Film Culture (Winter 1962/3)

INTERVIEW WITH SEYMOUR STERN by Seymour Stern FILM CULTURE here presents the second installment of the Interview with Seymour Stern. Due to difficulties and disagreements, Mr. Stern, in effect, “fired” all previous interviewers, so by way of solution, we decided to let him interview himself. TERN: What do you consider the proper | scope and subject-matter of film criticism? STERN: Everything. This may sound abstract or seem too sweeping an answer, but if we examine it more closely, the sum total of its elements, I think, will be found to approximate “everything” — closely enough, at any rate, to justify use of the word. Putting it in broad categoric terms, I would say that film criticism must or should concern itself with two essential objectives: (1) the motion picture as a medium of expression and communication; and (2) the content of the individual film and the content of each image, scene and sequence of the film. I am aware this imposes a burden on the critic, and even on the reviewer, but serious film criticism, film criticism worthy the name, must fulfill or realize primary functions and objectives along many lines: analytical, creative, cultural-intellectual, historical, ideological, and technical-esthetic. Such film criticism can no more be indifferently or lightly approached than can serious literary criticism, serious musical criticism or serious esthetic criticism devoted to any given art or medium. This simply means the individual critic should be richly informed (“educated,” if you like) not only with respect to the screen as a medium but also with as vast a scope of subjects as possible. For the tremendous range, sweep and lightning change-of-scene which is the special property of cinema enables film creators to project sum-images of the world, its doings and its history, even within a single film, if they have ‘the imagination and the skill to do it! Film critics in my opinion are under obligation to do endless research in the various subjects which may be encompassed in the films they analyze or review. How else are they to know whether the film under scrutiny is good, bad, indifferent, mediocre, or great? What other course is open to them to de 66 FILM CULTURE termine whether the factual material presented in a given film is at least reasonably authentic, let alone accurate; or whether the interpretation, particularly in the case of historical films, is worthy of serious attention and thought — and this, regardless of whether the critic agrees with it or not? To avoid further generalization, I will here give a few examples of the type of subject-matter that confronts film criticism with major problems of scope, research, interpretation and analysis: (1) Recently, the film columns of Los Angeles newspapers announced that the Italian film producer, De Laurentiis, whose headquarters are at 1 Park Avenue, New York City, contemplates making a film in this country, based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case. I was happy to note that a film might actually be made on this case, which came to a tragic end in 1927 in Massachusetts, and that the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti would be revived and the Fascist-style injustice of which they were victims be recalled. But I was disturbed to read further that the film would “not editorialize,” would “not take sides.” Immediately, I asked myself: “How much does De Laurentiis really know about the Sacco-Vanzetti case? What is his attitude toward it? What is his purpose in making a film out of it? And how is it possible to make a film out of it that does not as a matter of course, by the very nature of the case and its history, take sides?” These questions led, in turn, to further ones: “How much would the current crop of film reviewers on the newspapers throughout the United States know about the Sacco-Vanzetti case? More disturbing still, how much would the audiences themselves know?” And so on. All these and related questions disturbed me. I reflected, too, that not many of the younger generation know of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and that, of those who have heard of it, it is doubtful whether they are aware of much more than merely the victims’ names and the fact the the execution of both men touched off world-wide bitterness and commotion. It is worth recalling briefly the main facts of the case in order to highlight or illustrate some of the difficulties that would confront most film critics if they tried to assess the