Pauline Kael, considered by many to be America’s greatest film critic, retired from The New Yorker in 1991, saddened by the state of American cinema. She acted like she had nothing new to say. AO Scott quit his job as New York Times film critic last week after 23 years with more or less the same motives.
Posted at 7:00 p.m
In an episode of the Daily, the Times podcast, Scott – heavily influenced by Pauline Kael – lamented the stranglehold of superhero films on Hollywood cinema and the pernicious influence of digital platforms on the seventh art.
“The cultural space given to films that interest me seems to be shrinking,” he said. The audiences needed to support original works are stunned by algorithms or distracted by bad news on social media. »
It’s difficult to disagree with him. In a movie theater, a director reminded me recently, we have the advantage of capturing the audience for 1 hour 30 or 2 hours. There’s no toilet break, no way to check your phone without disturbing your neighbor, and there’s no question watching the movie in two or three sittings like it’s a TV series.
I understand Scott’s tiredness towards the famous MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and its replacement, which seems to be taking up all the space in the cinema schedule. While there’s some good in the mix, no one can deny that Hollywood studios tend to stretch the sauce.
The main victim of this avalanche of ironic action films is not auteur cinema (which has its own audience and niches) but quality popular cinema.
It’s surprising that a film as charming as The Fabelmans had such disappointing results at the box office ($43 million on a $40 million budget).
PHOTO MERIE WEISMILLER WALLACE SUPPLIED BY UNIVERSAL, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans
AO Scott is right when he says that cinema no longer has the same cultural influence. We no longer comment on the new films about the office coffee machine as we did before. These discussions, when they take place, come with a certain delay.
I was recently told about Triangle of Sadness and Everything Everywhere All At Once available on video on demand. “Oscar-winning” films – I’m thinking of two other Oscar finalists for best picture, Tàr and Women Talking – have become objects that cinephiles are primarily interested in. And this is not a specifically American phenomenon.
Audiences are less inclined to spend the equivalent of a monthly subscription to a digital platform on a single movie. It’s understandable… even if they’re two very different experiences. As they say in Cannes: There is no photo.
The influence of platforms and their algorithms on the state of cinema is undeniable. Students at UQAM asked me about it this week. Of course, Netflix generally hurts cinephilia. Even if other platforms like Mubi and Criterion introduce new generations to repertory cinema.
Algorithms also captivate the audience and make us lazy. We tend to look at what’s immediately suggested to us rather than what to look for in Netflix’s maze. If we mainly watch series, we are mainly offered other series. It is a doom-loop.
PHOTO CARLOS SOMONTE SUPPLIED BY NETFLIX, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE
Scene from Roma, by Alfonso Cuarón
Also, Netflix, while we’re on the subject, seems to have shot itself in the foot by funding movies in the tens of millions (Roma, The Power of the Dog, Marriage Story, or even The Irishman) that didn’t have the same impact on the platform as if they had been shown in the cinema.
This Netflixization also overcame AO Scott’s enthusiasm for his profession. He will continue his career in the books section of The New York Times. What interests Scott, like Pauline Kael before him, is dealing with art. From this, Scott drafted an essay, Better Living Through Criticism, on the need for criticism, particularly artistic ones. Film criticism, however, is less stimulating when the dialogue becomes a monologue or, worse, a deaf-fanboy dialogue (which AO Scott alienated from his critique of the Avengers).
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARVEL
Scene from Avengers: Infinity War
Criticism no longer has the impact it had when Pauline Kael was rampant. About fifteen years ago I took part in a panel moderated by Peter Cowie at the Venice Film Festival with venerable American critics Richard Corliss, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Molly Haskell and Pauline Kael’s great rival Andrew Sarris.
This generation of reviews wasn’t necessarily better than the ones that followed, but it had the distinct advantage of not getting lost in a sea of more or less idiosyncratic comments, two-minute video reviews, and ratings from aggregators on a “tomatometer.” .
The film critic profession is dying and many filmmakers will not complain. Quentin Tarantino is not one of them. He has previously said he was influenced by Pauline Kael as much as any other filmmaker, and his tenth film will be called The Movie Critic. Tarantino claims that this film, set in 1977, will be his last. However, there will be no biopic about Pauline Kael, who died in 2001.
The end of AO Scott’s career as a film critic is perhaps anecdotal. His colleague and co-editor of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis, assured me this week that she would stay. This change is symptomatic of the times. Many, like Scott, wonder not only about the future of criticism but also about the state of cinema itself as a form of popular art.
Cinema is not dead as some proclaimed almost 100 years ago with the advent of television. But will the golden age of TV series, the proliferation of digital platforms, and the ubiquity of superhero movies ring the death knell for cinema as we know it?
The birds of misfortune are numerous to fly like birds of prey over the seventh art and await this announced death. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were her. And it’s not just because a thrill-loving audience will always be there for top gun suggestions: Maverick, who’s said to have ‘saved’ cinema in theaters last year.
PHOTO ARCHIVE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
Admittedly, the audience’s relationship to the cinema is no longer the same. The cultural impact of cinema is no longer the same. But from there to realizing that cinema no longer has the same value, there is only one step…which I reject.
There will be as many good films in 2023 as there were in 1991, the year Pauline Kael retired. And when you find a pearl, there is so much to say in all the mediocrity that you consume without thinking too much.