This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a friend have been debating about my qualities as a film critic, and they've involved a considerable critic, Dan Schneider, in their discussion. I will say that he has given the question a surprising amount of thought and attention over the years, and may well be correct in some aspects. What his analysis gives me is a renewed respect and curiosity about his own work.
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Dear Roger,A friend and I would like to have your opinion. It's basically so that we can settle an argument (and small side bet) with a friend over what your opinion would be. My friend and I have carefully co-drafted this email to try to eliminate one or the other of our biases. I hope we succeeded!
I have read your columns and watched your tv shows for many years now and have also enjoyed the few commentaries you've done on DVDs. Until now I have always been what is called a "lurker" on blogs; whether yours or other blogs on politics or the arts. Having said that, I want to admit that I usually preferred your old partner Gene Siskel's opinions to yours. When you guys disagreed I probably sided with his opinion 80-90% of the time. But I always enjoyed your opinions even if I disagreed with them.
One of the things I have enjoyed about your love of films is your charity. I love how you will go out of the way to promote films you believe in (small budget and independent), and also people you support. I recall your championing of Barbara Kopple's documentary about coal miners, and also how you promoted the Internet film reviewer James Berardinelli. Because of you I started reading his website on a fairly regular basis.
A friend of mine then pointed me to an interview Berardinelli did on film, where you were mentioned. It is a website called www.cosmoetica.com. It is run by a man named Dan Schneider. It is not specifically a film review site, as it has other pieces on literature, poetry, science, and the interview series Berardinelli was in. I have to say that, after reading the Berardinelli interview, I started reading the site (mostly the film stuff) and found it to be quite interesting. I tended to find myself agreeing more with Schneider's opinions on films more than other critics. In fact, like with Gene Siskel, probably 80-90% of the time. It turns out that his website is quite popular and he seems to be quite controversial because he takes on the opinions of other critics, including you. He is rather scathing of Cahiers du Cinema, Andre Bazin, and many mainstream critics.
This is where my friend and I disagreed. He started comparing Schneider to the film critic Armond White. I looked back at your rip on White, earlier this year, and while I generally agree with your take on him, I think Schneider is a different kettle of fish. Whereas White seems to willfully disagree on the worth of a film merely to stand out, Schneider seems to have interesting rationales for his beliefs. Even when I disagree with his opinions (10-20% of the time) I have to admit he is logical and consistent, even if I think wrong. Therefore I argued that Schneider is not a willful contrarian like White, just someone who brings a different and unique perspective on films.
Then we got to arguing over his opinion of you. My friend is an unadulterated fan of yours; to a fault, I think. While I am a fan of your writing and career, as I mentioned, I think I preferred Siskel to you because he was more cerebral and you were more swayed by emotion. I think Schneider is more like Siskel, as well.Then we argued over Schneider's opinion of you. My friend thinks Schneider is very unfair in some of his criticisms of your career. But, I challenged him to look over the times he mentions you or your opinion about a certain film and we found 14 mentions. After some discussion we concluded that in the 14 mentions of you we could find on his website, Schneider was critical of you 6 times, defended your opinion or writing 6 times, and was in the middle twice. In essence, we settled nothing. It was a draw.
If I could sum up Schneider's opinion of you it would be that, like me, he thinks you are too emotional. He feels you have a mediocre critical ability but are great with words. He feels you won your Pulitzer Prize for your writing not your critical ability. He also feels that you are a great film historian and one of the best DVD commentarians (is that a word?) going. I think you are a bit better critically, but basically I agree with the overall assessment. My friend thinks that any criticism of you has to be based upon envy because you write for a big newspaper and not online.
So, this is why we crafted this letter and I am emailing it. I believe that while you may bristle at some of the caustic criticisms, generally you will think they are rational, and not based in spite or the contrarianism of Armond White. My friend thinks any disagreement with your opinion is tantamount to a diss.
So, we decided to send you the links and pertinent comments, and let you decide. A steak dinner is riding on your decision!
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First, the two middle of the road comments by Schneider:
¶ Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver"
Roger Ebert is perhaps the most famous film critic in America. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing. It should be noted, however, that that award was for the writing, not his analytical skills. What separates Ebert from most published critics is that he is better with words than most. A dozen or more of his reviews are classics whose words stick with me to this day, such as his review of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which ends this way:"Taxi Driver" is a hell, from the opening shot of a cab emerging from stygian clouds of steam to the climactic killing scene in which the camera finally looks straight down. Scorsese wanted to look away from Travis's rejection; we almost want to look away from his life. But he's there, all right, and he's suffering."
This is a terrific piece of writing. Yet, Ebert is notoriously dense. He thinks that Steven Spielberg is a great filmmaker, and has panned many great films while praising schlock from the above mentioned hack, as well as the "Star Wars" films, and many other Hollywood junk fare, even as he recognizes, say, both the greatness and cultural relevance of the" Up Series" of Michael Apted. In short, his longtime partner, Gene Siskel, who never quite had Ebert's way with words, nonetheless understood the art of film far more deeply, and, while not a better writer, was certainly a better critic.
¶ Errol Morris's "Gates of Heaven"
Schneider's review of "Gates of Heaven.".
This fatal shortcoming is nowhere more evident than in Ebert's infamous DVD blurb about Errol Morris's 1978 documentary about pet cemeteries, "Gates Of Heaven" (not to be confused with Michael Cimino's monumental Western film flop "Heaven's Gate"), which declares this film one of the top ten films of all time. Not one of the top ten documentaries of all time, but films! Hell, it's not even close to being as good a film nor documentary as Morris's later "The Thin Blue Line" nor "The Fog Of War." Perhaps this was just a young critic trying to make his mark. But, the evidence for Ebert's making outrageously dumb proclamations is long. One might argue this is a solid to good documentary, and that it even is an important one, for its portrait of weirdos unleashed a flood of documentaries, in the near three decades since, about losers, wackos, and society's castoffs, as if there was some great significance to cultural failure.
¶ Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall"
Schneider's review of "Downfall."
Critic-at-large, Roger Ebert, rightly took Denby to task for his puerility, stating, "I do not feel the film provides 'a sufficient response' to what Hitler actually did,' because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient." But, after such a concise summation, he then adds, of Hitler, "He was skilled in the ways he exploited that feeling, and surrounded himself by gifted strategists and propagandists, but he was not a great man, simply one armed by fate to unleash unimaginable evil."This is a remark clearly mindful of Louis Farrakhan's claims, a few years back, that Hitler was a "great man," that unleashed a firestorm, but it is also logically self-defeating, and shows that Ebert is not only not a student of history, but much better in phrasing words than thinking out their logical consequences. Hitler did not merely waltz onto the world stage, and have everything fall into his la-p- from admirers to world events. He had a precise blueprint, aka Mein Kampf, worked for years perfecting his "craft," demagoguery, and actively shaped his future. He came within two or three bad decisions of wiping out Eurasian Jewry, and even more minorities, as well as the colonial powers of Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Like it or not, Hitler was a great man, as were Stalin and Mao, and Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great before them. Mass murderers all, but all great, as long as one is mindful that great does not only mean 'good' nor 'decent,' and that great men also can have great flaws.
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Now, the six positive comments:
¶ Alex Proyas's "Dark City"
Schneider's review of "Dark City."
Film critic Roger Ebert, who is often oblivious to narrative pluses and minuses, is well known for having declared "Dark City" 1998's best film. I would likely give that to Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" (at least for American releases), but he is correct when he notes the influence of American painter Edward Hopper on the film, as well as this observation: "Notice an opening shot that approaches the hotel window behind which we meet Murdoch. The window is a circular dome in a rectangular frame. As clearly as possible, it looks like the 'face' of Hal 9000 in 2001. Hal was a computer that understood everything, except what it was to be human and have emotions. Dark City considers the same theme in a film that creates a completely artificial world in which humans teach themselves to be themselves."The shot may not be a direct quotation from the Kubrick masterpiece, but it does echo my earlier claim that both this film and The Strangers are thoroughly drenched in the cinema of the 20th Century, and seem to have recreated the city in their idée fixee of cinema realities past.
¶ Samuel Fuller's "The Big Red"
Schneider's review of "The Big Red One: The Reconstruction."
Yet, this film is not supposed to be about war, itself, as a subject, but the men who fight those wars. All great films focus on characterization, even if obliquely. It's why a film like "Saving Private Ryan" fails, and this one succeeds brilliantly. In ending his review of the original film's release in 1980, film critic Roger Ebert wrote:"While this is an expensive epic, he hasn't fallen to the temptations of the epic form. He doesn't give us a lot of phony meaning, as if to justify the scope of the production. There aren't a lot of deep, significant speeches. In the ways that count, "The Big Red One" is still a B-movie -- hard-boiled, filled with action, held together by male camaraderie, directed with a lean economy of action. It's one of the most expensive B-pictures ever made, and I think that helps it fit the subject. A war movies are about War, but B war movies are about soldiers."
In many ways, Ebert is correct, at least about the original film. But, in the restored version we do get some speechifying, especially by the lone main German character, Sergeant Schroeder (Siegfried Rauch), who shadows Marvin's character throughout the war. It's a key role that was butchered in the original, but serves a vital purpose in humanizing the enemy in any war. We learn much about the German sergeant in his small scenes, and while he is not likable, he is certainly explicable.
¶ Michael Apted's "The Up Series"
Schneider's review of "The Up Series.".
It is a rare synchronicity that finds me in agreement with American pop film critic Roger Ebert. Usually, he shows no real understanding of the role good writing plays in filmmaking, and routinely praises the use of clichés, such as the tripe of Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood fare. However, when he declared The Up Series of documentary films, by Michael Apted, now out on DVD, "an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium, Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life," I not only concur, but almost forgive him for recommending Saving Private Ryan. I said almost, now.
¶ "Yosihiro Ozu's "Story of Floating Weeds" and "Floating Weeds"
Schneider's review of Ozu's two "Floating Weeds" films..
...the commentary for "Floating Weeds," by famed film critic Roger Ebert, by contrast, is outstanding, and far better. Ebert's years in front of a television camera have taught him how to perfect a conversational tone so that you feel he's whispering into your ear at a movie theater. He is knowledgeable, with a broader knowledge of film, in general, than Richie, and never gets too discursive nor too far afield from what is in front of the viewer. He also eschews the fellatric sort of commentary that too many film stars and filmmakers reflexively fall into. Were his actual written film reviews as incisive as his commentaries on the DVDs (such as "Citizen Kane" or "Dark City") he has done, he would rank as the top published film critic around, not merely the most famous. Unlike Richie, Ebert never delves in to masturbatory film school minutia nor theory. Instead, he debunks much of it that Ozu's work embodies the opposite of, and talks about Ozu's use of "pillow shots," which, as mentioned, are stylistically beautiful shots that do not advance a story, but merely allow the viewer a moment's aesthetic rest between the dramatic situations. This contrasts greatly with the Hollywood obsession with having merely everything advance the action of the film.
¶ Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men"
Schneider's review of "All the President's Men."
Roger Ebert, the famed film critic, probably framed the film's problem best when he wrote:"All The President's Men" is truer to the craft of journalism than to the art of storytelling, and that's its problem. The movie is as accurate about the processes used by investigative reporters as we have any right to expect, and yet process finally overwhelms narrative- -we're adrift in a sea of names, dates, telephone numbers, coincidences, lucky breaks, false leads, dogged footwork, denials, evasions, and sometimes even the truth....yet they don't quite add up to a satisfying movie experience. Once we've seen one cycle of investigative reporting, once Woodward and Bernstein have cracked the first wall separating the break-in from the White House, we understand the movie's method. We don't need to see the reporting cycle repeated several more times just because the story grows longer and the sources more important. For all of its technical skill, the movie essentially shows us the same journalistic process several times as it leads closer and closer to an end we already know. The film is long, and would be dull if it weren't for the wizardry of Pakula, his actors, and technicians. What saves it isn't the power of narrative, but the success of technique."
Exactly. The real stars of the film are not Redford and Hoffman, but its music editor- David Shire, film editor, Robert L. Wolfe, but most especially its cinematographer, the great Gordon Willis.
¶ John Boormann's "Deliverance"
Schneider's review of "Deliverance."
Many strains of its themes can be seen in other "river" films as diverse as "Aguirre: The Wrath Of God," "Apocalypse Now," "Stand By Me," "A River Runs Through It", and "Mean Creek." With the exception of the last film (a teen version of Deliverance), all of the rest of the films avoid propulsion by the Dumbest Possible Action. That so few critics, then or now, recognized this fact is typical. I was ready to say amazing or appalling, but who am I kidding? It would have been amazing had more recognized what a crock the film serves up. One of the few that did, surprisingly, was the Chicago Sun-Times' often stolid film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote:"Dickey, who wrote the original novel and the screenplay, lards this plot with a lot of significance--universal, local, whatever happens to be on the market. He is clearly under the impression that he is telling us something about the nature of man, and particularly civilized man's ability to survive primitive challenges....But I don't think it works that way....What the movie totally fails at, however, is its attempt to make some kind of significant statement about its action....Dickey has given us here is a fantasy about violence, not a realistic consideration of it. It's possible to consider civilized men in a confrontation with the wilderness without throwing in rapes, cowboy-and-Indian stunts and pure exploitative sensationalism."
Exactly. Ebert does not mention the Dumbest Possible Action trope because the term had yet to be coined, but the film is pure fantasy.
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Finally, the six negative comments:
¶ Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories"
Schneider's review of "Stardust Memories".
"The movie begins by acknowledging its sources of visual inspiration. We see a claustrophobic Allen trapped in a railroad car (that's from the opening of "8½," with Marcello Mastroianni trapped in an auto), and the harsh black-and-white lighting and the ticking of a clock on the sound track give us a cross-reference to the nightmare that opens Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries." Are these the exact scenes Allen had in mind? Probably, but no matter; he clearly intends "Stardust Memories" to be his 8½, and it develops as a portrait of the artist's complaints."This paragraph opens Ebert's review, and in it he already summarizes the gripes I mention, and negatively biases an astute film lover against the film. While the reference to the Fellini opening is apt, the Bergman comparison is not, as the scenes do not match up. It's about as apt as comparing any sci-fi space opera's shots of a spaceship cruising along as an homage to the scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey" where we first see the ship Discovery One. It's a generic comparison that aims to imply that there is nothing original in the scene, and doubly so. Then we get Ebert's further linkage of Allen's films with the overarching posit of Fellini's film, as "a portrait of the artist's complaints." Yet, as the film progresses, we see that Allen's film is nothing like that. In fact, whereas Fellini's film ends resignedly, with life never able to equal art, Allen's film ends utterly positively, portraying the total triumph of art over life, in its ability to supplement and better it.
Ebert then claims the film is yet another reworking of Allen's relationships with women, as earlier films like "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" were, but he does not see that this is only superficially so. "Stardust Memories" uses the main character's sexual relations merely as a device to propel a deeper introspection that his earlier films barely touch upon. Ebert writes:
"The subjects blend into the basic complaint of the Woody Allen persona we have come to know and love, and can be summarized briefly: If I'm so famous and brilliant and everybody loves me, then why doesn't anybody in particular love me?"
Yet, the main character has love and adulation aplenty, both in private and public, so Ebert is really missing out on the very antithesis of this film's essence--which is the art-- and what it can lead to, not the things it can bring: love, sex, fame, etc.
Then Ebert goes on into an astonishing misreading of the film:
"At the film seminar, the Allen character is constantly besieged by groupies. They come in all styles: pathetic young girls who want to sleep with him, fans who want his autograph, weekend culture vultures, and people who spend all their time at one event promoting the next one they're attending. Allen makes his point early, by shooting these unfortunate creatures in close-up with a wide-angle lens that makes them all look like Martians with big noses. They add up to a nightmare, a nonstop invasion of privacy, a shrill chorus of people whose praise for the artist is really a call for attention. Fine, except what else does Allen have to say about them? Nothing. In the Fellini film, the director-hero was surrounded by sycophants, business associates, would-be collaborators, wives, mistresses, old friends, all of whom made calls on his humanity. In the Allen picture, there's no depth, no personal context: They're only making calls on his time."Well, this is true, only to an extent, and the reason for it is thus: the lead in the Fellini film (Marcello Mastroianni) was a damaged and unwhole individual, whereas the lead in the Allen film (Allen) is not. It is all the other people, about him, who are leeching off of him precisely because he "has it together" and they do not. In other words, Ebert simply does not like the situation Allen presents because he sees a superficial resemblance to the Fellini film, and is unable to grasp that Allen's aim is not a repetition of Fellini's, but a subversion of it, while going well beyond it. Mastroianni's character's friends do make calls on his humanity, but because the film clearly shows it's an area the character may be lacking in--for he his a definite narcissist and a borderline sociopath. The Allen character is neither of these things. He is a great artist within the world of Allen's film, evidenced by the snippets of that character's films we see, whereas the bits of the Mastroianni character's films we see are clearly something which makes one question is that character really still 'has it.'
Ebert's 'analysis' then totally derails, likely because of his utter misreading of the film because he did not get, or, more likely, did not "like" its aims:
"What's more, the Fellini character was at least trying to create something, to harass his badgered brain into some feeble act of thought. But the Allen character expresses only impotence, despair, uncertainty, discouragement. All through the film, Allen keeps talking about diseases, catastrophes, bad luck that befalls even the most successful. Yes, but that's what artists are for: to hurl their imagination, joy, and conviction into the silent maw. Sorry if I got a little carried away."First, the Allen character is trying to create a film--the one that opens "Stardust Memories," and it seems a good one. His main interior angst, as a character, is that studio heads take the film away and butcher it. We see his creation goes well beyond the Mastroianni character's, yet Ebert's total lack of mentioning this is odd. Well, not really, since, as we read earlier, he sees the whole arc and point of the film as a rehash of earlier Allen works: "The basic complaint of the Woody Allen persona we have come to know and love, and can be summarized briefly: If I'm so famous and brilliant and everybody loves me, then why doesn't anybody in particular love me?"
So, if Ebert cannot even get that correct, is it any wonder that he, and many even lesser critics, so totally botched their critiques of this great film? And, Ebert shows he has a basic and fundamental misunderstanding of what art is and what purpose it serves when he writes: "but that's what artists are for: to hurl their imagination, joy, and conviction into the silent maw." Not even his apology can excuse Ebert's blunder. Art merely illumines the wisdom of life by condensing it from ponderous philosophy into forms that are simultaneously more accessible to the more intuitively intellectual aspects of the mind, while achieving this via satisfying the emotional aspects of the self that desire entertainment. Ebert's definition buys into the Joseph Campbellian Heroic Artist Hokum that has long been disproved.
