Impact (Mar 1972)

Critics from a Critical Point of View. Gerald Pratley Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nests above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing out from the top of the house, as if they had built it. Longfellow Copyright © 1971. Impact Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Permission not granted for Newspaper and Magazine reproduction. PRINTED IN CANADA. A critic is a person skilled in judging art, music, literature or the like; or a person who judges harshly and indulges in faultfinding. To the public a critic usually falls into the latter cate gory. Furthermore, people are puzzled by critics, as well they might be. In the first place they resent the fact that critics would appear to be superior beings: ‘What gives you the right to say what is good or bad?”’ is a familiar remark, followed by “‘and who are you to tell people what they should or should not see?’’(A good critic never does.) Yet they also feel sorry for critics. “T wouldn’t want to sit through all the junk you have to see,” or, “‘of course, you cannot enjoy a film because you must find its faults and watch for weaknesses. I couldn’t go too see a film under these circumstances.’” And “how can you judge the music, notice the camerawork, appraise the actors, be aware of the direction, and still be entertained?” The most discouraging remark a critic can hear is: ““You know that picture you panned last week? I went to see it and you were absolutely right!” These observations are all based on misunderstandings of what the critic’s function is. On the other hand, in spite of many definitions no one seems to really know why we need critics and what their value is to the public or the artist. This is partly because there are few critics who are readable, respected and rewarding. Very few critics are generous or Scenes from ‘SPRATLEY”’ an Impact production Color by De Luxe happy individuals. How can they be? The man who lives to find fault has a miserable mission. It is so much easier to become well-known as a result of not liking works that most critics only proclaim their approval as a means to create astonishment: they actually like something! Critics have been with us since Aristotle, but few of those writing about the newest art, the motion picture, are as graceful and literate as most theatre critics. The reason lies in the nature of cinema. The film was born within this century, with origins that were humble, mechanical and in the hands of businessmen. It appealed immediately to vast audiences of mainly impoverished, poorly-educated people. None of this somehow seemed to fit the accepted ideas of art, until then reserved for the privileged few. Furthermore films made money on a large scale and this made them suspect. Movies became characterized as evil, thus giving birth to the censor, a far more harmful figure than the critic! Soon, because movies were available to so many people in so many countries simultaneously, they became impervious to criticism. There were so many of them, who could possibly cope with the flood? It was all so unlike the theatre with its one performance a night, the elegance, the right people, that the Establishment of the day tried to ignore “‘the wretched things.” The film business was also too powerful for its own good. Newspapers and magazines, the most direct and immediate means of reaching the public through advertising, came to rely heavily on the money that the studios spent on ads. The studios themselves never learned to accept adverse criticism and there were few newspapers outside New York, London and Paris prepared to resist the pressures placed upon them by the publicity departments of film companies. (Conversely, the destructive gossip columns of the Parsons and Hopper variety. now thankfully a relic of the past, were accepted because they were thought to be “good publicity” Printed in Canada FEI NE OE ee See a Se Ste Le