
the fame for critics grew and gave rise to
household names among the craft like
James Agee, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael
and in modern times Roger Ebert and
Peter Travers.

Journalistic criticism
Film critics working for newspapers,
magazines, broadcast media, and online
publications, mainly review new releases,
although also review older films.[5] An
important task for these reviews is to
inform readers on whether or not they
would want to see the film. A film review
will typically explain the premise of the film
before discussing its merits. The verdict is
often summarised with a form of rating.
Numerous rating systems exist, such as 5-
or 4-star scales, academic-style grades
and pictograms (such as in the San
Francisco Chronicle).
Chicago critic Roger Ebert (R) with director Russ
Meyer.

Some well-known journalistic critics have

included: James Agee (Time (magazine),
The Nation); Vincent Canby (The New York
Times); Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times);
Mark Kermode (BBC, The Observer);
James Berardinelli; Philip French (The
Observer); Pauline Kael (The New Yorker);
Manny Farber (The New Republic, Time,
The Nation); Peter Bradshaw (The
Guardian); Michael Phillips (Chicago
Tribune); Andrew Sarris (The Village
Voice); Joel Siegel (Good Morning
America); Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago
Reader); and Christy Lemire (What The
Flick?!).

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel popularised

the concept of reviewing films in a
television format in the show Siskel &
Ebert At the Movies which became
syndicated in the 1980s. Both critics had
established their careers in print media,
and continued to write written reviews for
their respective newspapers alongside
their television show.

Online film criticism

Aggregators

Some websites, such as Rotten Tomatoes

and Metacritic, seek to improve the
usefulness of film reviews by compiling
them and assigning a score to each in
order to gauge the general reception a film
receives.[6]

Online film critics

Blogging has also introduced
opportunities for a new wave of amateur
film critics to have their opinions heard.
These review blogs may focus on one
genre, director or actor, or encompass a
much wider variety of films. Friends,
friends of friends, or strangers are able to
visit these blogsites, and can often leave
their own comments about the movie
and/or the author's review. Although much
less frequented than their professional
counterparts, these sites can gather a
following of like-minded people who look
to specific bloggers for reviews as they
have found that the critic consistently
exhibits an outlook very similar to their
own.[7] YouTube has also served as a
platform for amateur film critics.

Some websites specialize in narrow

aspects of film reviewing. For instance,
there are sites that focus on specific
content advisories for parents to judge a
film's suitability for children. Others focus
on a religious perspective (e.g. CAP Alert).
Still others highlight more esoteric
subjects such as the depiction of science
in fiction films. One such example is
Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics by
Intuitor. Some online niche websites
provide comprehensive coverage of the
independent sector; usually adopting a
style closer to print journalism. They tend
to prohibit adverts and offer
uncompromising opinions free of any
commercial interest. Their film critics
normally have an academic film
background.[2]

The Online Film Critics Society, an

international professional association of
Internet-based cinema reviewers, consists
of writers from all over the world,[8] while
New York Film Critics Online members
handle reviews in the New York tri-state
area.[9]

User-submitted reviews
A number of websites allow Internet users
to submit movie reviews and aggregate
them into an average. Community-driven
review sites have allowed the common
movie goer to express their opinion on
films. Many of these sites allow users to
rate films on a 0 to 10 scale, while some
rely on the star rating system of 1–5, 0–5
or 0–4 stars. The votes are then culled into
an overall rating and ranking for any
particular film. Some of these community
driven review sites include Reviewer, Movie
Attractions, Flixster, FilmCrave, Flickchart
and Everyone's a Critic. Rotten Tomatoes
and Metacritic aggregate both scores from
accredited critics and those submitted by
users.[10]

On these online review sites, users

generally only have to register with the site
in order to submit reviews. This means
that they are a form of open access poll,
and have the same advantages and
disadvantages; notably, there is no
guarantee that they will be a
representative sample of the film's
audience. In some cases, online review
sites have produced wildly differing results
to scientific polling of audiences.[11]