Ebert continues:
"Stardust Memories" inspires that kind of frustration, though, because it's the first Woody Allen film in which impotence has become the situation rather than the problem. This is a movie about a guy who has given up."
Apparently he did not watch the last two minutes of the film which totally and utterly subverts Ebert's claim, which, itself, is based on the fallacy that the film depicts impotence--yet another example of Ebert trying to link the film to earlier film's in the Allen canon, but without any rationale for it, save his own misreading.
He ends his review thus:
"Stardust Memories is a disappointment. It needs some larger idea, some sort of organizing force, to pull together all these scenes of bitching and moaning, and make them lead somewhere."
As stated, the larger idea is utterly missed by Ebert, because he commits the one fundamental flaw of criticism from which there is no recovery nor pardon: he has reviewed not the work of art that the artist has presented, but a work of art that the critic has hoped that the artist has presented, thus finding flaws not in the art itself, but in what the art is not. It is like criticizing an elephant for not having a long neck like a giraffe because the zoo guide went from the giraffe cage to the elephant cage, and told the zoogoers that the elephant was the larger animal, meaning in mass, whereas the critic took it "larger" to mean simply "taller." As one can easily see, when such a thing occurs, the fault lies not with the zoo guide, nor his words, but with the inapt expectations of the zoogoer. See how difficult it is for great art to emerge when dealing with Lowest Common Denominator expectations and minds?
¶ Michael Curtiz's "Casablanca"
Schneider's review of "Casablanca."
By contrast, the other commentary, by film critic Roger Ebert, is his usual quality commentary. What makes it good is not that Ebert has such insights, for he repeats much of what Behlmer imparts, but he has a love for the film, and scene specific comments that illuminate things a casual viewer might miss. As I've stated before, Ebert has serious limitations as a serious critic of film, but he is eminently qualified as a film historian.The reason for this is because Ebert is too emotionally dependent in his critiques; of the thousands of reviews he's written, you can certainly point to a few dozen, maybe a hundred or two, that are gems--well written (and, let's face it, the man won his Pulitzer for his wordsmithing, not his critical skills) and insightful about the film and its aspects. But, the truth is that that is an example of dart tossing. Toss enough darts, even backward, and over your shoulder, and a few bull's-eyes will emerge. And dart tossing is just randomness, it's not an intellectual critical facility that's replicable. When he is detached and objective, Ebert will make a good technical comment about the left to right movement of a scene following Louie and Rick into Rick's office, when he needs to get money from the safe, and the camera's eliding a wall that reappears just moments later, even though, in reality, this would be impossible. But, much too often Ebert lets his emotions get the better of him, such as in some inanely embarrassing burblings about Ingrid Bergman, where he focuses on Bergman's lips, as if they had any bearing on her acting in certain scenes.
The worst (or best) example of Ebert's emotionalism actually comes from his own mouth, near the end of the commentary, when he discourses on "Casablanca's" place in film history. He compares it to "Citizen Kane," and concludes that the Welles film is the superior work of art, but that Casablanca is the superior entertainment (a view which, despite all the disagreements I have with Ebert on this and other films, I share). As a corollary, he attempts to define what a classic film is, and concludes that a classic is a film one could not bear never seeing again. Note, that his definition is a wholly emotional and subjective one. Compare that with the definition of a great film (or any work of art) as something that successfully engages and enriches the mind and aesthetics through the excellence of its construction and/or performance.
Note, that while there is some subjectivity in how well such a thing will affect different individuals, there is an objectivity in the ways the construction and/or performance can be measured. But, Ebert's biggest sin, in this commentary, aside from his near fetishism over Bergman's bodily parts, is his constant denigration and misassesment of the acting of Paul Henreid. More than once, Ebert states how he does not "like" the character of Victor Laszlo, and how he "likes" Rick Blaine, despite Victor's superior resume as a man. These emotionally biased likes and dislikes then lead into Ebert's assigning character traits and flaws to the two that are simply not in the film, but merely Ebert's justifications for his biases. Even worse, Ebert admits to not particularly liking the actor, Paul Henreid, although he gives no reasons (although one suspects that he is simply not Humphrey Bogart). This dislike, in turn, leads to equating the stiffness of the character of Victor with the acting performance of Henreid, which, as I have argued and shown, is a false equation. Despite these flaws, though, Ebert's commentary is significantly better than Behlmer's.
¶ Theodoros Angelopoulos' "Ulysses' Gaze"
Schneider's review of "Ulysses' Gaze."
The film came in second at the Cannes Film Festival that year, winning the Grand Prix, not the Palm D'Or, but it has taken a beating from some critics. In this country, the most virulent review came from none other than that noted lover of Spielbergian tripe, Roger Ebert, who among other things, wrote:
"What's left after 'Ulysses' Gaze' is the impression of a film made by a director so impressed with the gravity and importance of his theme that he wants to weed out any moviegoers seeking interest, grace, humor, or involvement....It is an old fact about the cinema- known perhaps even to those pioneers who made the ancient footage A is seeking- that a film does not exist unless there is an audience between the projector and the screen. A director, having chosen to work in a mass medium, has a certain duty to that audience. I do not ask that he make it laugh or cry, or even that he entertain it, but he must at least not insult its good will by giving it so little to repay its patience. What arrogance and self-importance this film reveals."
Would that Ebert was so assertive about the vomit that the many Hollywood schlockmeisters he praises put out. Yes, this film is not a laugh riot, but there are some humorous moments, such as Keitel's interactions with an old Albanian woman he lets share a Greek cab with him. As for grace, interest, and involvement? Well, it's there, even if it requires a bit of intellectual cogitation on the part of a viewer, something that most Americans (and American critics) are unwilling to give.
¶ Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry"
Schneider's review of "Taste of Cherry.".
Even Roger Ebert, whose film criticisms are as scattershot as any critic's I have ever read, grew tired of Kiarostami's seeming game playing with the audience:
"....I am not impatiently asking for action or incident. What I do feel, however, is that Kiarostami's style here is an affectation; the subject matter does not make it necessary, and is not benefited by it. If we're to feel sympathy for Badhi, wouldn't it help to know more about him? To know, in fact, anything at all about him? What purpose does it serve to suggest at first he may be a homosexual? (Not what purpose for the audience- what purpose for Badhi himself? Surely he must be aware his intentions are being misinterpreted.) And why must we see Kiarostami's camera crew- a tiresome distancing strategy to remind us we are seeing a movie? If there is one thing 'Taste Of Cherry' does not need, it is such a reminder: The film is such a lifeless drone that we experience it only as a movie."
While I disagree with Ebert's overall rejection of the total film, and his claim re: the homosexuality gambit, his anger over the breaking of the fourth wall is justified, as is his claim of affectation, even if I do not feel the film is a lifeless drone. Ebert also disseminates the tale that Kiarostami filmed 'Taste Of Cherry' with himself asking non-actors to bury him, thus why we do not see Badii in the same shots with the others. But, this fact is disputed by other critics of the film.
¶ Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs"
Schneider's review of "Straw Dogs." http://www.cosmoetica.com/B532-DES458.htm
Even the powerful Roger Ebert muffed his criticism of the film. While he correctly thought it one of Peckinpah's weaker films, especially in relation to "The Wild Bunch," his reasons were unfathomable. He wrote: "The most offensive thing about the movie is its hypocrisy; it is totally committed to the pornography of violence, but lays on the moral outrage with a shovel."The very thing that sticks out about the film is that it is amoral. The characters are shown doing crazy and violent things and little consequence is shown. That is not hypocrisy, it is anarchy.
¶ Alfred HItchcock's "Vertigo"
Schneider's review of "Vertigo."
In this film's 1950s universe most problems are solved by taking a swig of alcohol, preferably brandy. Failing that solution, there are quacks who provide the most inane diagnoses possible. When Midge is done visiting the mute Scottie in the asylum, she stops in at his doctor's office, to see what her ex's condition is. Is she told anything profound? No, the diagnosis is the manifest sort that any thinking person over the age of twelve could reasonably give. The doctor informs her that Scottie is suffering from that pseudoscientific catchall, melancholia, as well as a guilt complex. Wow, Doc. It took how many years in college to come up with this sort of insight? Then, when Midge tells the doctor that Scottie was also in love with the woman that 'died', the doctor's profound retort is that such a fact 'complicates the problem.' I guess he never spoke with his patient, nor even looked into any of the facts surrounding his case? Yet, even a critic as renowned as Roger Ebert wholly misses this huge and fatal flaw in the film, instead rhapsodizing like this:"There is another element, rarely commented on, that makes 'Vertigo' a great film. From the moment we are let in on the secret, the movie is equally about Judy: her pain, her loss, the trap she's in. Hitchcock so cleverly manipulates the story that when the two characters climb up that mission tower, we identify with both of them, and fear for both of them, and in a way Judy is less guilty than Scottie."
Uh....no. Absolutely not. This is like the BS that some critics spew that this film was somehow 'confessional', and that Hitchcock was deconstructing his own real or imagined misogyny. Had the audience been left guessing about whether or not Judy was 'Madeline', it would have been far more effective. This would have truly pulled the viewer into Scottie's world--much more so than the visual razzle-dazzle Hitchcock uses to show Scottie recalling 'Madeline' when he kisses Judy. Of course, this is assuming we do suspend the disbelief that Judy could ever be such a perfect doppelganger for 'Madeline', without actually being her. Once the audience knows that Scottie knows what we do, that he is correct about Judy's role in his fate, there is no dramatic tension, in the thriller sense, and we can only be left to guess how Judy will get her comeuppance- be it by death or the law.
¶
To end this email, I submit it to you. My friend thinks that Schneider is just another Armond White, that he is a contrarian and merely envious at your financial and public success. I disagree. I think Schneider is hard on you (perhaps a little too hard, although he is much harder on other critics). I also feel that, unlike Armond White, Schneider is consistent (almost maddeningly so) in his logic. He just seems more controversial than White, but when you read him he's a lot saner and deeper
My friend now refuses to even read Schneider's opinions, but I think he's in a snit because Schneider does not revere you as a god. Reading Schneider's reviews has made me rethink what I know and get from film.
So, we leave it to you. A steak dinner is in the balance. Do you think Schneider is a contrarian Armond White clone or is he more like Gene Siskel, a cerebral critic first and foremost, whereas you are an emotion-first critic?
¶I suggest you buy one of those big T-bones and share it.
Dan Schneider is observant, smart, and makes every effort to be fair. I would agree that I am a more emotion-driven critic than Siskel or Schneider, and indeed many others. My reviews usually include a reflection of how I felt during a film, since film itself is primarily an emotional, not a cerebral, medium. For example, although like most everybody I found "Triumph of the Will" evil, I also lingered on how boring it was. If you're not comfortable sitting through a film, what can you easily get from it?
I must say I still agree with my opinions as quoted by Schneider, and I conclude he is more analytical and less visceral that I am. Readers find critics who speak to them. What is remarkable about these many words is that Schneider keeps an open mind, approaches each film afresh, and doesn't always repeat the same judgments. An ideal critic tries to start over again with every review.
There are three things on which we adamantly disagree. (1) I do not have a broader film knowledge than Donald Richie, and Schneider may be the only person who has ever thought so. (2) I disagree with his dismissal of Spielberg. The man who made "E.T." is not a schlockmeister purveying tripe. (3) The third is Ingrid Bergman, and my "burblings" about her lips. A critic who doesn't acknowledge the role of her face and presence in a "Casablanca" will, I fear, date just about anybody. Our critical differences I leave to you. I invite you to continue your discussion in the Comments below.
In the matter of Ingrid Bergman, I offer the final word to Miss Bergman.
¶
¶
A scene from "Ulysses' Gaze."
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A scene from "Taste of Cherry"
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A scene from "Stardust Memories"
¶
This is an amazing read... that's all I summon for now
I almost immediately disregard a film critic who dismisses films and filmmakers using meaningless terms like "Hollywood tripe". Anyone who so flippantly dismisses the rich history as well as the occasional contemporary triumphs that come from the Hollywood film industry is a critic that is necessarily an overly elitist snob who doesn't understand the cultural and social importance of film. Just because the vast majority of films Hollywood produces are uninteresting and formulaic doesn't mean that films like "Schindler's List" aren't important aesthetically, culturally and historically.
Peter Svensland claims he likes Gene Siskel more than you, Roger Ebert, because Siskel is more "cerebral" and less emotional. However I get the sense from his text that he is just an emotional person who doesn't like to be disagreed with (God forbid anyone who actually likes Steven Spielberg!).
I am curious about something: I know you got a Pulitzer in 1974 for your film writing, but I was wondering if you could tell me why they selected your work from that particular year? Was there an article or a series of articles that made the Pulitzer committee want to give you the award? Were you ever told why?
Sir, you might be cutting Mr. Schneider a little too much slack, in your effort to look at what he says objectively. His tone is one of one on high, and his tendency is to condescend, and to deconstructively faultfind. Sometimes I agreed with his assessment of a film vs. yours, as seeing STRAW DOGS as anarchic, but even as I agreed with him his approach reminded me of that GAMES PEOPLE PLAY game called "Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch." His phrase "even lesser critics" I found well-nigh unforgivable; heartlessly grandstanding. Asterisk him, I say!
(Just one man's opinion, but I thought both of you were wrong about DELIVERANCE. With book and movie both I thought there was a primal-fear taproot being tapped; that there was a powerful demonstration that the worst evil is the unexpected, random evil; that the story was told convincingly and well.)
One more thing: that he would fulcrumize you fourteen different times evinces the shadow you cast.
Roger,
Gracious and open comments on your part, as always... and the "final word" photograph--so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
Andy G.
Schneider seems to have forgotten an important concept: subjectivity. Rather than attack you for things that 'aren't there' in the movies, he should instead ask why you saw them. while it may be true that you are a scatterbrained idiot, it serves no purpose to anyone, including Schneider, to just dismiss you as so rather than argue it out. Of course, he doesn't have time to do it in his reviews, but he should probably publish an essay on his website detailing them.
That said, I have to admit that I attribute much of my knowledge of film to reading too many of your reviews. In July I was stuck with nothing to do except a computer whose only interesting aspect was its internet connection, and I remembered reading a review by some guy which completely changed my view on The Reader, so I went to his site and read his reviews for 10 days. This did two good things to me: I learned to trust my own emotions (don't even ask about my history of appreciation, though I should say I was regularly put too much on my guard because I realised that I was unable to dislike a movie), and I learned the need to analyse my emotions.
That said, I think that you are horrible at writing negative reviews. Instead of trying to think/write about why you thought Dead Poets' Society was gimmicky, you just said that it was. In fact, in most of your negative reviews, I don't see an attempt to understand why you reacted negatively to many of these movies (there are notable exceptions like Fight Club and Memento), rather I see a discourse on what you saw wrong after finding the movie bad. In these cases, even you forget about subjectivity (I see it surfacing many times throughout your oeuvre, more often on the blog).
The Dead Poets' Society review is like a sore thumb to me because I ended up agreeing with you.
So, I mainly treasure your positive reviews, because you show in them a love of cinema and pure emotion (I am a rather emotional viewer myself). Of course, there's also insight. (Personal favourites out of your reviews: Ikiru and The Apu trilogy - both reviews had me crying - and Disgrace - just plain beautiful) I come and read one of your reviews every time I find something confusing in a movie, because you take special pains to convey your insights without actually spoiling the movie (this last has influenced me too much, because it makes review-writing so much more fun, and even necessary).
Sorry if I sounded cruel, but I'm too good at seeing flaws for my own good. Yet, when I look back at my life, I'll see those ten days in July (yes, this year) as the most significant part of my development. From now on, I'll just be building on the legacy of that.
Specific opinions about reviews cited her
1. I agree with you on Vertigo. I watched it when I was twelve, but I remember caring about Judy.
2. I disagree about All the President's Men, which I found supremely involving till the end which was like an anti-climax.
I haven't watched any of the other movies.
Ebert: Whose reviews did you read for 10 days?
Wow. This guy Schneider sure spends a lot of his time writing about you, it seems.
I've never read his reviews, but I don't see his point in comparing his opinions to other critics'. If he likes reading you, good for him. And if he doesn't, then why does he keep on reading?
I know that the main reasons I like reading you are your love of language and your love of film. Of course I don't agree with you all the time (I don't keep count, by the way), but I always learn from your reviews and many times I'll get a good laugh. Still, I don't spend my time quoting you or telling people how I agree or disagree with you.
Honestly, I don't remember if I agreed more with Siskel or with you all those years I watched your show. Of course the main reason to watch was to see the two of you argue!
An interesting and excellent blog. I'm not sure if I would feel comfortable with reviewing a reviewer when discussing a film (unless it was something particularly famous that was said, like whether or not "I Am Legend" was one of the greatest movies of all time, and even then it feels like a cheapshot), but his writing was fairly evenhanded, if a bit misunderstanding in some places.
Personally, I prefer to be emotional when reviewing anything; I can't adequately describe how "artistic" a shot is, but I can certainly tell how a movie made me react and why I reacted that way. For me, films are meant to be experienced with other people, and I try to consider what is on-screen and convey it as best I can to whoever is reading. As you once said (or maybe I'm paraphrasing): the job of a critic is to describe to movie as it happened, and the reader should be able to determine whether or not to see it based upon how you've described it, regardless of how you felt (though if it's your review for Transformers 2, it's difficult to determine what you wrote that enticed them).
I personally prefer your reviews more because they are emotional, because it's easier for me to relate to. I remember you were once described as one of the few critics out there that actually LOOKS at the movie, and have tried to remember not to miss out on some great sights if the film has them. And I like your off-beat picks of movies that, while not by any means "good," are a heap of imagination in a movie industry sorely lacking it("Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow" comes to mind; I thought it was a hoot).
Keep on being emotional, Mr. Ebert, because you'll always have emotional readers who want to be emotional writers!
I once got into a heated debate with Dan on IMDB (we are both such losers for doing these sorts of things). One thing to be noted is that he has a fairly peculiar sense of "great" (and "greatness") that is fairly evident in his calling Hitler a "great man" along with several other curious types.
Evidently in Mr. Schneider's world, "great" is essentially defined by his conception. Nothing is "great" unless Mr. Schneider says it is. He is fairly stubborn and simple minded about this to the point of ridiculousness.
His admiration of Stardust Memories is also something incomprehensible. He thinks that it is one of his "great" movies ... of which 8 1/2 does not belong.
Curious man.
Mr. Ebert thank you for posting this...It is interesting (and quite fascinating i might add) to observe film critics cross-referencing and critiquing other critics. Dan Schneider had some helpful insights about your writing style. However, he is dead wrong about Spielberg. I love the fact that Spielberg's abilities still are able to trump and transcend the snobby diatribe of cynical film students (or critics). Furthermore, thank you for your reviews. I have been reading them weekly for over ten years, even though I am a conservative, evangelical Christian from North Carolina.
