The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

January — April, 1944 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 18 all times and of all countries. How can a critic hope to write with a due sense of proportion about the latest so-called epic if he has never seen, say, Intolerance or Earth? If he doesn't know what has already been achieved he can't very well measure the importance of what is being done now. Nothing is more annoying than to find some footling critic hailing as a masterpiece something that was done twice as well ten years ago; though, of course, you can have a good laugh at their regular howlers, such as that of the bright bird who, in reviewing King's Row, referred to Sam Wood, who has been directing films for over 20 years, ever since the days of Wallace Keid, as a clever new director well worth watching. Knowledge means, too, that a critic should have at any rate a smattering of music, painting, literature and the theatre, a rough general idea of what has been done and is being done in the other arts, or he may easily make a fool of himself. Wide taste means that if a highbrow he should still be able to enjoy a good musical, or if a lowbrow a good piece of serious work; otherwise his p'ersonal tastes and prejudices will always be getting in the way of a proper judgment. And enthusiasm, most important of all, means that he should really care for films as a medium, that he should find the cinema, for all its drawbacks, the most exciting and the most potentially influential of all the arts. What's the good of writing about films if all the time you really like plays or literature better? And yet the vast majority of film critics secretly despise the films they praise so lavishly and the eager, lively, good-humoured audiences they invite in to see them. the theatre critic, when he reviews puts on an air of condescension as though what he was reviewing did not call for him to extend himself or use his full powers. I remember how when he reviewed Earth, which naturally he had to take seriously, his habit of treating films merely as subjects for gossip had left him with little to say except how nice it was to listen to Russian music and how the close-ups of apples reminded him of Cezanne (though how anyone could compare Ekelchik's luminous Renoir-like photography to Cezanne's hard geology I really can't think). You can see the difference at once when he's reviewing plays: Agate really knows something about the theatre and his hear! is engaged in it — he writes then as though what he was writing and what he was writing about really mattered. If he can't feel the same about films I wish he'd stop writing about them. Of course, there are many other qualities that come in useful for a film critic (being able to write well, for instance, doesn't do any harm), but those three — knowledge, wide taste and enthu James Agate, is writing film siasm — are by far the most important and it's surprising how few film critics possess even that simple minimum. In fact, film critics as a whole could be divided into two simple classes — the cheap and the snooty. The cheap, to whom it is simply a question of earning » living, write with one eye on the advertising manager; they are slick, knowledgeable and disillusioned, their god is the box office and they heartily despise and detest the films they see and the public who go to see them and for whom they write. They refer snivellingly to themselves as " your film reporter " as though they were expected to write up a film like a football match. Why, even sports reporters use more taste and judgment, and condemn a poor performance more readily than these cringers of the popular press who always abjectly apologise before expressing a personal opinion of any kind, and even then hastily qualify it with " of course, that's only my opinion — you may find it grand entertainment." And it's a constant joy to see these jolly boyos confronted with a. film that raises some wider or political issue, like Mission to Moscow or For Whom the Bell Tolls. How they hum and haw and clear their throats and look nervously this way and that for someone to take the plunge and give them a lead. Finally, after scratching around like an old hen, they come out with something like " There's bound to be a lot of discussion about this picture. Of course, the issues involved are none of the business of your film reporter. I can say, however, that the photography is very good, the acting excellent and you'll find it great entertainment." What a gutless crew ! These petty hirelings make up for their sense of guilt and inferiority bjr feigning a close friendship with all the stars and big shots of the cinema world — ' Sir Alex was telling me the other day, etc." The snooty gang, on die other hand, never have the slightest hesitation in airing their opinions. They've taken up film criticism not so much to earn a living and certainly not because they really care for films, but because it flatters their vanity and gives them a good opportunity to throw their weight about and acquire a certain notoriety. With what scorn do they flay the popular Hollywood films with their crooners and jazz bands. How they wring their delicate hands over this vulgarity here or that lack of taste there. Being for the most part amateur outsiders (unsuccessful book reviewers, authors, artists, art critics and aesthetes), they have never taken the trouble to understand the workings of the film world, the limitations of one individual and the many different difficult things that must happen before a good film arrives. The result is that they think of films as the artistic effort of one individual and their columns are full of the names