Taste-based reviews
The emerging big data science has
enabled computing to understand user's
taste from reviews and connect them with
similar users so that networked Tribe can
be a great source of recommendations.
Most review aggregators indirectly
influence the herd mentality in us while
critic reviewers are just one opinion
among many. CineBee, a machine learning
based approach to reviews and opinions,
helps isolate user's taste from their
reviews and connects similar users. As
these Tribes are formed, CineBee uses the
Tribe intelligence to provide
recommendation, prediction and discovery
to its users.
Academic film criticism
More often known as film theory or film
studies, academic critique explores
cinema beyond journalistic film reviews.
These film critics try to examine why film
works, how it works aesthetically or
politically, what it means, and what effects
it has on people. Rather than write for
mass-market publications their articles are
usually published in scholarly journals and
texts which tend to be affiliated with
university presses; or sometimes in up-
market magazines.[12]
Most academic criticism of film often
follows a similar format. They usually
include summaries of the plot of the film
to either refresh the plot to the reader, or
reinforce an idea of repetition in the film's
genre. After this, there tends to be
discussions about the cultural context,
major themes and repetitions, and details
about the legacy of the film.[13]

Some notable academic film critics

include André Bazin, Jean-Luc Godard and
François Truffaut (all writers for Cahiers
du Cinéma); Kristin Thompson, David
Bordwell, and Sergei Eisenstein. Godard,
Truffaut and Eisenstein were also film
directors.

Issues and controversies

Influence

In the 2000s, the effect that reviews have

on a film's box office performance and
DVD rentals/sales have become a matter
for debate. Some analysts argue that
modern movie marketing, using pop
culture convention appearances (e.g.,
Comicon) and social media along with
traditional means of advertising, has led, in
part, to a decline in the readership of many
reviewers for newspapers and other print
publications. There are fewer critics on
television and radio in the last thirty years.

However, in recent years, there has been a

growing belief in the film industry that
critic aggregators (especially Rotten
Tomatoes) are increasing the collective
influence of film critics. The
underperformance of several films in 2017
was blamed on their low scores on Rotten
Tomatoes.[14] This has led to studies such
as one commissioned by 20th Century Fox
claiming that younger viewers give the
website more credibility than the major
studio marketing, which undercuts its
effectiveness.[15]

Today, fan-run film analysis websites like

Box Office Prophets, CineBee and Box
Office Guru routinely factor more into the
opinions of the general public on films
produced.

The "undulating curve of

shifting expectations"

The "undulating curve of shifting

expectations" (UCoSE) refers to both the
title of a recurring entertainment industry
feature in New York magazine by cultural
critic Adam Sternbergh and also to a
concept of media analysis co-developed
by writer Emily Nussbaum.[16][17]

UCoSE refers to the dynamic tension

between pre-release promotional efforts
and subsequent audience reactions to
entertainment media.

…what the UCoSE does is provide

us a way of analyzing the
trajectory of entertainment
products as they metamorphize
their way through his theorized
seven-stage growth chart: Pre-
Buzz, Buzz, Rave Reviews,
 Saturation Point, Overhyped,
Backlash, and finally, Backlash To
The Backlash.[18]

Female representation

There have been many complaints against

the film-criticism industry for its
underrepresentation of women.[19] A study
of the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes
shows that 91 per cent of writers for
movie/entertainment magazines and
websites are men, as are 90 per cent of
those for trade publications, 80 per cent of
critics for general interest magazines like
Time, and 70 per cent of reviewers for
radio formats such as NPR.[20]

Writing for The Atlantic, Kate Kilkenny

argued that women were better
represented in film criticism before the rise
of the Internet. In the past, when film was
considered less prestigious than visual art
and literature, it was easier for women to
break into film criticism. Judith Crist and
Pauline Kael were two of the most
influential film critics of the 1960s and
1970s. The Internet led to a decline in jobs
at small newspapers where women were
more likely to review films, whereas the
more male-dominated jobs at major
newspapers survived better. The Internet
also encouraged a growth in niche review
websites that were even more male-
dominated than older media. Kilkenny also
suggested that the shortage of female
critics was related to the shortage of
female opinion columnists.[4]

Clem Bastow, culture writer at The

Guardian Australia, discussed the possible
effects of this on the critical response to
the 2015 film The Intern, which received
mixed-to-positive reviews from critics:
The critical response to The
Intern was fascinating. There’s a
subset of male critics that clearly
see Nancy Meyers as code for
chick flick and react with
according bile. What’s very
interesting, though, is that I think
female critics, working in an
industry that is coded as very
male, if not macho, often feel the
need to go hard on certain films
for women, presumably because
they worry that they’ll be
 dismissed, critically speaking, if
they praise a film like The Intern
as though they’re only reviewing
it favorably because they’re
women.[19]