If only you and Schneider could do a TV show, it'd be like, well, like Siskel and Ebert.
I also agree that Spielberg doesn't make "tripe." Not only E.T., but Schindler's List and (yes, Dan Schneider) Saving Private Ryan. If you want to see tripe, go see a film by Roland Emmerich. Oh wait, didn't you give 2012 a really high review, Roger? After seeing The Day After Tomorrow (and a few other films by Emmerich--like Independence Day), I can't believe that movie could be that good. Perhaps Schneider's onto something...
I am no student of film. I have probably read more film critiques (by Ebert and others) than I have seen movies. But if films are an emotional medium (and many people who know films far more than I do agree that they are) then it is difficult to take anyone seriously after he claims Spielberg to be a schlockmeister. My mother, an middle-class Indian woman who really never had much time for hollywood was entranced by ET. I believe a director's greatness lies in his ability to ignore political and social boundaries and speak to the emotional core of his audience. Maybe Mr.Schneider is observant, smart and wise in the ways of celluloid, but is it a critic's job to lecture to the audience, or be a sort of a bridge between the audience and the art? If it is the latter, then I am afraid I am singularly unimpressed by him, and Mr.Ebert still remains the gold standard.
I don't think Roger is infallible, and I've sometimes felt his positive or negative reviews of films are based on his fixation on a relatively arbitrary point that seems to have really pleased or displeased him.
That said, I cannot imagine what would be gained by seeing film as a medium to be judged mainly by concrete and objective considerations. His "definition of a great film (or any work of art) as something that successfully engages and enriches the mind and aesthetics through the excellence of its construction and/or performance" sounds rather sterile to me.
Aristotle in the Poetics (maybe not such a bad starting point for approaches of how to critique film) talked about tragic theater in terms of its component parts and the perfection of its construction, but he also talked about the "catharsis" that the audience got from watching it--that that was its particular pleasure, the ability to go sit down and have an experience that pulled at your various emotions in order to give you some kind of release.
Perhaps this leads to a subjective standard of judgment. Why can't I just say Transformers 2 is the best movie of all time, since it made me feel emotions and I got a release at the end? A film that engages and enriches your mind, WHILE providing an emotional experience, WHILE demonstrating various types of technical perfection, is much better than one that just gives you a cheap thrill. But if you take your visceral emotional response out of the equation, what's the point?
Critics who leave out emotional response and the perspective of audience enjoyment are living in the world of academia. Cormac McCarthy may not have said anything that hasn't already been brought up in philosophical journals but that doesn't make his writing less powerful. Hoop Dreams and American Movie are amazing movies because they tell a real human story, not because they are marvels of filmsmenship.
"As a corollary, he attempts to define what a classic film is, and concludes that a classic is a film one could not bear never seeing again. Note, that his definition is a wholly emotional and subjective one. Compare that with the definition of a great film (or any work of art) as something that successfully engages and enriches the mind and aesthetics through the excellence of its construction and/or performance."
What on earth is "objective" about his definition? As if there is some universal truth to any film that can only be gleamed by removing emotion and subjectivity from the equation. Absurd.
Mr. Schneider is insightful (deeply so), obstinate, and opinionated. Frankly, one shouldn't have to ask for more from a critic.
But, Mr. Schneider as "cerebral" ... are you kidding me?
I may not be the most appreciative of Spielberg's films, but that is quite another thing from being overly dismissive of him and finding little merit in his work (I wouldn't say that most of his work is schlock).
Far too often it seems that Mr. Schneider confuses strength of character with strength of opinion. Just because one stands by one's assessment does not automatically make one a hypocrite if someone has anything nice to say as well(just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it does not have merit, duh). This then doesn't automatically throw us into an issue of "political correctness" (which I suspect is something that Mr. Schneider loves to hate).
Further, Mr. Schneider makes this ridiculous comment:
"Yet, even a critic as renowned as Roger Ebert wholly misses this huge and fatal flaw in the film ..."
And it is ridiculous because there are other flaws in the film (Hitchcock actually points out another rather major one [in HIS opinion] to Truffaut). The role of the critic isn't exactly to nit pick out all the flaws of a film. And it is obviously not the case that any flaw is the undoing of any film. The only thing we really need to care about is whether a flaw is THE undoing, which can always be made to be the case if one chooses to fixate obsessively on it.
(BTW Mr. Ebert ... enjoyed your commentary on Ukigusa. Though I think you refer to the color "red" where it might more appropriately be called "vermilion". Though not certain whether this is correct, the Japanese seem to like that word better when describing their "Torii".)
Although this isn't really my discussion, as a long-time reader I felt I might leave my take on the matter.
Of Schneider's opinion of you: I agree that you are a quality writer, and that it was that that won you a Pulitzer. That is as it should be, no? I agree that you are primarily an emotional critic, as opposed to a "cerebral one". What I take issue with is the unjustified and unsupported presumption that "cerebral film criticism" is inherently superior to "emotional film criticism". From people who value critical thinking so much, I expected better that to just take these things at face value.
Also: "Note, that his definition [of a great film] is a wholly emotional and subjective one. Compare that with the definition of a great film (...) as something that successfully engages and enriches the mind and aesthetics through the excellence of its construction and/or performance."
Okay, I'll compare. The second definition (whose is it?) is also "wholly emotional" and indisputably "subjective". It's nature is merely hidden by the construction of the definition, much like a trite Hollywood epic that uses clichès to appear more significant than it is.
"there is an objectivity in the ways the construction and/or performance can be measured."
Yes, but not in the value or relevance of these measurements. It all, ultimately, comes down to values that are, in fact, subjective.
An aside about Peter Svensland's e-mail: he comes across as, well, kind of a jerk, really. Not because he likes or dislikes you, but because of the way he frames his friend's opinions and reactions as irrational fawning (all the while saying they crafted the letter together; I somewhat doubt it) while presenting his own as the product of a critical, cerebral intellect (if indeed saying of an intellect that it is cerebral is not redundant, but I hope you get my meaning).
As a conclusion, I might also leave my opinion of you. The primary reason why I read you so regularly is because of the quality of the writing. I don't always share your opinions, of course, but I like your writing. I like movies, I like reading about movies, and I like the way you write about them. I'd say I tend to relate to movies more cerebrally than emotionally, but I don't buy that one is better than the other. And what kind of cinephile doesn't appreciate a movie like Star Wars (or Raiders of the Lost Ark)? What kind of movies made them fall in love with the medium in the first place? I have an opinion about that as well, but it's too early in the morning for Pierre Bordieu and field theory, and this post is long enough.
I think Peter Svensland's friend should pay for the dinner!
I think you deserve each other.
A more considered thought on Schneider: what sort of a critic fills up a whole review (of the Allen movie) with a refutation of some other critic? It's okay to devote a small part of your review to it, or even let a review take the form of refutation while making a bigger point, but this guy's point is to refute, nothing else. His only aim in this review is to contradict you, like he's riding on your name. Of course, if that was a blog entry, or in some other way not his primary write-up on the movie, it's fine.
The Taste of Cherry review is especially bad; his disagreement with you is a tad too mild for his article too be enriched by that answer to your review.
The guy lost me with the comment about your mentioning Ingrid Bergman's lips. Is he dead from the neck down? He's certainly dead from the waist down. Yes, how preposterous of you to suggest that Ingrid Bergman's hauntingly beautiful face had any bearing on the films she was in. What nonsense.
Mr. Ebert, I began as a fan of your film criticism. That was my introduction to film criticism. I have since grown up, I have grown wiser, my taste in everything has improved, and I have had time and made the effort to seek out all manner of ways to 'take' a film - all the types of film watching and film criticizing there are. And you are still right, as you were right when I was a child. Film is an emotional medium. That's what it does, or anyway that's how it does it. I don't dismiss critics like Schneider out of hand, many of them have very interesting things to say and can teach one a great deal about a film, and filmmaking. But you get to the heart of it, and I think you understand film better. Film is not, and will never be, literature. It should not want to be. The best films do not try to be. I think the more analytical critics (and here I will do something very cheap, and ascribe a subconscious motive to people I've never met - forgive me) are, at some level, ashamed of the art form. Ashamed that it's popular, ashamed that they love it. So they try to make it something it's not, by dealing with it in a way it ought not to be dealt with (although in this at least they are still not as bad as critics of popular music, who besides being beyond help, never provide any insight at all). Film is a democratic medium, it is an emotional medium, it is not literature. The best films do not put on airs, and neither do the best critics do so on behalf of film. There is no need to apologize (and that is what strictly analytical film criticism does, really - apologize) for a medium which was good enough for the likes of Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock, Keaton, PT Anderson, and all the others. Film is not literature, but literature is not film, either, and can never do what film can do. And I thank you for appreciating film (and literature, for that matter) in the way it was meant to be appreciated.
(That said, Saving Private Ryan really isn't very good.)
;)
Ingrid Bergman in my opinion was the most gorgeous actress that ever lived. Putting that aside, one cannot discuss Casablanca without talking about Ingrid Bergman's face. The reason is because the camera is fascinated with her face, and cares very much about it. Bergman's face tells us a lot about her character. It also says a lot about the story.
Another important thing to discuss about Casablanca is the black and white cinematography. In fact, it is impossible to talk about the cinematography without mentioning Bergman's face. The cinematography would be nothing without the faces of the actors and actresses. The cinematographer seems to be most interested in their faces, which are characters in themselves and are the most important thing about Casablanca.
About emotions from critics:
Please correct me if I am wrong. Wasn't it Pauline Kael who believed a film should make one feel rather than make one think?
What an excellent read! I must admit I never had much use for non-emotional reviews of movies. Over the years I find myself only revisiting movies where I had a strong emotional response and should I choose to recommend a movie to a friend, I usually end up highlighting the intense emotions it triggered (and doing most of the times a poor job to explain them).
For me, what I need most from a film critic is consinstency and if this is achieved, over the years it becomes easy to judge if I will like a movie or not when reading a review. I have no problems with emotional and subjective views if they are consistent and wonderfully entertaining to read!
I always find the concept of looking at film objectively, as Schneider seems to think is best, to be a mystifying proposition.
It's like trying to analyze ethics or morality. You can do it, but in the end how you feel about it takes precedence over what you discover through analysis. It's just the nature of the beast.
Looking at the above quotes, I'd also be curious what Schneider would think about a more emotionally pure film. Something like Murnau's Sunrise, which derives all its power from the elicited feelings of a simple fable put together with gorgeous images. It defies objective analysis.
I've always valued your work for its content, not the flowery "wordsmithing" that allegedly earned you your Pulitzer.
Your reviews stand out to me in that I can gauge if I'll like a film regardless of if you did. Sure, you'll give your opinion, but you'll also explain why you felt the way you did; that's invaluable. It also means you're driving at the essence of a movie, truly delving into a substantive analysis of it, not just getting by on magniloquent wording.
Case in point: The Boondock Saints II. You gave it a measly 1 star and went on to describe it as an "ode to macho horseshite" full of gratuitous, over the top action. But by God that's exactly what I wanted in a Boondock Saints sequel. One man's trash is another man's treasure.
As for this discussion on cerebral vs. emotional response, it would be unwise to discount either. Some movies stimulate thought, others aim to make you cry. The best do both.
Dear Roger,
The reason I love reading your reviews is precisely because they are subjective and emotional (although I trust you with the facts). This probably goes for most of your frequent readers. I love it when you give a film no stars and rant about why it pissed you off. Your approach does have one disadvantage: when you like a film, you often love it. I wish you'd cut back a bit on the four star reviews. When too much is considered great, great could become mediocre. What's your opinion on this? Looking back, are there many films you may have been too enthousiastic about?
You seem to be evolving into a sort of "ground zero" for well-crafted film commentary/discussion. One first reads your reviews. Then the blog commentaries concerning your reviews (and other musings). Then the comments about your blog entries. Then the reviews of your reviews. Then the analyses of you as a reviewer. Then your analysis of these analyses. And onwards and outwards...
Ebert: Sounds like a Borges story.
Take any two critics in the world, have them trade opinions, and each will almost certainly believe the other has, to some extent, "panned many great films while praising schlock."
Schneider's opinion of Vertigo seems to be based on the assumption that the movie is a murder mystery rather than a suspense film, or a tragedy. Hitchcock once said that having a bomb blow up under a table was a surprise; letting the audience know the bomb was there while the clueless characters sat around playing cards was suspense. Revealing the murder plot was Hitchcock's way of showing the audience the bomb. At that moment, Judy becomes the protagonist, and Scotty becomes the villain. So many people hate that reveal, but if it weren't there Vertigo would have been remembered about as well as Marnie.
I remember reading that interview with Berardinelli. Berardinelli also believes he is more analytical than you. I agree but I don't find it neither a good nor a bad thing.
As much as I adore your writing, I don't think that's your only strength. You have the ability to spot things that others don't.
I have to be honest. I kind of disliked Schneider for what he says about you though he is not rude (a bit of arrogance is, I suppose, allowed when you are a critic. Berardinelli has said that and I mostly agree.). I'm just too emotional to accept it when someone says bad things about Ebert. As simple as that.
I remember that movie where there is Lennon and a person who worked with him and he was in love with Lennon. I don't remember the title. Well, Siskel seemed a lot more emotional than you that time. What I mean is that labels include bits of truth but no person is just one thing. It's what mood the movie evokes and perhaps even the period of your life in which you see the movie.
I wish I had debates over you with my friends. Here in Greece they no nothing about you. They don't know that they probably saw "Monster" because of you. But critics do know you and some times quote you wich is a relief for me.
Great letter, great response.
Thanks to everyone involved. I hope the steak was delicious!
The problem with this entire analysis, I think, is that it does not take into account the difference between a film critic and a film scholar. As such it is (and I hate to use the cliche) a comparison of apples and oranges.
Film scholars promote "important" films -- films the "average" filmgoer might find boring. Film critics, on the other hand, are addressing a mass audience, and although one who panders to the audience and praises Transformers II as a great film is useless, a critic must take into account the tastes of the mass audience. In other words, for the critic, a review is not just an evaluation of artistic merit. Personal reaction -- whether the writer enjoyed the film or not -- is also an important criteria. And Mr. Ebert makes it clear his opinions are personal reactions.
Perhaps the best way to point out the difference is by example. A film scholar will show disdain for "Star Wars," because as enormously entertaining as it is, and as revolutionary as the filmaking technology may have been, it is not an artistic breakthorugh. A film critic, however, cannot ignore its appeal. A film scolar will praise "Birth of a Nation," while a film critic must acknowledge that its brilliance must be seen in a historic context; a modern moviegoer will not be as enthralled as those who saw it on its release, because its breakthroughs have been incorprated into film language.
What Mr. Ebert does so well is straddle the two worlds. He (you?) addresses both the tastes of the mass public and the artistic merits of a work. As such, he still rejects populist junk like Transformers II, but appreciates -- in the context of what they are meant to be -- films like "Star Wars" and even "2012." In the process, he manages both to address current tastes, and to provides the advice, insight, and the occaisonal slap in the face needed to help the mass market filmgoer understand and appreciate films of higher quality. As Aaron Sorkin put it, "our job is not to pander to the lowest common denominator, but to raise it."
Academics live completely outside the mass audience.
In the same context, Mr. Schneider underestimates Mr. Ebert's "worthiness" for the Pulitzer Prize. Although he is correct in praising Ebert's writing skills, he has no business, and no right to say why the prize was awarded. I doubt the committee said, in issuing the prize, that it is for his writing ability, not his critical insights, but Mr. Schneider presents this opinion as fact.
It is important to remember that the Pulitzer is a prize for newspaper writing, not for academic scholarship. As such, Mr. Ebert's approach to film criticism happens to be perfectly consistent with the goal of a good newspaper to speak to and for the public, while at the same time informing and guiding the readers to be better citizens.
It may not sound like it, but the above is meant to be an appreciation. I believe Mr. Ebert has managed to walk what is essentially a tightrope successfully for many years, and while he occaisonally falls off (I will nurse a personal grudge by pointing to Richard Rush's "The Stunt Man") he has succeeded brilliantly, not simply compromising between the two, but reconciling them.
Even when I disagree with an Ebert review, I always learn from them.
As such, I propose that consistently agreeing with a critic is a poor reason to choose one, and an invalid criteria for judging one, as it is based on the assumption that one's own taste is "perfect."
Roger - Dan Schneider does have some moments of intriguing insight, but his film reviews are frequently derailed by his unexamined aesthetic tastes - especially when it comes to female beauty. Here's how he ruins an otherwise excellent review of Vicky Cristina Barcelona:
Scarlett Johansson is again misused by Allen...Where this idea arose of her as a sex symbol is mystifying. She’s simply a rather average looking young woman...It’s truly mystifying, as Johansson simply lacks the sexual ‘It’ factor.
But, worst of all is Penelope Cruz... like Johansson, she is almost always cast as a sex bomb, despite the fact that she’s just an average looking woman and, in this film, looks scrawny, if not outright anorexic. [The] best looking female in the film, by far, is Rebecca Hall, the least known of the trio. She also is, easily, the best actress.
With those words, millions of us might be dying to know where Schneider lives, if in his world Scarlett and Penelope are "average-looking" women. Though Schneider could've made a very good point about Johnansson's lack of carnal charisma or Cruz's acting chops and left it at that, he instead let his visceral feeling that neither was very attractive become the fulcrum of the argument against their casting. This is considerably worse, in my view, than your discussion of Ingrid Bergman's lips. If you don't share Schneider's taste in women, the whole review goes rather flat.
Far more offensive, though, is how Schneider poisons his review of Deepa Mehta's "Fire":
Compounding matters, the two wannabe lesbians, Radha (Bollywood star Shabana Azmi) and Sita (Nandita Das), are drop dead gorgeous; they’re hardly ‘real-world’ lesbians along the lines of an Indian Andrea Dworkin, Rosie O’Donnell, or Ellen DeGeneres.
This is wrong in so many ways. A crude and narrow-minded stereotyping of lesbians (apparently DeGeneres's conventionally attractive wife isn't a real-world lesbian?). A puzzling cultural ignorance to the possibility that a married woman in India might style herself differently than an 'out' American lesbian celebrity. And worst of all, a complete denial of the way cinema uses constructs of beauty to engage audience empathy, especially in love stories.
And it's on that omission that I think this is important. A cerebral critic who doesn't see how many shots of "Casablanca" really are about Bergman's lips is missing at least half the point. I often disagree with you, Roger, on many films' success in hitting the "right" emotional buttons. But of all the male film critics I read I think you're the most insightful and sensitive on the subject of the female face in film. I never forgot this bit from your review of "The Squid and the Whale":
"You have too many freckles," he tells Sophie (Halley Feiffer), the girl he likes. I guess he thinks that shows he has high standards. He's so dumb he doesn't know how wonderful too many freckles are."
WOW, that was a lot. But I do agree with the fact that a film cannot be seen in isolation. You can make a "cerebral" film with all the technical wizardry and hidden meanings in the world but if it's not exciting enough for you to watch then what's the point. It's like our kids going through the class textbooks and not really understanding anything because they are not able to hold their attention. Mr. Ebert, you are great reviewer and you do go with emotions more than anything else but the point is, it works and it makes a lot more sense.
Huh.
Do you prefer emotion with a sprinkling of rationality, vice versa, or somewhere in between? No matter your answer, there exists somewhere a movie (and a critic) that are perfect for you.
Personally, I prefer a contrarian opinion every now and again. Disagreeing with a critic is an excellent opportunity to delve a little deeper and find out WHY you disagree with them. Besides, who wants to agree with a critic all the time? That'd be simultaneously boring and horrifying, like finding out you had more in common with Martha Stewart than you'd care to admit.
I rarely read your reviews before seeing a film, but what continually draws me to them is your dedication to subjectivity. It is silly to take your emotion out of the viewing of a film, and to think that a film can be reviewed analytically is naive.
As for the two definitions of a great film, I'd like to add one more that I heard a long time ago:
"A great film is one that you lament you can never see for the first time again."
I have to side with Ebert in the use of the emotional reaction to the film viewing experience.
Great films touch you in ways that are real, in visceral ways that no other art form can match because of the overwhelming power of images and sound combined.
Great horror films are the ones that give you goosebumps, that chill you to your core.
Films that make you cry, because somehow they touch on a truth that you remember or a truth that you recognize for the first time, are the films that will stick with you long after your viewing.
After viewing over 21,000 films in the last 40 years, I can report that both reactions are very rare experiences.
I really enjoyed reading this, enjoyed it in the same way I enjoy watching movies that leave the audience to puzzle out what's happening instead of spoon-feeding the plot (meanwhile, here's the actual villian and THIS is what he's doing!!!). There are a lot of films up there I haven't seen; I only had what Mr. Schneider wrote to go on and I confess I struggled a bit with the logic he was presenting.
I am suddenly reminded of a conference I attended where a question came from the audience and I was aghast at myself for not being able to understand a single thing the person was saying. I took great comfort in the answer from the floor which was another variation of, "I must confess I don't know what the hell you just said..." which cracked up the room. In all humility, I must add that I might have gotten a bigger laugh with my next comment which was made with an eerily perfect imitation of Forrest Gump as I told the room, "I may not be a SMART man, but I know what. Love. Is."
So anyway.
It does, for me, highlight one of the key assertions of Mr. Schneider, who suggests that that your writing skills mask a weaker critical ability. From only the passages above, I conclude that I'd prefer reading Roger over Dan. That's not exactly right. Let me try again. I'd say it better this way: I think it's easier to read Roger. So that's not necessarily a slight against Dan. Based on what I read, I would have lots of questions for Mr. Schneider. He makes apparent to me a number of holes in my understanding and it might be a lot of fun to talk about and let him explain some of those things so that I can understand them better.
You know what I mean?
I wrote a short story (once upon a time) and a professor offered to give it to his class for to review and critique. It was a very eye-opening experience, discovering that so many students missed the whole (and to me very obvious) point of the story. I wonder how many directors and producers think that way about film critics and to the same degree how many critics think that way about other critics.
I continue to hold firm to my middle-aged philosophy : Cogito ergo um..... I think, therefore ... I'm not sure.
Is there a website that contains Siskel's printed reviews?
Ebert: Unfortunately, no.
I'm sorry I've studied film and loved it for years. I'd consider myself someone who wants more cerebral films, but Schneider seems to just want to appear smart. He makes broad unfounded statements like he has the right to do so without citing a source. In the snippets he seemed to speak like only his interpretation was correct, that takes a lot of pride to believe.
I've read your movie reviews for a long time and I definitely disagree with you frequently...but I also love the awe you have for cinema. I share it and I think that awe causes you to not be so full of hubris. And you're right, film is a hot medium, it's not just about cerebral activity, it's about the immersion and the experience. My favorite director is bergman, I love many of Godard's films, but in the amazing intelligence the portrayed in their films they also took time to immerse you. To invite you along for the ride.
Fascinating stuff. In a strange way I'm reminded of the theological debate between the priest and the woman convinced that the answer to the "is there God?" question was that the world rested on the back of a giant turtle. When the priest politely inquired what the turtle rested on, the woman replied fiercely "You can fool me with that - it's turtles, all the way down!".
In much the same way, where does the art of criticism end? We read a critic's response to a movie, we read ten, twenty, and from the aggregation of their responses and our own reaction to the same artform we form a bond with the critic wherein, one day, we may decide to forgo the experience simply because the critic has deemed it unworthy of our time. That is a solemn responsibility the critic must shoulder.
To form that bond we find ourselves criticising the critics themselves, and in responding to the blog post above, I am criticising the criticism of a critic. It's enough to make my head spin. Turtles all the way down, indeed.
For my own money, the process of comparison between your own mindset and the average mindset of the critic is, surely, the only barometer we can use to qualitatively judge a critic's work. As such I find any "x is a better critic than y" type debate a slight waste of time. But in so doing, am I criticising the criticism of a criticism of a critic...oh I give up.
There's good eating on a turtle, you know.
Mr. Ebert,
First and foremost, I have admired your work for years. Being 24, I missed most of your and Gene's work on TV. Luckily, the internet exists...
Anyhoo, I was wondering if you read "film critic" Armond White's review of Invictus. In his negative review, White states that:
"Essentially, Invictus is just like Cry Freedom where a black hero needs a white box office counterbalance (Matt Damon as South Africa rugby star François Pienaar)."
How is this any different from The Blind Side, which stars America's Other Sweetheart Sandra Bullock and was praised by White, where a middle aged white woman brings home the young, homeless black hero, played by an relatively unknown actor. Or maybe I should see both movies first...
Keep up the good work!
Schneider: "He won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing. It should be noted, however, that that award was for the writing, not his analytical skills. What separates Ebert from most published critics is that he is better with words than most."
Schenider: "Ebert's 'analysis' then totally derails, likely because of his utter misreading of the film because he did not get, or, more likely, did not "like" its aims"
Schneider: "When he is detached and objective, Ebert will make a good technical comment.... But, much too often Ebert lets his emotions get the better of him, such as in some inanely embarrassing burblings about Ingrid Bergman, where he focuses on Bergman's lips, as if they had any bearing on her acting in certain scenes."
Schneider: "Note, that while there is some subjectivity in how well such a thing will affect different individuals, there is an objectivity in the ways the construction and/or performance can be measured."
Me:
I rarely argue with people, because 90% of arguments center around matters of opinion, not fact. At a party recently, a particularly opinionated acquaintance, upon hearing the song "Dancing Queen", responded with "Abba sucks!" A number of guests took umbrage, but, in the end, what are you gonna do? Convince him that Abba does not suck? It is his OPINION that Abba sucks. He did not need to preface his less-than-cogent argument with 'It is my opinion that..." because we are all smart enough to know it is just an opinion.
I didn't respond to the comment because the person making the point is uninteresting. If it were a friend who is well spoken, interesting, entertaining, and, yes, to some extent, knowledgeable, then I would have stayed and listened regardless of whether I agreed with the opinion. It would hold no sway at all an my opinion of Abba. At best, someone may have said "Mike, do you like Abba?" and I would have to think about why I do or don't. And as I explained my stance, others would be free to sit and listen, or move to the kitchen and discuss Tiger Woods.
My point is: criticism is opinion. To divorce it from good writing and subjectivity is to gut it. Mere analysis is boring (see Film Theory, Academic). But (not to get all 'meta' on y'all), THAT IS MY OPINION ON FILM CRITICISM. It seems Mr. Schneider does not share that opinion, and his writing style and subjectivity are inextricable in expressing that. I disagree with him, but I wouldn't walk to the kitchen for another drink if he were expressing it at a party. So he's got that going for him.
Agreeing with Roger's opinion on a given movie has never been the point of my blind, fawning dedication to his writing; it's the writing itself, and the inadvertent autobiography (i.e. subjectivity).
There is little or no chance that this thread will not dust off Roger's favorite quote re film criticism, from Robert Warshaw. Roger, if you will do the honor....
Ebert: But of course:
"A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man."
Or woman, Robert, but the longer I think about that the truer it seems, and it has gotten me out of many a tight spot.
If only I were so fair with my critics!
There is only a good Roger. Misguided at times. :) But, always good.
Ah, the mental masturbation of film critic critics is quite tedious I think. These two gentlemen need more than a steak dinner. Perhaps, a life?
Schneider: I not only concur, but almost forgive him for recommending Saving Private Ryan. I said almost, now.
This would be the kind of comment that would put critics in the category of film snobs. Useless ones at that. If a critic can not recommend Saving Private Ryan as an interesting movie to watch, he is no good to me as a barometer.
Ebert: Readers find critics who speak to them
Exactly.
I've made this point elsewhere on this blog before, but I calibrate myself to film reviewers.
What you are helping me to do, as a film reviewer, is to make a decision to spend my limited time and dollars seeing a film or not. I make use of your intellectual content as a factor - maybe even the deciding factor - in that decision. You are a calibrated barometer. Have I, after the viewing, agreed with your recommendations more than disagreed? Then we have similar film tastes and I will regard your review in my decision to see a film. If not, not. Simple as that.
Perhaps I am making a strong distinction between film review and film criticism. I prefer a review - should I see it or not? Criticism, on the other hand, is an intellectual exercise that is "inside baseball" and not of much worth to me as a content consumer.
Your reader: Having said that, I want to admit that I usually preferred your old partner Gene Siskel's opinions to yours. When you guys disagreed I probably sided with his opinion 80-90% of the time.
I am the opposite. I always preferred your visceral, emotional, and accurate film review to Siskel's film criticism - which I always thought of as snobbery. Hands down, or thumbs up!, every time Ebert over Siskel. Does that make you a "pop culture" critic? Perhaps. Works for me, because I am a pop culture consumer. But, clearly you are more than that.
You, in the film review world, are the man. A talented writer and an accurate and useful film reviewer.
Thank you for posting the image of Miss Bergman. It is quite striking and lovely. Perhaps your two readers should spend more time appreciating that image and less engaging in the business of being a critic critic.
First... I'm a huge Ebert fan so maybe I'm biased. I usually agree with Roger on his reviews. "Dark City" was the best film of that year. I've been watching/reading Ebert for so long I do remember, however, getting annoyed that he would go out of his way to praise EVERY Clint Eastwood movie that would come out. (this was during the 80s) There were lots of Eastwood stinkers but if you followed Ebert blindly you wouldn't never know. Of course, Eastwood adds a lot to every film he's involved in. Maybe that was the point. I did (and still do) like the fact that Ebert loves beautiful women and always points out the ones he finds attractive. I kinda love him for that.
My obsession with film noir probably has more to do with Ebert than any other film writer/critic. And for that I'm eternally grateful.
(That's not an image from The Big Red One -called The Big Red in the caption- I don't remember Tom Hanks being in that)
-Steve O
I think you are being especially kind to Dan Schneider who, in the little I've read from him, seems to be a pompous intellectual ready to dismiss anyone who attempts to bring emotion into criticism.
As you say, film is primarily an emotional experience.
Fine if you don't want to criticize a film on its emotional merits, but that doesn't mean that a brand of criticism that does so is any less meaningful than one that focuses on form.
I decided to disregard Schneider when I read his opinion of subtitling vs. dubbing in which he finds dubbing to be far superior. I can't take seriously any critic who holds such an opinion. Granted, I suppose it makes some sense coming from a technical critic.
But I live in a country that dubs its films. I refuse to see them. I do, however, see quite a lot of television that is dubbed. For me the reasons dubbing is wholly inferior are numerous: 1) adults are routinely employed to dub child performances resulting in children who always sound like the child characters on The Simpsons. 2) actors have two essential tools at their disposal: their bodies and their voice. Take away one and you're left with half a performance with another half a performance from a different actor laid over the top. 3) when there is a scene in which the character(s) sing, the dubbing stops and the original actor's voice returns, creating a jarring disconnect. 4) scenes of high emotional impact sound completely unconvincing, e.g. heavy crying, strong anger, etc. I suspect the reason for this is that a voice actor in a studio can typically not conjure the appropriate emotional range to match what the original actor on set "in the moment of the character" was able to. 5) This occurred to me after a couple of years living here and is perhaps the biggest reason I find dubbing to be such garbage. The dubbing track is not melded into the sound mix for the film. This provides a real appreciation for sound mixing on a film. During action sequences you get the sense that the actors are in a different zip code to the explosions and gun shots. The dubbed track is simply laid over the top of the original mix, resulting, once again, in a jarring disconnect.
For a critic who seems to be held in such high esteem (and who seems to consider himself as such) to not recognize the inferiority of dubbing based on the aforementioned reasons is inexcusable.
Granted, subtitles make it more difficult to watch a film and it takes practice. But after time it becomes second-nature and you barely notice that you're reading anymore. Hey, try watching a film in Chinese with Spanish subtitles when your abilities with the Spanish language are good, but not close to fluent.
Maybe emotion is given prominence, but it's unfair to discount the analysis employed in the reviews. The quality writing allows these analytical thoughts to be expressed in a simple manner-- being able to say alot in a little is a gift-- but there is weight in the words. It's just that the words are not muddled in unnecessarily dense prose.
However, I've often said this, and always meant it as a compliment:
I don't consider Roger Ebert a film critic, I consider him a great writer who loves movies.
A critic has nothing to bring to his craft except himself, his knowledge of the medium's nature and history, and his taste. He owes the reader only as good an explanation of his reaction as he can pen, and consistency (with its attendant requirement to admit it when he is being inconsistent). It's up to the reader to apply his own judgment of the critic's reasoning, learn if learning is called for, and determine how his and the critic's tastes reinforce or diverge from each other. After sufficient experience, the reader will then know what his own likely reaction will be to a work, and decide whether to experience it. I don't expect Ebert or Kael or Sarris or Rex Reed to agree with each other -- but I don't expect them to agree with me, either. Each can be educational or enjoyable in his/her own way, but ultimately they act as guides, not holy writ.
I know a lot of other people who wouldn't give this sort of dissection the time of day, but you feel it produces that much more rejuvenated interest and attention in the way you write and compose your reviews. I think that says a lot right there.
I'm surprised one of the things not mentioned here was the now-somewhat-notorious excoriation of "Blue Velvet".
I think it is important to recognize that others may not share the same motivation as you when they describe an experience, a mistake that is somewhat telling when made by someone that obviously values his intellectual and analytical abilities. Schneider assumes everyone watches a movie the same way he does and then, because others do not see what he sees, assumes he is better than they.
I do not understand the value in exposing oneself to ideas based on the criteria that there is (usually) agreement. How boring and brittle.
Uh, I have run across Mr. Schneider in other forums. He has likened the films of John Ford to primitive cave paintings, and insists that Orson Welles must have directed The Third Man because all of Carol Reed's other movies are bad movies, and Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten were both in The Third Man. And is not going to change his mind no matter how often you point him to the actual words of the actual people actually involved in the making of the movie.
"My reviews usually include a reflection of how I felt during a film, since film itself is primarily an emotional, not a cerebral, medium."
Thank you for saying that. The e-mail made it seem like a bad thing that you were an emotional critic, although the goal of most films is to create an emotional response in its audience.
Although I disagree with you often, I've always liked that you like movies. Sure, that might mean I see a bad movie on your recommendation, but having a genuine love for the medium is not a drawback in a critic. Even when you recommend crap like 2012 you basically acknowledge that its schlock. A film that adheres so well to its genre conventions that its enjoyable to fans of disaster films. I shouldn't count it against you that you are a fan of disaster movies.
Anyways the current standard I set for critics is Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2. Any critic who recommended one of those movies might want to reconsider a change in profession. And since you have adamantly defended the badness of Transformers 2 before, that makes you OK in my book.
I had never read Dan Schneider, but reading some of his comments now he seems to suck all the fun out of film. I used to date a girl who I described to others as "the girl who hates movies". She was brilliant, had a PhD in anthropology, and watched almost as many indie, foreign, and classic films as I did. But she seemed highly critical of many of the films I loved. It seemed that very few films passed her judgment intact, while I could always find something about most films (either a line, a scene, or a direction) that I found to be perfect (not that the complete film itself was so great). I greatly appreciate thought and intelligence in film discussion, and enjoyed many of the comments Schneider made in the review clips I read above, but he seems to totally divorce himself from emotion in film. I think that’s a mistake. I sometimes find Roger’s comments to be too high praise and led emotionally, but the thing I like about him is that he loves film. But like I said about Schneider, he doesn't seem like he's a lot of fun. And his dismissal of Spielberg as a hack is inexcusable. As for "Vertigo", it's clear that film is deep enough to create many different and dissenting reviews.
The image for the movie The Big Red One indeed comes from The Big Red One, from Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. It's a WW2 first person shooter that was released for the Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube some years ago. Kinda nice to see videogame captions in a movies blog.
Ebert: On the third try, I think I have it right. In amends, here's my Cannes 1980 interview with Sam Fuller:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19800817/PEOPLE/8170301
It seems that Schneider falls into the same trap so many people do whatever their profession. He automatically assumes that his assessment of a movie, his analysis, is the correct one. No acknowledgement that two opposing viewpoints could be equally "correct," especially since we are not talking about math proofs which are only right or wrong but about art where there are in some ways no right or wrong answers. This is why I find value in critics who have a completely different take on a movie. I do not think them necessarily wrong because I can usually see where they are coming from, how they have used reason to arrive at their conclusions.
Film is a form of art.
Art is not objective.
Art's only value lies in its emotional connection with its creators and audiences, which in most cases, are humans.
Roger Ebert is a human.
So are his audiences/readers.
Therefore, it can logically be deducted, if you accept the first five lines of this post, that Roger Ebert's reaction to films is by nature emotional, and so are those of his readers/audiences.
It can also be deducted that Roger Ebert's written expressions of his reaction will be emotion-driven.
It can also be deducted that those who choose to read Roger Ebert's reviews will be emotion-driven in their reactions, and may have done so for that very reason.
If you are capable of seperating yourself from the mass of emotional humans, good for you.
Congratulations. I'll see you in another lifetime.
Because in this one, it is my personal opinion that I'd rather read, interact, and be with emotional human beings.
Objectively yours,
g.