Film Critic Salary

As of 2013 film critics make about
$82,000.[21] Newspaper and Magazine
critics would make $27,364-$49,574.[22]
Online movie critics would make $2-$200
per review.[22] TV critics would make up to
$40,000-$60,000 per month.[22]
See also
Critic
Film canon
Prestige picture
List of film critics
List of film journals and magazines
List of films considered the best
List of films considered the worst
At the Movies, a US TV series featuring
movie reviews, originally hosted by Gene
Siskel and Roger Ebert
For the Love of Movies: The Story of
American Film Criticism, a 2009
documentary film
References
1. "Reviews vs Criticism - Film & Television
Studies" . The University of Vermont
Libraries Research Guides. October 15,
2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
2. Battaglia, James (May 2010).
"Everyone's a Critic: Film Criticism Through
History and Into the Digital Age" . Senior
Honors Theses: 32 – via Digital Commons.
3. Giovanni Dotoli, Ricciotto Canudo ou le
cinéma comme art, Preface by Jean-Louis
Leutrat, Fasano-Paris, Schena-Didier
Érudition, 1999
4. "How the Internet Led to the Decline of
Female Film Critics" . The Atlantic. 2015-
12-27. Retrieved 2018-06-21.
5. "The Classic" . At the Movies with
Margaret and David. ABC.net.au. Retrieved
26 May 2014.
6. Beam, Christopher; Singer-Vine, Jeremy
(2011-06-06). "Slate's Hollywood Career-O-
Matic" . Slate. ISSN 1091-2339 . Retrieved
2017-10-25.
7. "What is blogging?" . The Balance.
Retrieved 2017-10-25.
8. "Our Bylaws – Online Film Critics
Society" . ofcs.org. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
9. "New York Film Critics Online - Who We
Are" . www.nyfco.net. Retrieved
2017-10-25.
10. "Rotten Tomatoes: About" .
www.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved
2017-10-25.
11. D'Alessandro, Anthony (2017-12-17).
"Did Audiences Enjoy 'Star Wars: The Last
Jedi'? Deciphering Online User Reviews
From Exit Polls" . Deadline. Retrieved
2017-12-18.
12. "Faculty publications" .
13. Hantke, Steffen (2007). "Academic
Film Criticism, the Rhetoric of Crisis, and
the Current State of American Horror
Cinema: Thoughts on Canonicity and
Academic Anxiety". College Literature. 34
(4): 191–202. doi:10.2307/25115464 .
JSTOR 25115464 .
14. Mendelson, Scott (13 June 2017).
"Rotten Tomatoes, Netflix And A Perfect
Storm That Dooms Hollywood" . Forbes.
Retrieved 14 June 2017.
15. Lee, Chris (9 June 2017). "How
Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe
Rotten Tomatoes" . Vanity Fair. Retrieved
14 June 2017.
16. "When Is It OK to Spoil?" . On the
Media. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
17. "The Mathemagical World of New York
Magazine" . mediabistro.com. Retrieved
2 August 2015.
18. "Whitney Cummings, The Television
Industry's Most Criticized Female, Comes
Out In Support Of Lana Del Rey, The Music
Industry's Most Criticized Female" . VH1
Music News. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
19. Adams, Thelma (2015-12-29). "The
Curious Case of the Missing Women in
Film Criticism" . Variety. Retrieved
2017-10-24.
20. "Male film critics greatly outnumber
female critics, study finds" . EW.com.
2016-06-23. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
21. "Pay Scale for Movie Critics" .
Retrieved 2018-05-02.
22. "How Much Money Do Movie Critics
Make?" . Bizfluent. Retrieved 2018-05-02.

Further reading
Peter Bradshaw gives advice to young,
aspiring, would-be film critics (The
Guardian, 8 July 2008)
Haberski, Raymond J., Jr. It's Only a
Movie!: Film and Critics in American
 Culture, University Press of Kentucky,
2001.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Movie Wars:
How Hollywood and the Media Conspire
to Limit What Films We Can See, A
Cappella Books, 2000.

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