I'm sorry Mr. Ebert. Dan Schneider is sophomoric in his reviews and critiques. Most of the time there seems to be an underlying sense of retaliation from him because he does not understand a film or believes he does and that he can 'see right through it'.
Read any of his critiques of Buñuel for example...
An example of one...
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B691-DES579.htm
Hi Roger:
I come at this from a different perspective. What I want (and often get) from your writing is to be engaged: to learn, and to think, and to rethink. "Criticism", on the other hand, to the extent that it is defined as "was it a good movie?" or "how many stars did it get?" is a tricky and to some extent less interesting business. Don't get me wrong, I understand that you have a job to do. But like Wally looking at the fortune cookie, sure, I'll notice the stars, maybe even think about them, but, that's really beside the point -- the cookie is in no position to tell me whether I would like the movie. Surely thoughtful informed people will disagree, often productively, about art. There is a distinct joy in fighting about movies with people who take them seriously.
With regard to your writing, then, it is not surprising I am most fond of your usually teriffic "great movies" essays, and I also like your memoir-type blog entries. And I very much appreciate your bringing to my attention small films that I might not have otherwise been aware of. But when I disagee with you, say, about a "great movie", my internal dialogue is about thinking through the bases of our disagreement, not on why you are "right" or "wrong".
That said, and borderline irrelevant, put me in the camp of those who think that you are too easy a grader, and that this has become more noticable over time. (Which was a methodological flaw in your comparative assessment of your grading some time back -- you looked at the full sweep of your grades, but I think, without doing the math, that you were a harder grader in the 70s than you are today.) I mention this mostly because it reminds me of an amusing memory -- I saw on TV, when it originally aired, Siskel's response to your positive review of "Cop and a Half". Still makes me laugh when I think about it.
Roger,
That you can call Schneider's assessment of you and your critical faculties "fair" after seeing that he has referred to you as stolid and dense is proof that you are a gentleman.
Part of the reason why I enjoy reading Manohla Dargis, Jim Emerson, A.O. Scott, and Glenn Kenny so much is because they marry emotional reaction with keen analysis. Oddly enough I've always believed that one of your greatest strengths is your analytical nature, and to see Mr. Schneider claim that you are lacking in your critical thinking is baffling.
It would be interesting to see Schneider weigh in on this himself, although I sincerely doubt that he will.
I think our ideas about criticism, particularly in the area of film, are much too wedded to our ideas about superior taste and consumption. We expect critics basically to either 1) make people buy a ticket for a movie or 2) discourage people from buying a ticket for a movie. And that they are qualified to do these two things based on their superior taste. This is why now everyone's a critic on the internet - if those are the qualifications, don't we all think deep down that we could do that too?
I was thinking about this just last night as I was reading over a book of Lester Bangs writings (not psychotic reactions, a posthumous sort of odds-and-ends thing). The thing is, I usually DON'T agree with ole Lester. He hates a lot of the stuff I love, and he loves a lot of stuff I'm pretty blah about. But he wasn't one of the preeminient, probably THE preeminient, rock critics because his "taste" was so superior. Even Lester himself would agree with that, from what I can see. No, he was a great critic because he was passionate and knowledgable, and he was a tremendous writer who could convey those two things to you every time. No article or review was trivial to him. Every subject whether a major artist or a little pop nothing that provoked a reaction for him, he would devote his furious intelligence to exploring in full. And almost never is he saying what you already think about that music, but something that you've never thought about that music, but you're sure as hell gonna think about it now. That is a great critic.
"Taste" is not the most important thing. Everyone has taste, good taste or bad taste or trashy taste or obscure taste. A critic is more than a tastemaker. He is writing about art. He is using his own knowledge of the history of that art to put a particular piece in context and really examine how it works, how it doesn't work, what is unique and marvelous and inspiring about it. (Or how depressing and unoriginal and inept it is, depending). Whether everyone agrees with his final assessment or not, or if he even agrees with his own assessment years down the line, is not important to me, if he can illuminate a film in some way and contribute to understanding of it.
Which is all a very long way of saying that I think Ebert is a very excellent critic, and picking out occassions in which he was "wrong" or not in agreement with your own view is a sophmoric exercise in triviality. A bad critic is shallow and ignorant. A bad critic is not "someone who doesn't agree with me" or "someone who doesn't properly direct people to purchase the correct movie ticket".
I don't know how seriously I am supposed to take a film critic who argues that you commit a "blunder" in describing what art is and what it does. I know plenty of professional artists who would pretty strongly disagree with Schneider's claims about art, just as he disagreed with your claims. The point being, when you described art, you did so in explaining your perspective on it and how Allen's film fails in your assessment of art's role -- Schneider argues about your personal definition itself. If there's an inexcusable blunder in this equation, Schneider is its author.
I also am honestly rather tired of the obsessive disdain for Spielberg, or more to the point the obsessive disdain for anyone who doesn't hold obsessive disdain for Spielberg. Whatever faults one can find with this or that Spielberg film, to claim the man is just basically some sort of hack is absurd. Those making such claims tend to give off a rather pungent odor of overall myopic pseudo-intellectual posing, more concerned it seems with conforming to an image of themselves that they prefer -- one in line with their distorted notion of what makes one intelligent, critical, and a true connoisseur of fine art.
In short, I get a strong sense that while Schneider is a talented writer and has some interesting views about films, he is often as much concerned with "having the proper opinion" as he is with reviewing a film. This may not be a conscious choice he's making, but I think the influence is clearly there.
For his reviews themselves, the sampling here doesn't do much to impress me. I think he pretty thoroughly misses every relevant point about "Stardust Memories" for example, and I find it hard to believe anyone could be naive enough to make such claims about Allen's consistent characterizations and what they say about his films.
Likewise, I was taken aback by his comments about "Vertigo", and feel they are glaringly off the mark -- then again, I am consistently surprised that so few people mention that the rest of the film after Scottie becomes catatonic is all in his head, and serves as a psychological examination of him "working things out" to try and find absolution for earlier events (it's all a big conspiracy, the woman he loved never really died, he overcomes his vertigo, etc -- think about the original ending to "Brazil" and I think there's a good comparison to be made).
Through this, the question becomes "Can Scottie absolve himself, or do his psychological attempts ultimately lead to the same place again? Regardless, the existence of this interpretation (which I feel is the strongest one) and how it feeds even into other interpretations, how it helps clarify them, does much to reinforce Roger's assessment and debunk most of Schneider's claims.
It's those sorts of omissions, misreadings, and biases that make it easier for me to look at Schneider's critiques and see good technical writing skill and occasional insights that don't do much to overcome the deeper flaws and shortcomings in his film analysis. That's without considering his comments about Roger, which merely add to the perception that Schneider is under the influence of a desire to be a certain kind of reviewer, to have certain kinds of opinions, and that his reviews are as much motivated by those issues as they are by the content of any film he's reviewing.
Roger's ability to look at a film and NOT use some generic first-year film student "To Do" list to assess a film, instead approaching each film from a new perspective even while later considering the film within the context of his wealth of previous experience, is precisely what makes him such a great reviewer -- and why he has been and remains far more relevant than those reviewers and critics who act as if every single film must be inserted into an emotionless template to judge its adherence to pseudo-intellectual notions of filmmaking.
(My use of "pseudo-intellectual" is not meant as an anti-intellectual statement, and I trust it's not mistakenly taken as such. I am a big supporter of intellectualism, and a big opponent of anti-intellectualism. Pseudo-intellectualism is something quite different, and quite obnoxious.)
Before saying anything else, Roger, let me first say that you're the only critic around for whom I feel any love. You're a sensible, honorable man with good instincts, you're generous as a critic and relate honestly to movies, without self-importance, you write beautifully and have a wonderful sense of humor, and you wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." It was a pleasure and a relief when you came back to work after your operations.
As for the rest -- yes, I do agree that your writing doesn't satisfy my analytical instincts. You often seem to praise a movie because it lets you tell a good story of your own, one that has little to do with what actually happened on screen. (And I still don't understand how anyone could sit all the way through Seabiscuit, let alone claim to have enjoyed it.)
A friend of mine who I'd introduced to your writing asked me if you were a reliable critic. I said no, certainly not, in the sense that if you endorsed a movie, the odds weren't good that the movie would in fact be okay, or even that the review had much to do with the movie. But that wasn't the point. The point was that here was someone who was very good company who consistently had interesting things to say and who enriched your experience of having seen a movie. The rest doesn't matter. I can make up my own mind about movies; I don't need them explained to me, and I'm not so insecure that I need someone else's judgments. Or that I need to agree with the person I'm reading, either.
I was very struck by the difference between you in the context of Siskel and Ebert and you as a writer. On S & E, quite honestly, you drove me nuts; you seemed too emotional, and didn't get your facts right, and I nearly always sided with Gene. In writing, the same is still true, I suppose, but there's so much more going on that it seems completely irrelevant. It's often a very nice thing when your friends aren't just like you. Even when they make you want to tear your hair out when they try to talk about quantum mechanics.
I've been, at times, "accused" by friends of looking too much into movies, of being too analytical, if you will. This, they argue, detracts from my enjoyment of movies--and by that, they often mean that I disliked a movie they found entertaining. Some of them have half-jokingly accused me of being a film snob.
Unsurprisingly, I disagree with them. They seem to assume that the reason I dislike some movies is because I am unable to restrain myself from looking too much into them, when simply sitting back and relaxing would let me enjoy them. But it doesn't work that way.
My first reaction to a movie is always an emotional, visceral one. Often an exaggerated one; I've "loved" and "hated" movies that, in retrospect, were merely good or bad, and not the amazing or awful that my original assessment of them implied. I never watch a movie actively looking for things to bitch about (plot holes, bad acting, what have you), and I've thoroughly enjoyed many movies which had tons and tons of flaws--flaws that I recognized, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment. However, once I've determined whether I liked a movie or not, I look into the reasons behind that gut reaction.
As an English major, I've had to sit through my fair share of boring classes where the instructor seemed to have forgotten what a gut reaction was. Literary criticism for the sake of literary criticism can be a tedious thing. Then again, I've also taken a number of fantastic classes where passion for the material was the driving force behind everything. As an example, perhaps the best English class I ever took was a discussion class on Faulkner. Early in the term (I believe it was our second class), as we were reading The Sound and the Fury, the professor began the class by asking us what we thought of the section we'd just read. Someone started going off about his interpretation of the novel so far, but she stopped him almost immediately. "No," she said. "I meant, did you like it?"
What I am getting at here is that I believe it is an error to try to dissociate one's emotional reaction to a work of art (be it a movie, a book, or a pop song) from one's analysis of it. The film critic may have more tools at his or her disposition to explain why he or she liked or didn't like a particular film, but it all begins with a personal reaction.
Having said that, my favorite person to go to the movies with is one of my best friends, a girl who is often very generous towards movies, and generally explains her like or dislike in purely emotional terms. I'll go see about any movie with her, because I know that even if we disagree on our assessment of the movie (especially if we disagree), we'll have a lively and entertaining discussion upon leaving the theater. She does refer to me as a film snob sometimes (I choose to take it as a term of endearment), but she always listens to what I have to say, and never lets me have the last word if she can help it. I guess I'm the Gene Siskel to her Roger Ebert in this particular relationship (the analogy fails when you know she's an Adam Sandler fan--nobody's perfect, as Osgood Fielding would say).
Interestingly, I know a number of individuals who would dismiss your reviews, Mr. Ebert, on the basis that you are too concerned with dull subjects like plot, character, and emotional involvement. These, of course, are the same folks with the latest Michael Bay fare on their Christmas lists. I wonder what they would make of Dan Schneider's reviews?
Certainly there's a world of difference between seeing "stuff get blowed up real good" and allowing personal feeling to be influenced by what's successfully conveyed by characters on the screen. Shouldn't art generate an emotional response? Is it to be admired for its precision alone? Aren't your observations of your own reactions meant as a human measure of the impact of the film that the reader can identify with?
Mr. Schneider's reviews are well-observed, astute, and written from an analytical perspective not unlike an undertaker dissecting a corpse. While no doubt useful as a critique of the technical craft of film-making, I am curious: does he actually enjoy going to the movies? Even his definition of a classic film belies his cold regard:
"Compare that with the definition of a great film (or any work of art) as something that successfully engages and enriches the mind and aesthetics through the excellence of its construction and/or performance."
Sheesh. He's not incorrect, but it sounds like he's grading a term paper. I'd like to combine his definition of a classic film with yours - "a film one could not bear never seeing again" and call it as encompassing as it needs to be.
Ebert: Credit where due: I heard that definition from the UK critic Derek Malcolm, who has the added distinction of acting as the bookie for the bets on the annual awards at Cannes. No, really.
Dear Mr. Eert:
Yesterday I began reading the 2010 movie yearbook of yours. I looked at my movie bookshelf, and on it was each and every movie review book you wrote, going back farther than you or I might wish to admit. I considered why I bought all those books and concluded it is because I trust your insights and comments more than I do the words of any other critic alive, in any field, including that of the mighty Robert Parker in wine. When I come to critics, what is important to me is that the critic speak to me, talks to me about what I care about, and you have done that better than anyone over the years. I trust you implicitly, and in all of your words have rarely ever been led astray (with, as the exception noted to you in a post on another thread, the case of the movie Anaconda, which yes, did have a regurgitated Join Voight). But the purpose of a critic is to offer his or her thoughts, not to hew to a criteria some other critic feels is important- whether it is emotion or reason or scholarship. The reader will look for information that is important to him or her. For me, it is a combination of your compassion, eloquence and taste that provides me exactly the information I need to see and understand movies better. This seems a straw man argument here' it does not seem binary, as it is presented to you. It is, in the end, nothing more than a matter of taste. no matter what is said in the end, you would not have readers did you not help meet their needs, which in this case is informed information about movies.
Does anyone else feel a little bit sad to see read grown man write that Spielberg is "a hack" and Ebert is "dense" for thinking he is a great filmmaker?
Isn't it clear that Schneider's mindset is a juvenile one?
A self described film lover who thinks they can separate audience response from artistic merit is really just lost in their own head. As mature adults have learned, there's no real wisdom in that navel gazing mindset.
Seriously, how are we supposed to that seriously?
Ha! Letting your "emotions get the better of you" in your response to art is bad thing to be avoided? Now that's rich!
Come ON, now! Isn't that just a little sad? To think your own emotions are trying to get the better of you? In the workplace, okay. While driving...when VOTING, okay, good policy.
But when responding to art, one much keep a close watch on those damn emotions, always trying to get the better of you? That is not the way to recognizing great art, friends. Find me a great artist who thinks so.
I'm sure Kubrick and Spielberg would both have a real laugh over a notion like that.
Wow. Judging by the length of that email and the ridiculous amount of content on cosmoetica.com, there's some serious OCD action going on here.
Still, Schneider's gotten 151 million visitors. That's a lot of people who don't seem to care about good web design.
Good for him, I guess. It's not a site I'll be spending time on.
I vehemently disagree with Schneider about 'greatness' -
"Like it or not, Hitler was a great man, as were Stalin and Mao, and Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great before them. Mass murderers all, but all great, as long as one is mindful that great does not only mean 'good' nor 'decent,' and that great men also can have great flaws."
Greatness can be defined as "the ability to inspire support." Given this definition, an argument can be made for Hitler's greatness, but it is a false argument.
For a brief time in history he did become the symbol of national pride for millions of people. "He inspired millions, therefore he was great" goes the argument. On the surface, the argument appears sound. But Hitler's leadership only seemingly inspired, while in fact merely brought to the surface preexisting mass-biases.
Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom analyzes the socio-economic conditions that led to the Third Reich's rise to power. The biggest factor was the economic instability due to the oppressive economic sanctions imposed on Germany from WWI, amplified by the Great Depression. But also the hatred for the lower classes embedded within Calvinism and, to a slightly lesser degree, Lutheranism and the invention of radio with its propensity for mass propaganda in the hands of a powerful state, played a large role.
Hitler's specific psychological profile happened to align itself with the bitterness and embedded biases of the German people at the time. Yes, he did have a decent work ethic--720 page treatises do not write themselves. But it was resentment over WWI that inspired the mobilization of the German military. Hitler himself did not convince the German people that certain races of people belonged to an "underclass". That was a result of industrialization and Protestant doctrine that led people to believe they were powerless in the face of vast natural and social forces. Had Hitler lived in a less bitter, less economically unstable time, his racist nationalism would have inspired no one.
Greatness must always, at some point, result in beauty. For a time, millions of Germans were tricked into believing his regime would. We now see that they were absolutely wrong.
I had not heard of Dan Schneider until this blog. I have now read several of his reviews thanks to the links and, as much as I hate to admit it, laughed out loud.
After wading through the first half of his review of "Deliverance," I realized almost immediately, "He's just a kid!"
No matter, he's an above average writer with a love of film. His perception and maturity need to grow, and a nice healthy road trip to Alaska one summer wouldn't hurt either.
I disagree to the very core of my being with both of you guys on "Deliverance," but since I'm on lunch break, must avoid time-consuming explanation. Truth be told, your review on "Deliverance" has always been one of my top-5 examples of the rare moment Roger missed the boat.
Schneider gains his popular appeal by being harsh to critics. His critiques on movies are technical and without emotion. Instead he saves his emotions until he talks about a critic he disagrees with. Then the hellfire and brimstone fall, and this is where Schneider gains his popularity. Just as some of us enjoy reading your negative reviews, some enjoy reading negative reviews of people, in this case critics. It is intellectual snobbery. To some people, reading a negative review of someone or something gives their ego a boost and gives them the illusion of superiority over others. It is a false emotion, and is not psychologically healthy. This is the problem I have with Schneider's reviews. It is fine if you are negative about a particular subject or person, as long as you have valid reasons. But to disagree and be intentionally cruel to those who don't share your opinion is elitist and uncalled for.
Ebert: Sounds like a Borges story.
Me:
Yeah really! Look at the levels of extraction here already:
1) The movie;
2) Your review of the movie;
3) Schneider's review of your review of the movie;
4) Peter Svensland's email about Schneider's review of your review of the movie.
5) Reader's comments about Peter Svensland's email about Schneider's review of your review of the movie.
6) Your response to reader's comments about Peter Svensland's email about Schneider's review of your review of the movie.
7) My comments about your response to reader's comments about Peter Svensland's email about Schneider's review of your review of the movie.
Ebert: Excuse me, I need to lie down and hold onto something.
These excerpts convince me mainly that Schneider has an almost pathological vendetta against Spielberg.
Most people want emotion from their movies. Some critics, like Schneider, are bothered by this. You aren't.
I propose a more talented man of the web perform some web wizardry and direct the domain metacritic.com to this article.
Ebert: Elaborate?
"I believe a good critic is a teacher. He doesn't have the answers, but he can be an example of the process of finding your own answers. He can notice things, explain them, place them in any number of contexts, ponder why some "work" and others never could." Take a guess at whom that quote is attributable to...
My problem with Schneider's critique of Mr. Ebert is that, as jim put it, he seems to be confusing the intentions of the film scholar with the intentions of the film critic. The assumption seems to be that the film critic's role is that of the wise shepherd, re-directing the flock (us schmucks who just dump our six bucks on the counter) down the path of righteousness -- this film is "good", this film is "bad", this film belongs in the "pantheon", this one does not -- telling us that we are "right" or "wrong" for holding the opinions that we hold. Mr. Schneider is not content to simply disagree with Mr. Ebert, and provide examples and illustrations of the reasons for that disagreement; he insists on asserting that Mr. Ebert is "wrong".
To seperate emotion from one's critical opinion is to render it almost entirely useless. How can a critic be "objective"? I'd think it would be pretty self evident that the notion of "having an opinion" denotes...well, having an OPINION, emphasis on the capitalized word. Mr. Ebert wrote once in response to an angry letter to the answer man that the critic's job was not to be a puppet of popular taste; likewise, I would argue that the critic's job is ALSO *not* to be a puppet of "critical opinion", of the assumption that because a given director (i.e. Spielberg or Lucas) is a "popular" artist, his work cannot possibly be of any worth, ect. That's not criticism, it's just snobbery.
I read Roger Ebert's reviews specifically BECAUSE he is "emotional". I consider Mr. Ebert the single most important teacher I've had in learning to love film. I don't always agree with him, but I always want to hear what he has to say; I want him to tell me why he was right, why I was wrong, what he saw in a film that I didn't see, what moved him that left me cold, or what we both recognized and loved in a given film.
(Good grief, was that pretentious, and probably ill-advised. But heartfelt, nonetheless.)
Roger, I've been reading you in the ST for years. The reason is simple. I love the way you write. I don't always agree with your critiques, but that's okay with me. You've written reviews that have made me laugh for days. You're Transformer II review was so funny that I was glad I wasn't drinking a soda, because I probably would have snorted it through my nose. So painful.
You never leave us confused as to what you think, you just tell us straight up. I've seen films because of what you wrote. Seeing a film is an emotional expeirence for me, and I'm okay with that.
I had a film class in high school (way back in the 70s) which taught me to look for symbolism in films. I've learned to appreciate the craft that goes into every aspect of film-making and how mindful is the craftmaking we are seeing up on a screen. I love seeing these things and feel that I am seeing a secret part of what is being presented to us. It broadens the experience for me in going to a movie. A good example is the halo effect that the headboard of bed of Will Ferris' love interest in Stranger Than Fiction had when he was sleeping next to her.
Reading your reviews helps me to see things in a film that are not as apparent as the story that is presented.
My first thought was of the phrase "talking it to death". That is what I see above from Mr. Schneider. The idea that everything must be about something. The idea that it is always more important to educate, inform, analyze, etc. than to entertain. That entertainment is meant for some other form of animal that is not wholly human in its appetites. Leaving the theater with a smile on one's face should be shameful. You should always leave the theater with a feeling of mild concern and a furrowed brow at the least and a full grimace and a head full of indignation at best. I have tried the latter, and friends let me tell you: life is too short for that kind of thing.
When I go to see LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD or SHERLOCK HOLMES, I know what I am getting myself into. I know why I am going. There are no illusions in my mind that they are about anything more than the narrow band of dialogue they will provide to move the plot from one explosion to the next or one well choreographed fight scene to the next. They are just stories and, let's face it, explosions. I am man who can profess a love for explosions and fisticuffs when surrounded by the comfortable and familiar father figure of John McClane or the now culturally mythic Sherlock Holmes.
An entertaining story is often as important as an informative one or an extraordinary one. Leaving the theater with a smile always makes the world a little more hopeful and gives you a few more reasons to stay hopeful. We see the world every day in our real lives and we know that it is full of hardship and struggle. It is nice to be reminded that it is also full of joy and silliness and hilarity as well.
Calling Gene Siskel an intellectual film critic automatically invalidates anything else a person has to say. Gene was , on screen at least, a per former of a particular type, playing a certain role in a psychodrama. He was very good at doing something.
When a critic has been writing for 40 years it's easy to pick and choose things to carp about, if one wishes to make a name for oneself as a bold independent thinker(sic). A writer's body of work has value in diverse ways, one of the most important of which is the record of a journey, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. Writers who do this honestly will endure, The rest, who may do well that which is not worth doing, will be forgotten, and nowadays, thankfully, even faster.
I enjoyed watching you and Gene Siskel argue. When the two of you disagreed, I sided with you 80-90% of the time. This blog entry helped me to realize why: like you, I let emotion cloud my judgment. This is not a bad thing.
In thinking about this article, I discover that my taste in music mirrors my taste in movies. This is especially significant since I am a conductor and composer by trade. I admire and revere music that is logical and well-constructed (like Bach, for example), but the music that I really love simply affects me. We use music theory to understand the tools musicians use (rhythm, pitch, timbre, etc.) and how the manipulation of those materials can affect people (sound alone can affect heart rate, blood pressure, mood). I wonder if any studies have been done to measure the preferences of people across the arts and if there are similar parallels. Do Siskel followers prefer Bach and Schoenberg while Ebert followers flock to Debussy and Stravinsky?
Incidentally, thank you Roger for your continued efforts to teach me about the craft of making movies. You are a miraculous synthesis of critic, scholar, and artist yourself.
Roger,
One of the main reasons I've always sought out your reviews is that you LOVE the movies...but aren't afraid of doling out tough love - and some scathing reviews.
When I read Schneider, one word comes to mind: Clinical. He is obviously very intelligent and knowledgeable about film, but is far too detached to really understand how it touches people...because he hasn't allowed it to really touched HIM.
I picture lots of stainless steel appliances and white walls in Mr. Schneider's home. ;-)
"As for grace, interest, and involvement? Well, it's there, even if it requires a bit of intellectual cogitation on the part of a viewer, something that most Americans (and American critics) are unwilling to give."
Hasn't the "dumb Americans" cliche worn out its welcome yet? No? Sigh...
If we really must typify audiences by nationality, it seems far more fair to say that Americans prefer movies that make us feel rather than that we prefer not to think. Mr. Schneider apparently considers this a bad thing, as if emotion is a less valid technique for judging value than intellect. This is the same argument that has been used to marginalize women's concerns for centuries ("Don't mind her, she's just hysterical/PMSing/etc." Sorry you had to be lumped in with us, Roger.) Mainstream American movies do appeal to emotion over cognition sometimes, but why not? It's a style and a sign of the times, like every other movie trend. The true measure of a film's value is whether or not it achieves what it sets out to achieve; if a movie sets out to make its audience feel good and ends up merely placating, as is the case for so many romcoms, then it has failed in its execution. This is exactly how Mr. Schneider judges his movies for their artistry, and Mr. Ebert does the same -- he simply bases his judgments on emotional appeal as well as the more technical aspects. And really, it's hardly just to pan Mr. Ebert for his emotional takes on movies while simultaneously expressing one's own responses -- irritation, primarily -- in one's own reviews. Let's call a spade a spade here.
I find it interesting that Mr. Schneider can turn up his nose at Star Wars while simultaneously calling Hitler a great man. If we are defining "great" not in terms of "good" but as a measure of scope, then how can Star Wars possibly fail to shine? For a man who touts the importance of logic so fiercely, this seems a glaring fallacy.
When Schneider calls Spielberg's films "tripe" he forgets that tripe when well prepared can be quite tasty. I've had some delicious tripe tacos in Matamoros. It's easy to argue that Indiana Jones was tripe - but it it was well prepared and quite tasty.
Dan Schneider may have some interesting insights but his haughty, superior tone would put me off ever reading him. Consistency (or rigidity)is not necessarily a virtue, it often means a lack of desire to look past one's prejudices or change one's mind. I would argue his stance on Speilberg is more emotional than your own: he outright dismisses all his work as 'tripe'. I'm not the biggest Speilberg fan in the world but would have to concede, at least, he is a superior craftsman and would judge each of his films on their own merit (I thought The Lost World was garbage but it doesn't stop Jaws being a masterpiece).
I've been reading your every word for a long while now; this is the first time I've felt inclined to reply. Your method of criticism has been very influential for me. My niche has tended to be cult and horror pictures. If I attempted to engage these pictures in a 'cerebral' manner, I would alienate what little audience I have. It was your criticism that showed me I could engage with these pictures on a different level, that I could praise a conventionally bad picture and remain honest doing so.
I say this by way of preface. You see, I don't think it's quite fair to call your method of criticism 'emotional.' If there is anything we've learned from Spock, it's that being emotional has the connotation of being illogical, irrational. What distinguishes your approach from Siskel's, as I see it, is that Siskel takes the film itself as his object, whereas you take the experience of the film as your object. Where the film is a constant object to which anyone has direct access, an experience of the film is something to which only the one who experiences has direct access. This gives the 'emotional' flavour, due to the necessary subjectivity involved. However, this approach is no less cerebral. It engages the full range of intellectual faculties and is by no means irrational. If anything, the intellectual task is more burdensome due to the need to discover not just what the film does right or wrong, but why that film was able to create the experience that it did. It is not the working of the mind but the object of analysis that is different.
That's all I really wanted to share, to dispel this notion that your approach to criticism is any less intellectual than say Siskel's. It's not a very significant point, perhaps, and it could be all wrong.
I remember your comments in your review of The Insider. In it, you reference the obvious liberties taken in facts the film employs in order to create a more cogent, emotionally sound, third act. When I read your comments, I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment and finally understood the reason why films are better when focused on being emotionally-driven rather than strictly fact-driven. Movies are purposed to affect emotions primarily and intellectualism secondarily.
I think what has drawn me to your criticism as much as your word-smithing capabilities, is your ability to hone in on your emotional button, and recognize when and how it is being pushed. For example, The Proposal really had nothing to add to the film industry or genre. It’s very contrite and predictable from the first scene to the credits. However, you still recognized that despite this, you found yourself taken up emotionally by the time the climax of the film hit and you graciously gave the film a mild recommendation. A more cynical, or intellectually driven analysis, would not have come to this conclusion. Your review is more in touch with reality.
Arguing that you are more persuaded by your emotions isn’t a criticism, as long as you can articulate how you were affected. If you really did do nothing more than say “Thumbs Up” or “Your Movie Sucks,” yes, it would be completely responsible to denigrate your emotionally charged decision process. But you don’t do this. Your willingness to admit, confront and analyze the emotionally journey you take in each film you watch, regardless of any pretexts, is what makes you a powerful and cherished film critic.
Isn't this divide between emotions of watching a film and the technical aspects of film making common to many, many other fields as well? I can think of photography, where the exact details of equipment seem to swamp whether a photograph connects with people.
Also, while this is a fine discussion, we've missed a crucial question that needs answering: Does Mr. Roeper really smell of yams?
(nitpick: there's a few HTML anchors that need to be thrown onto the page, since everything south of "Taste of Cherry" is in italics and everything from your reply to the original email is in BOLD)
You've never given a bad review for a great film or a greatly positive review for a bad one.
Although, on documentaries, there is a lot of bad information that you accept as truth, like "An Inconvenient Truth", and the latest, "Collapse."
I wrote about that one in the "festering fringe" blog late last night so it isn't there yet, but basically, a few things were wrong:
ethanol does not "require more energy than it produces", it is actually 67% positive net energy balance (USDA) http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-928705511.html
America has over a trillion barrels of oil underground, and 430 billion barrels of oil is going to be extracted by current enhanced oil recovery techniques(the rest maybe by some future technology). http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/Undeveloped_Domestic_Oil_Resources_Provi.html
I am mentioning these because these are facts, not opinions.
I'm always curious when someone has such encyclopedic knowledge of someone or something that they're dismissive about. Schneider says that in your thousands of reviews, there are perhaps a "few dozen" that are worthwhile. My friend, to make this statement you've just read "several thousand" reviews that you find to be pop fluff!
If you have written over 5000 reviews (my own math-I'm sure you know your own number so feel free to correct me), not to mention your blog, books, and DVD commentaries that he seems also to be familiar with, he has wasted countless amounts of time on something he finds so trivial. Even if it was just to admire your prose it is worth noting that there are probably more words that exist today written by Roger Ebert than by William Shakespeare.
I don't care for the films of Michael Bay, the music of The Big Bopper, or the writing of J.K Rowling. As such I am less familiar with their overall catalogs than I am with John Carpenter, The Beatles, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It leaves me a little less room to criticize the former(s), but my God, isn't that worth it?
a more lively addition to my last post on the movie "Collapse":
That Ruppert man you are talking about in your review was an narcotics agent and in the words of Ordell (Sam Jackson) in, "Jackie Brown":
"They just trying to put a fright in your ass--that's they motherfuckin' job."
--when he was talking to Chris Tucker's character on how the cops were scaring him about jail time.
Mr. Ebert,
I find it interesting that the proponents of T2:ROTF eviscerated you for your clinical dissection of that lauded film, and this guy Schneider is taking you to task for being too emotional in your critical evaluations. I quote Jiminy Cricket: "Well, can't please everybody."
As for Schneider's assessment of the collected works of Steven Spielberg, allow me another quote, which you introduced me to, and which I have happily propagated and probably paraphrased: "There's some people, that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
Schneider's criticism of Spielberg as a schlockmeister says more about his view of pop entertainment than that of Spielberg. Is superior entertainment not a worthy goal of film? You can quibble a lot with Spielberg and his appeal to mainstreamness, but his skill at producing those sorts of films cannot be,
In a lot of ways - it is easier to praise "serious art" than it is to praise superior entertainment. What I have admired most about you is your ability to wrap yourself in the utter absurdity of "A Knight's Tale" and then praise the portrayal of the disintegrating family in "In the Bedroom". Similarly, it is easier to rip "Armageddon" (deservedly) than it is to shower the much artsier Alma Mahler biopic Bruce Beresford made.
A good critic praises the praiseworthy on the very basis that praise (or conversely scorn) is earned. A perfect example from your site is Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" - it has a mission, it executes it and it works, specifically on the level that the review articulates.
The only nit I have with Schneider's assessment of Ebert (not that I agree with his opinions, but he does make fair criticisms) is the way he uses a segment of Roger's review of Vertigo in order to attack the film itself. Roger reviewed what was on screen but Schneider could only speculate (although he tries hard to make it sound more like there can be no other argument) that the film would be better if the audience was not made aware that Judy really was Madeleine. Because he used the quote, his disagreement with Hitchcock becomes a criticism of Roger's take on the last act of the film, which isn't a fair blow.
Hi Roger,
I watched you and Gene for many years, loved your interactions. You were both very passionate about film and let you disagreements get rather heated at times. Often, that's when I learned the most. You two would even fight over what made a bad movie bad! And when you argued over what made a good movie great, that's when I knew I had to see the film.
Some of Schneider's criticisms of you made me laugh. Unlike most critics, you are not (at least in my observation) a "film snob". You seem to like just about any film in which the intent was honest and the method was interesting. When you say a film made you laugh, I can usually anticipate a similar experience. Sometimes you enjoy films that I can't get much out of (Gates of Heaven being one, unfortunately).
I don't read reviews to "understand" films. I assume that as a person of average intelligence I can understand them when I see them and I don't always need to told about (or "get") the references to post war Italian films in order to understand a film. (granted, though, there are a few that challenge my intelligence or knowledge base)
I read (and watch) reviews to get a sense that I will enjoy or appreciate having seen the film. When I connect emotionally to the film, whether it's the joy of the filmmaker or the horror of the events depicted, even the emotional manipulation (as long its for a good ride), then I feel my time was not wasted, that I was "elevated" by the experience of seeing it.
Many comments appeared here about Gene's objectivity and intellectual approach to films. While I'm sure they can quote passages in support of that, it only takes a few minutes watching the two of you go at it to realize that he was, like you still are, a person with intense emotional responses to films. That's what registered with me. Even if only by tone of voice, you guys also told me how the movie made you feel.
I think Dan Schneider and you just don't see eye to eye and never will. Just leave it at that.
I have a few problems with your work- but the above aren't among them. You have your weak points- but those aren't among them. There are reviews of yours I strongly disagreed, partially disagreed with, somewhat disagreed and reviews where you just weren't "on the mark" and just missing the point or points- but those weren't among them.
I think you can be wrong, off the mark and not useful as a critic but for completely different reasons than Mr. Schneider does.
Not only do I think you are a fantastic writer, I find your reviews spot on about 90-95 percent of the time. And even when you don't give the review and rating you should have, I think you do a fairly good job of analyzing and interpreting a film. Even when we disagree, I don't think you are a flawed critic. Very rarely does it happen that I wonder if we saw the same movie.
I read books most often to learn things. I watch movies most often to enjoy them. I am less interested in the artistic quality or significance of a film, have almost no interest in the history of cinema or its methods, and rarely bother with the "behind the scenes" and "making of" extras found on many DVD's. This doesn't mean I am not curious in life or uninterested in broader knowledge. It simply means that these aspects of my personality do not extend to film. Nothing I am watching in a non-documentary film is real, even when a film purports to be based on real people or events. There is no possibility that a film will convince me that I am watching something unfold in the real world I inhabit, no chance that I will belive the character is the actor or the actor the person he or she portrays.
Movies for me are entertainment. So, I tend to gravitate towards an Ebert more than I did a Siskel. I suppose that what I look for in a film results in the films I like to be a very eclectic mix. One could look at my collection and deduce nothing about me because almost any style or genre or "quality" is represented.
Another thing which draws me more toward you, Roger, is your writing. Yes, I want a general idea of the timbre of a movie I am considering seeing. I have never, though, seen or not seen anything based on anything you or anyone else has said. The closest thing to that happening is your exposing me to more choices than I have found for myself. Your writing in and of itself, though, is a great attraction. I similarly care nothing of how, why or even that you won the Pulitzer. I do care that I find your writing highly enjoyable, often educational, usually stimulating, and occasionally challenging. That I enjoy. The opinions therein I don't always agree with, but so what? I would find you boring swiftly if I always read the opinions I espoused.
In any event, while I am more than likely not a good representative of your target audience, certainly not as well-informed cinematically as much of your readership, and likely someone with whom you would disagree if not argue frequently, I am a fan and I loyally enjoy what you produce.
I've noticed, Roger, that you seem to be swayed easily if a film creates a new world via excellent production design or visual invention, regardless of whether or not good stories are being told within those worlds.
The two standout examples of this are the good reviews you gave to "Robots" and "Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow". The latter film was pretty darn boring, and the former wasted its excellent visual ideas with cruddy storytelling and bad jokes (Pixar, it 'aint)
Of course, "Blade Runner"is one of the best production designed (is that the term?) movies of all time, and you've been pretty reluctant about it's greatness, even as you added it to your Great Movies list, so this isn't an absolute rule, but it's something I've noticed.
You're still the first guy I turn to to find out if a movie is worth seeing or not, even if we disagree sometimes (I will never understand why you liked "Domino")
A question, though. Have you ever watched a film a second time and found that your initial emotional response was wrong, perhaps even manipulated? That happened to me with "Crash" (the Haggis one). The first time I thought it was really affecting. The second time, I thought it was really dumb.
I agreed with Roger's observations more than Gene Siskel's but I felt that sometimes Roger was too "emotional" in this one way: he would give a Thumbs Up only because he was being charitable to the artist behind the movie, and the artist's intent. On those occasions, Siskel's was more "analytic" in his criticisms and usually right.
When I looked back at Siskel's yearly lists of favorite movies, I realized that he wasn't as straight-laced as he seemed in arguing with Roger. Siskel picked "Mean Streets" as one of that year's best movies when it came out and Roger didn't, for example. And I think Siskel got "Something Wild" and Roger just didn't.
I think Dan Schneider writes with a lot of resentment in those passages. I'm not sure about Armond White but I don't think his contrariness rarely becomes *explicit* resentment.
The guy who sent you that letter is a huge nerd. His friend is an even huger nerd. It is true, your main draw for me is your writing. Even when I disagree with one of your opinions, it's always beautifully written. This is essential, I think. Hell, half the reason I got into movies was because I read all the Great Film essays posted on your website while on a three month tour with my band. At first I just enjoyed your writing about all these films i'd never seen. Then I actually watched them and fell in love with the films themselves.
That's what makes you such a good critic. You don't offer so much a cerebral evaluation of a movie as an invitation into it. You make me want to love the film, and sometimes you even show me how.
Well, your positive reviews at least. I tend not to read the negative ones.
The guy is rather arrogantly condescending, but he is an interesting read.
I think you're a great critic, of course. But you did miss the point of a couple of movies IMO: "The Graduate" and "AI".
Count how many times Schneider uses the words "correct" and "incorrect" in reference to a subjective opinion about a work of art.
Well I'll be darned. I used to side with Roger more than Gene. It seemed to me that Gene judged more from sympathy...
Will read on.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I have read critics who write in the style of Schneider many, many times over the years and after a while I tend to reject critics of his ilk simply because they are not the least bit emotional about their viewpoints at all. In fact, they tend to sound petulently arrogant, as if they are on some perceived mountaintop attempting to bestow their knowledge onto us, the poor, foolish and deeply unintelligent mainstream. It's insulting, to say the least and it just feels as if these are people that don't even enjoy movies at all.
As for you and Mr. Siskel, I found two people who deeply treasured the art of the movies, no matter what style or genre and especially when I disagreed with either of you, I could always count on the both of you to be enlightning, eloquent and informative--effectively linking the emotional and intellectual.
Critics like Schneider turn me off completely for there is no passion, just intellectual grandstanding. It is equally arrogant to go that extra step and say that you are just wrong when his opinion differs. For that's what film criticism essentially is to me: an opinion of an emotional medium.
How dare someone begrudge you for having emotional responses to film and expressing your viewpoints.
There's always a place for critics like Schneider but it's just not the place I would prefer to visit.
Very sincerely,
Scott Collins
There is nothing saying you can't be both intellectual and emotional in your critique of a film. The reason I find your criticism to be the most engaging is precisely because you involve both. A critics job in my estimate is to either help a person see a film differently/understand better or introduce someone to a film or films they never would have seen before.
As a critic it's your writing style and appeal to emotion that enables you to be the best and most influential critic since Pauline Kael. And In my opinion better.
I don't agree with you on everything. Sometimes I couldn't disagree with you more. But even in those reviews with which I do disagree I've never found a hint of strained faux intellectuality. That's something I unfortunately can not say about a lot of other critics.
I loved this entry in your journal. Mostly because it confirms what I've long suspected/dreaded, that is: I gravitate toward critics who think like I do. I read the other guys, I do. But I absolutely LOVE critics who share my taste in books and films. I'm sooo bad that way.
Still, I do think there are some universal truths. Bergman in glasses in "Spellbound." Oooo. The perfect face and tousled hair in "Gaslight" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The damp eyes in "Casablanca." Aren't there some things with which EVERY man can agree?
Finally, I'm delighted to see Schneider has made something of himself. Last I heard he was still the janitor on "One Day at a Time."
Schneider
I agree with you that film is more of an emotional medium. I really don't care if a film has a message or symbolism. In fact, I feel the same way about literature. I can't stand allegory. I demand that film make me feel something, stir me emotionally. I find it ironic that Schneider criticizes someone who relies on emotion rather than cerebral thinking and praises "Dark City" which had a character point at his head and say: "You were looking for the soul? Well, you're not gonna find it in here. You went looking in the wrong place."
I must say I am sick of Spielberg-bashing. Yes, he is the most finacially successful of all filmmakers, but why should that detract from his films. I am right now working on my high school senior thesis (which I will get back to working on when I am done with this, since the due date is tomorrow) about the place of Spielberg and Lucas in the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s. I'm sorry, but they made really terrific films that happened to make a lot of money.
I must have been born with a missing chunk of grey matter, as I simply can't even begin to understand the problem with someone being an "emotional" critic. What possible value could a critic have, if not to honestly express him feelings about a movie from the perspective of he, himself, as a human being? (And not as some kind of sliver of the critical hive-mind that rises above the tug of actual feeling to an area of sexless cerebral tail-chasing...)
And what kind of better critic could there be, then, than a critic who writes beautifully? That's ALL I could ask from the critic. I don't necessarily make my film choices via whether the reviews are generally good or not, because the appreciation of most interesting recent films seems to dawn much later after the hype has died. So for me, the only purpose of heading to a film column like Roger's is to read his prose about movies, because he writes well about movies, and because he loves movies - and NOT because I have to agree with him ever, or at all (but, hey, I often do...)
And Roger, you fit that bill beautifully (even more so than before Mr. Siskel died... back then it did seem like you were winging it from a gut level, at least on air... but your writing, especially over the few years, has become just limitless pleasure...)
I simply cannot swallow the notion of objecivity in art. How could I tell you OBJECTIVELY how you are going to feel about a movie? How could there ever be an actual quantifiable value to a work of art? That value is only present, only possibly perceived in another human via their eloquently and emotionally crafted wording. Frankly, if there WAS an official end-all "this movie is good, this one is bad" equation, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in movies.
Hell, it's mostly BECAUSE of minority opinions that I cherish the critics I cherish. Again, this is just maddening to me, that there are critics out there who feel that THEY are the artists, and not the filmmakers themselves... that flim somehow is a knuckle-dragging tenth-rate primitive art form, and that only via their brilliant deconstruction do films become art.
Look, there are some movies that only people with frankly heightened taste in film are going to enjoy. For those with less sophisticated tastes, it can be comforting to imagine that a movie is definitively "good" or "bad", especially if they just didn't get it: Spielberg's "A.I."? "Oh, that a bad movie, everyone thinks so..."; Really, everyone? Cause I don't think so...
Please, Roger, tell me: Where could objectivity possibly factor into good film criticism? How could a critic be so egomanical as to imagine that their take is the definitive take, that they and only they are able to see past the trickery on display, the sham up there on the screen?
It reminds me of the great Manohla Dargis' dismissal of RETURN OF THE KING (the movie) as being "fascist"... Now, she's an terrific critic, and I love her generally subjective opinions, but in the case of ROTK, what's the point of declaring that you've spotted a latent fascism? Obviously, she herself and anyone else who reads a film column seriously is not going to have their politics swayed by an undercurrent of bad politics in an adventure movie... So who is she warning of this undertow of corruption? Only those who wouldn't grasp what she meant, anyway, only those who DON'T read film columns...Where is the value in that bit of criticism? Yes, the film has armies of white guys fighting evil armies of monsters. Fine, if you wanna be a rain cloud, you can fixate on that element... and if that's your subjective opinion, I suppose that's kosher.
But what role is this "other" non-emotional critic supposed to perform in society? General snobbery? Superiority (especially when taking down a movie already long-embraced as a classic)? And how many times must a young critic try to define themselves by taking down a movie that others have long loved? Does he imagine himself evolved, above us? Does he feel he is talking down to a bunch of ignorami?
I'm a human, you're a human. I want to know what YOU think. I don't need a HAL 9000's carefully modulated and tweedy opinion... I want passion or nothing, but not the passion of snobbery, or the passion for beheading sacred cows... or the passion for showing how much smarter you are than everyone else...
I guess what I'm saying is, I need my movie critic to be a movie FAN first and foremost. As great a writer as Pauline Kael was, I often felt she just didn't like movies that much and would rather have been critiquing some other art form...
For years, I also tended to feel my taste in movies resembled that of Siskel more than Ebert, that said, I find Roger's reviews entertaining and a great read even if I have no intention to watch a film at all. When I bought your first Yearbook some 20 years ago, or however it was called back then, I remmembered being deeply frustrated that 2 movies in continuos pages, the lousy UP THE CREEK got the exact same number of stars than one of my favorites THE UNTOUCHABLES. These days I'll actually read his reviews from which I expect a great read, an innovative point of view and getting a real good idea what the movie is about, all the other parameters mentioned above (along with the star system) to me are a bit rubish.
I have always been a great admirer of Roger's reviews, but I don't necessarily expect everyone else to be so (I get teased by my friends sometimes for my fandom). There are many criticisms leveled against him and I'm willing to admit some of them have validity (I'm just more willing to overlook them) and so I don't really get upset when I come across other people criticizing him.
There is one thing that Dan Schneider said though, that really ticked me off. The quote: I not only concur, but almost forgive him for recommending Saving Private Ryan. I said almost, now.
I'm not going to say that Schneider is wrong in disliking Saving Private Ryan, because that's opinion, and I know there are plenty of widely loved films out there that everyone seems to adore except for me. But the thing is, while I don't particularly care for say, Singing in the Rain (musicals are my least favorite genre), when I encounter a film like that that has been universally hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, has topped numerous lists of the greatest films of all time and is deeply cherished by millions of fans around the world with an appeal that transcends borders and generations, I'm pretty willing to admit that I'm in a minority. I would never denigrate someone for liking Singing in the Rain, I would never look down my nose at them, or try to claim that they have poor taste in film if they actually like to watch that kind of stuff. Hell, if a friend invited me over to watch it, I would gladly come along in the hopes that watching it with a passionate fan could unlock for me the appeal it holds for so many others and add another cherished film to my list of favorites.
Saving Private Ryan is in the same vein. It has been widely hailed as a masterpiece, it topped numerous "best of" lists and has become one of the most highly esteemed war films ever made. So how arrogant do you have to be to say that Roger was in the wrong for recommending it, in fact, so far in the wrong as to have crossed the border into unpardonable sin? Especially since he wasn't exactly the only one. Pretty much everyone who saw that movie has recommended it to someone else (including me, so at least I know where I will stand with Schneider if I ever meet him).
One thing I have to give Roger credit for is that he has always been willing to admit when he has been in the minority and (and this is the important part) has done so without compromising his own opinions or denigrating those of others. I have never seen Roger lambast someone for liking Blue Velvet or disliking Dark City (I suspect he would consider such things below him) but he has never betrayed his own feelings on the film either.
Schneider demonstrates the worst kind of egotism. Not only are his opinions infallible, but whoever disagrees with him can only be wrong. If he says Saving Private Ryan is a bad movie, as far as he's concerned, he's not stating an opinion, he's stating a fact, and only an idiot would argue otherwise (and the world, of course, is full of idiots, and Schneider is one of the only vanguards of good taste left in the world). That, in my book, makes for a bad critic.
At the outset, it is hard to think of anyone who characterizes Spielberg as schlockmeister as anything but a snarky misanthrope.
When reading Mr. Ebert's reviews (and I have read them, lots of them), I have often thought about C.K. Chesterton's famous statement about Charles Dicken's. He said,
"Dickens stands first as a defiant monument of what happens when a great literary genius has a literary taste akin to that of the community. For this kinship was deep and spiritual. Dickens was not like our ordinary demagogues and journalists. Dickens did not write what the people wanted. Dickens wanted what the people wanted. . . . Hence there was this vital point in his popularism, that there was no condescension in it." -- G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study
Mr. Ebert's populism has, I think, three laudable motivations. The first is his willingness to compare like things to their likenesses. If you are going to give only Citizen Kane four stars and only Armageddon one star, you do not have a lot of room in the middle, and you certainly can't be of much service to your readers who have will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Citizen Kane, but perhaps a once-in-a-week desire to see a movie. So, in reviewing a film like 2012, Mr. Ebert compares it (instinctively, though sometimes expressly) to other disaster films, and by that comparison the film holds up fine. As Samuel Jackson famously said: "It's not Gone with the Wind. It's not On the Waterfront. It's Snakes on a Plane." It also Snakes in a Lame Movie, but his point is valid. Star Wars is not 2001, but it wasn't supposed to be.
Second, Mr. Ebert is a great advocate of the new and the obscure. He knows that "it is a frustrating thing to make a movie" and that this is especially true when one is new to the business. He is watchful for talent where others might not think to look for it. See e.g., the review of Blade II, the first US film of Guillermo del Torro.
Third, and I think most important, Mr. Ebert finds in his reviews a way to express verbally the transcendent way in which we have all come to relish going to the movies. Of Star Wars he wrote: “Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them. . . . [T]here's entertainment so direct and simple that all of the complications of the modern movie seem to vaporize.”
That precisely describes my feelings upon seeing Return of the Jedi. I was six.
More from Chesterton:
"The belief that the rabble will only read rubbish can be read between the lines of all our contemporary writers, even of those writers whose rubbish the rabble reads. . . . The only difference lies between those writers who will consent to talk down to the people, and those writers who will not consent to talk down to the people. But Dickens never talked down to the people. He talked up to the people. He approached the people like deity and poured out his riches and his blood. This is what makes the immortal bond between him and the masses of men. He had not merely produced something they could understand, but he took it seriously, and toiled and agonized to produce it. They were not only enjoying one of the best writers, they were enjoying the best he could do. . . . His power, then, lay in the fact that he expressed with an energy and brilliancy quite uncommon the things close to the common mind. But with mere phrase, the common mind, we collide with a current error. Commonness and the common mind are now generally spoken of as meaning in some manner inferiority and the inferior mind; the mind of the mere mob. But the common mind means the mind of all the artists and heroes; or else it would not be common. . . . In everybody there is a certain thing that loves babies, that fears death, that likes sunlight: that thing enjoys Dickens."
That thing, likewise, enjoys Ebert.
Ebert: I treasure by Chesterton's A Dickens Companion. And i like those Father Brown stories, especially because of how the weather seems to be ominously looming at the outset in so many of them.
"Cerebral" films? "Cerebral" criticism? Feh; what's important is that one takes the film seriously--enough to think hard and feel deeply about it--and to respond to it so that the reader is given a unique reading of the film, preferably one that is clear and detailed, engaging and focused. Read the academic James Naremore's "Acting in the Cinema"; his take on Cary Grant's appearance, especially his socks(!), during the crop-duster sequence in "North by Northwest" is illuminating--and more than a little fetishizing. Afterwards, you'll never again be able to watch that movie without Naremore insisting you check out Grant's hosiery.
Roger, you're the one who reminds us to read Warshow's "The Immediate Experience"--so what else should one expect of you but a deeply felt reading? Even when you're nuts, as with your original take on "A Clockwork Orange." But at least after reading it I had something to knock around in my head--that the film is "an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning. It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control, but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex." Yikes--but instead of saying, "Your review sucks, sucks, sucks," I let it roam around a little in my head. OK, I kicked it out eventually, but not until I admitted there is a kind of charm to Alex that is difficult to ignore--or stomach.
Anyway, shouldn't we be watching a movie right now?
(132 days until Ebertfest!)
I completely agree with you, Robert, that the emotional experience of cinema is a fundamental element of watching a film. Films are very good at controlling and manipulating someone's emotions - indeed, the particular ways that it does so separate it from any other form of art, popular or otherwise.
As you said during your review of "Triumph of the Will", if you fall asleep during a film then that should be part of your analysis. For me, a film that puts me to sleep commits one of the great crimes of a film: I want to be transported to somewhere else, not dreamland.
The page came back up by only partly loading it.
Well... so far I give Schneider one big smear of the editing pencil. He isn't aware how literal minded he is, pros and cons about our esteemed critic's reviews notwithstanding.
Schneider's essay tends to be dense and overworked and overly self-conscious. Let's say he's within intellectual rights to declare whether another's criticism is correct or incorrect -- albeit, in such case, the details would need specified with more exactitude than he's provided.
One instance is more than enough: whether "Gates of Heaven" is one of the top ten films of all time (I watched it on Roger's recommendation), Schneider, in too many words, comes to his point: "...as if there was some great significance to cultural failure."
You rule, Schneid. The correct critical point of view is that we consider only the winners. That would save us the trouble of any number of movies about Hitler, let alone about people trying to make a living running a pet cemetery. Bingo. Pass the Dom Perignon.
I don't know how far this next item would get under Roger's craw, but it still gets under mine; it makes no difference whether it's for a Pulitzer prize or a letter home.
You can't be a "wordsmith" and not be aware of any number of the possibilities of your meanings and how others may take them. It's a continuous task of self-education. It's an intellectual science which often has no more exacting tools than a housepainter's brush; an admirably energetic writer must deal with it as best he can. Not all efforts win prizes, and not all sentences are admired for their meanings.
You can jabber endlessly about what you believe, and display a lack of reasonably expectable intellect about your beliefs. When one of this aptitude has been outclassed by his opponent, a twinge of jealousy and incomprehension may bring the ad hominem "wordsmith" to mind.
Oh, he is a wordsmith. Being a wordsmith isn't fair. It isn't correct, as praising films about struggling losers isn't correct. I am still correct. I am right. I am good. My ego tells me so. I have been struck a low blow by mere wordsmithing.
It may be, however, that the more articulate opponent can not be fairly said to have the same jumbled fashion of unreasoned thinking that his honorable adversary may at that moment be projecting upon him. One is never too old to grow out of that.
Guess I'll go see what I think of Schneider's reviews.
The difference seems to be the focus on cerebral/emotional criticism. For what it's worth, I think Ebert is almost often spot on in his cerebral take on films. I become a fan of his after discovering that his take on Scorsese pictures was basically identical to mine. We saw some great pictures through the same set of eyes. And I specifically use the word "saw", not "felt". We both felt similarly about the films, but we saw what was shown to us almost identically. It was a great moment for me, as I felt I had found a kindred spirit. Everyone loves that, don't they?
That is the key, as Ebert points out. Readers gravitate to critics who share their views. When Ebert does a shot-by-shot dissection of a film, one realizes the depth of his knowledge: technical, structural, plot-wise, emotional, the way a film combines all of these things to make a piece of art. Other critics may try to (and succeed at) treat a film in an "objective" manner. I suppose this is the "cerebral" part of criticism. I don't find much use in that. Films are made to elicit emotion from us, so a discussion along those lines is much more appealing.
Moreover, the idea that criticism ought to treat art objectively is strange. Art is exactly subjective. Criticism is not a science, although people often treat it that way. I suppose it gives them a sort of legitimacy. Perhaps it gives them some "truth" to stand on when the inevitable argument greaks out.
A side not on Schneider: I have never heard of his site before, but he seems to be an interesting chap. I will certainly look into his work. Still, the idea of critic criticism is very, very odd to me. Why is it that he keeps bringing up other critics? Does he do it to drum up controversy (such as he has on this site)? Does he do it for lack of creativity (it doesn't seem like it, as he seems pretty knowledgeable)? Why?
That Ebert is the best writer in film criticism is true. As all of his blog readers know, he is also a tremendous social commentator.
I got this far with Schneider's review of "Gates of Heaven:"
In this film, Morris merely lets us look long and hard at the strangeness of humanity. This film is not about pets, nor even death, but the strange ways the human psyche can twist itself into a thousand little bizarre strands, none of which ever comes quite together in the same way.
I'm sorry, but Schneider sounds like he's never been outside of some ivory tower. His prose can grow ludicrously self-indulgent in a very short time. This is no contender.
I've bookmarked Armond White, but won't this guy.
Oh dear... does this mean that when I seek a person's opinion of a film I'm expecting an emotionally influenced response, based on personal taste, which may not be dictated by absolute definitions of artistic greatness? How troubling. Putting the sarcasm aside, I dislike Schneider's willingness to arrogantly discount another's opinion as flatly wrong.
In music: For me, Stravinsky was a coldly logical composer who wrote with a language that is largely unappealing to me. His music, especially later in his life, makes complete sense both in terms of musical gestures and certain mathematical relations between the melodic phrases, rhythms, and overall structure of each piece. But the music does nothing for me personally. I listen to and enjoy 20th century music... some tough music... stuff by Khachaturian, Schoenberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, Cage, Berg, Xenakis; and with Stravinsky I feel nothing. Might as well be random notes. Same with a few others, like the extremely gifted Antonio Vivaldi, or the ancient English composer John Dunstable who was very influential. Just not for me, nothing against those fine musicians.
Give me Puccini. Give me Piazolla, whose cheesy, absolutely emotion-soaked tango-inspired music makes me want to chuckle and cry at the same time. Or Schubert, who put in his dark piano sonatas some long repeats that make no sense, except from the mixed-up emotional logic of someone who just wants to feel the pain one more time.
The best music comes from composers who express human emotions in a logical way. I'm thinking of major pieces like Mozart's Requiem, Bach's B Minor Mass, Machaut's Mass of Notre Dame, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mahler's 3rd, Shostakovich's 10th, etc. They are very famous, very celebrated works that express deep truths in musically sensible ways.
So that's something I feel about music, and I apply it to other creative endeavors as well. I enjoy the fact that your reviews convey honest appreciation of and love for the cinema! It heartens me to find your humanist philosophy poking its head into your opinions. I think Schneider is a terrific film critic whose consistency is very admirable, but reading his scathing dissections of other critic's works does little for me besides enrich my understanding of the films in a very exclusively academic way.
I think Spielberg makes great films, even if he does obviously have a soft spot in his heart for the golden age of Hollywood, and for the polished action flicks, and for cheesy music. I wonder if Spielberg ended A.I. on a weak happy note because he wasn't quite up to the task of ending it in despair with strength. I wonder also how hard it was for him to direct Schindler's List, and how much he himself looked forward to filming the ending.
What I'm suggesting, more generally, besides the fact that I myself am more ready to love bad work when it is well-meant, is this: works of art (including these criticisms) benefit from logical construction and consideration while they are given weight by sincere expression of human experiences. Honestly... every note Mozart ever wrote was beautiful. He was able to design a perfectly calm, balanced sound out of whatever group of instruments he was writing for. However, in an opera like his Don Giovanni, he managed also to present characters that are definitely fallible, imperfect, human beings like everyone else, and that's what makes it great.
I'll say that I do disagree with the comparison between Schneider and Armond White. It definitely sounds like Schneider seriously believes, at the conscious level at least, most of what he's saying. Whatever errors etc he makes in assessments or claims about films, he doesn't seem to be inventing assertions and analysis out of whole (and disingenuous) cloth, as is regularly the case in many of White's reviews.
Then again, White's recent (and admittedly not entirely bad) review of "The Missing Person" makes the assertion that in noir, "the heroes must be morally certain" (and not just in reference to any finality or climax, but in terms of the entirety of a noir film's story). If he truly believe that, then perhaps it's giving him too much credit to say that his errors and outlandish propositions are simply intentional rather than deriving from gross misunderstandings and deeply flawed analysis.
OOPS, scratch that last comment I made about White -- the review for "The Missing Person" wasn't written by White, it was written by Mark Peikert. For some reason, that review is linked at the bottom of White's other reviews, and I thought it was -- like the other reviews linked there that I followed -- also by White.
My apologies for the error.
I suppose Dan Schneider would think less of me if I didn't say something like "Dan Schneider represents everything that's wrong with society today". To me, the quality of a film critic is about nothing but the quality of his writing, because to suggest one is either a good or bad critic because of his opinions is to suggest that a movie is something other than a collection of still images assembled by our minds, filtered through our life's experiences and processed in a totally unique way by our brains. I grow so weary online of listening to snobs tell me that movies exist in the same absolute terms as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. Schneider (is anything going to make me lose interest in someone's opinion faster than hearing that Spielberg is a hack? Pretty good indication that he and I have nothing to discuss.) would grow even more angry with me to learn that, even though I'd watched you on TV as long as I could remember, it was your review of Dark City that made me a fan of your written work. Not because you agreed with me (although I was pretty happy to find someone else thought it was the best movie of 1998), but because of the passion for a movie you were going out on a limb to approve. I love reading your reviews not because I expect to agree with you (sometimes yes, sometimes no, but I usually don't read them until after seeing the movies myself anyway) but because your writing is all about your love of the movie experience. Every time I see an article "reviewing a critic", it comes down not to their writing, but to "He liked Movie X, so he's clearly an idiot, while failing to acknowledge the greatness of Movie Y and doing his job in liking Movie Z, but doing so for all the wrong reasons!" I don't get the point of this, honestly. I don't care if the critic I'm reading agrees with me (honestly, just about nobody shares my taste), just that they disagree in a way that's thoughtful and doesn't tell me that the disagreement springs from the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about. Imagine the horror of a world where the Tomatoeometer read 100% or 0% on every movie because everyone got with the program and just had the good sense to agree with Schneider. Ouch.
From IMDB's list of quotations from "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (1969) -- also from the comic strip:
Lucy Van Pelt: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud's formations. What do you think you see, Linus?
Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean.
[points up]
Linus Van Pelt: That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there...
[points]
Linus Van Pelt: ...gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.
Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well... I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.
------------
When it comes to film, I think I am Charlie Brown.
That's why I read your reviews more than any others. Like Lucy's opening question, your reviews, whether positive or negative, whether or not I agree with them, effuse a sense of wonder and fascination with what has been accomplished by filmmakers or perhaps disappointment with what could have be accomplished. You help me to see beyond the duckies without asking me to pretend they don't exist. So many critics seem just to like the sound of their own voice. Or, as in Schneider's case, or Linus's, they are clearly competent and knowledgable, but are burdened with such a rigid canon of what is and is not "good" that they cannot see the duckies and horsies even when they are there.
My suggestion to the original bettors here would be for each to find another friend to take out to dinner and a movie -- just for the enjoyment of it. My suggestion to Schneider would be to spend less time critquing your critiques and watch more movies. I suppose maybe that's not fair -- he didn't have the opportunity you had to work with Siskel. When you two sparred, it was a (sometimes heated) discussion over the movie itself, mixed perhaps with some animated questioning over what temporary mental lapse caused the other to have seen (or not seen) something. It was, in and of itself, entertainment. But, I don't ever recall it degrading to the point of sniping. No matter how well supported or disguised, some of Schneider's comments are just that -- snipes.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not quite sure how it's a bad thing to have won a Pulitzer only for the way you write!
So, from one reader, please keep doing that flawed thing you do just the way only you do it.
Interestingly enough Roger it is YOU that I often find to be the contrarian opinion amid a sea of critics who often see film in the same way! I'll always go back to Joe Versus the Volcano as the touchstone for your ability to see the excellence in a film many pan as trash.
You have the ability to see the value in a movie that most do not and thus find something in a movie to like. I do now know what the general critical opinion of Lost and Delirious was when it was in the movies, but I do remember your review of it was what drove me to seek it out and I cherish it still.
Another that always sticks out in my mind--a movie I like that few others do--is the Sarah Michelle Gellar vehicle Simply Irresistible. Another I sought out on your recommend. Certainly not great cinema, but, Roger, your best asset as a critic I think is your ability to forgive a movie for not being classic cinema and your ability to accept it for what it is. Even if it is just a little bit of silly fun.
What is to be said of someone, like me, who often prefers the review to the film? Sharing thoughts on a shared experience - that is the most enjoyable sort of conversation (that can be shared outside of the bedroom). What a pleasure it is that movies give us the chance to participate in a piece of conversation with experienced, interesting, thoughtful people - our friends and favorite critics. Where we agree or disagree is where we find and define ourselves.
How can you possibly critique art without using the emotions it made you feel? Art is purely subjective, yet this Schneider seems to be of the opinion that it is math, that 1+1=2, there is only one right answer (which he holds infallibly at all times). I can take emotion, but it is this pompousness that just irritates me. I read (...tried at least) a review of his after the Berardinelli interview, but couldn't manage to finish past the utter jackassery that pervades every sentence and opinion (re: fact) he writes. And this has nothing to do with my liking Eberts reviews and writing.
If writing is masturbation, Mr. Schneider isn't having much fun.
Sir, I hope you didn't really read all that from Schneider; I couldn't read any more of him after a little ways, and you're far too kind for even devoting an entry to the hack, it must be said. He really thinks he's something! If anything, the dope seems to imitate your literary style!
P.S. Did you get my comment on your last entry? ("Eliza's Horoscope" etc.)
It seems that the prickliest of Schneider's barbs--his snide references to your "pop" status and scathing dismissal of Hollywood--are also the emptiest.
But I guess that's where the Armond White comparison comes from. If he truly thinks your a bad critic, why has he read so many of your reviews?
I am struck above all by how mean-spirited Mr Schneider is in his evaluation of your work (he also seems more than a little envious of your ability with words). He seems unable to have a critical disagreement with you that is not accompanied by some sort of gratuitous, "as usual," just before he belittles your basic cognitive functions. Indeed, one wonders why Mr Schneider is so fixated on your work; by contrast it is instructive to note that you almost never write reviews that make other than passing reference to other critics. As for your being an "emotional" critic: even if you are more sensitive to the emotional content and effects of films, we should not allow Schneider's false dichotomy between emotion and rationality to stand. Emotions have a logic that most people understand (e.g., getting mad at someone who is kind to you is generally taken to be emotionally irrational). Art is about emotions, and the critic who understands and explicates the emotions of the work is the critic doing his/her job; the idea that a film critic's job is primarily to explain the camera's movements and other technical qualities of a film apart from the emotional content they serve is absurd. It is also just wrong to claim that you make the mistake of criticizing a film for not being another film (this is Schneider's giraffe excursus)--indeed I recall you taking the esteemed Gene Siskel to task more than once just for doing this. But there is a difference between this cardinal critical sin and negative criticism generally, and it is a distinction Schneider fails to grasp. Any negative criticism of a film is a statement to the effect that the movie would have been better had it done or not done something, which is the same as saying it should have been different. Yet this is often the very essence of criticism, not its cardinal sin. You are absolutely correct that readers form relationships with the critics who speak to them. It is why I have been a loyal reader of yours for decades now, and why on this evidence I am unlikely to inflict Mr Schneider's snarky efforts on myself.
I'll take some of Schneider's comments, because I think some of them are valid, but it seems like sometimes (looking especially at STARDUST MEMORIES here) that he is more intent on disproving you, The Ebert, than reviewing the film. He takes us point by point through YOUR review rather than simply stating his review, whatever it may be. It seems petty to me.
I dunno...how can I take seriously a movie critic who so flippantly dismisses "Vertigo"? Sorry Charlie...I'm sticking with you, Roger!
Keep leading with your chin Roger.Films are a reflection of the human condition and emotions are what make us human.
I vaguely recall an interview with you and Gene in which both of you were asked to name something that you admired about the other. If I remember correctly, Gene stated that he admired the fact that you are a writer, while you admired his skills as a reporter. Also, both Gene's and your strengths were honed by the type of outfits you worked for...the Sun-Times being a writer's paper, and the Trib being an editor's paper.
Judging from the length and depth of the letter to you, I suspect that Peter's friend has more in common with you than he cares to admit.
I think your strength as a critic is that you have a keen awareness of human behavior and you incorporate that in your reviews (just read the beginning to your review of Heartbreakers with Nick Mancuso and Peter Coyote). Also, you have a warmth and humor in your writing that is very appealing. Movie criticism isn't simply an academic, intellectual exercise. You have to take into account the humanity of the readers and the emotions involved if you want it to be a stimulating review.
Hmm, seems my post got lost in the internet wasteland. Perhaps it was the spam filter? Dunno. Well, the post in summation was basically this: Schneider seems like an ass, and you're a perfect gentleman for being so diplomatic.
This comment regarding "Gates of Heaven" especially rubs me the wrong way: "its portrait of weirdos unleashed a flood of documentaries, in the near three decades since, about losers, wackos, and society's castoffs, as if there was some great significance to cultural failure".
It must get pretty drafty up there on his pedestal.
Mr Schneider's critique of Roger Ebert is premised on a fundamental misperception of Ebert's proper position and function. Schneider speaks of Ebert as film critic, whereas Ebert is a movie reviewer. The role of a critic, like Pauline Kael, is to react, as a public sphere intellectual, to the film as a work of art. That job requires analytical abilities, intellectual depth, and philosophical sophistication. The movie reviewer's job is to report on the relative qualities of the movie, ultimately as a commodity. The perfect reviewer will have an encyclopedic understanding of movie history in order to place the movie within the classificatory scheme understandable to the viewers, a way with words to convey her emotional involvement with the material to make it accessible to the viewer, and finally the audacity to report on the unreported and the obscure. Roger Ebert is a perfect movie reviewer.
I think I've found the problem: I couldn't help but notice, looking through his list of "Great Films", a lack of Luis Bunuel, David Lynch, or much other surrealism (although the ONLY Alain Resnais film he includes is Last Year at Marienbad). I believe a list of great films is incomplete without at least mentioning Un Chien Andalou. Especially when it includes Amelie.
Schneider is unwilling, perhaps, to invest himself in a film that has an affect almost entirely dependent on emotion? If true, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is simply the way his mind works. Though I don't think, especially in the area of such an emotional art form, that a critic's emotion is anything to criticize.
And why does he have three James Cameron movies on there if he hates Spielberg so? I agree that the Cameron movies are better than most of Spielberg's, but Cameron is every bit the filmmaker of "Hollywood tripe" that Spielberg is.
There are two types of critics. Those who, like Roger, try to find a reason to like a film. And then there are those who try to find a reason to not like a film. I suspect Roger's film review database doesn't follow the bell curve. I bet he has seen many more 3 & 4 stars than 1 or 2.
The more critical critics I'm sure get upset as they want to defend their pickiness. Surely they must be better since they have a higher standard and are more exclusive?
However a more generous critic is going to appeal to more varied tastes have a much more popular following. Leading to more critic envy.
Roger defines a great film as one you could not bear never seeing again. A film you love.
The critical critics define a great film as one that successfully engages and enriches the mind. A film your supposed to love.
To sum it up:
Great movie critics talk about ideas.
Small movie critics talk about other critics.
I agree with everybody. Allow me to explain.
If film criticism is meant to be written, it is meant to be read. Anything may appear to be true, if is written well enough. It is the virtue of great criticism to make us reconsider our judgments.
Although I too find myself agreeing more with Siskel while rummaging through the online 'At the Movies' review database, the difference between you two is clear. When Siskel disagrees with a movie that I agree with, I detest him. When you disagree with a movie I agree with, I understand you. It is your virtue that quite often you explain Siskel's position until it becomes tenable, even agreeable.
Two case studies come to mind:
1. Siskel detests 'Predator'
2. Ebert likes 'New Nightmare at Elm Street'
Siskel's position on 'Predator' is only agreeable because you push a palatable opinion out of him. You force him to say it lacked visual imagination.
While on 'New Nightmare at Elm Street' you end up approving the movie against my own opinion, you immediately nail the very core aspect of it, and why I'd seen it in the first place - the thought process behind it seemed interesting. You find that enough, I do not.
You seem, in general, far more perceptive of the reasons why people go to the movies in the first place, why they leave it half-way, and why they leave the theater feeling floaty, than anybody else I've ever read. More than that, you seem willing to confess that maybe, just maybe, the only reason you enjoyed some of 'Casablanca' was Ingrid Bergman's lips.
Upon reading your review of 'Basic Instinct 2', I felt like I had just read one of the liberating pieces of writing I'd ever read. Even Kael, sometimes, seemed dishonest in her awe or disgust in order to conceal her love, or hate of a particular idea of a movie. I have never found a review of yours where I felt you were lying to me, or being a hypocrite. If you ever did, you immediately detected it, admitted it, and moved on to write an agreeable review, often mentioning all the aspects I loved about it, and saying 'it didn't feel enough'. That fact that you didn't like it didn't make me hate you. It made me see a human being with an incredibly prospective mind and a different background, whose opinion differed from mine, with whom I could have a lively discussion where I could reasonably expect to say 'I was wrong' at the end of it.
I'll try to sum it like this, if all film criticism is created equal, then you have honesty and wit, and that makes you a great critic. I expect to be swayed by all critics I read. But you're the only one I feel like I could admit being wrong to, and not feel any worst about it.
All this criticism about judgment means only thing: People disagree with you. If what I say is right, and I believe it is, then people keep reading even though they disagree.
Considering all that I have said, particularly on the importance of honesty, I will say this: I am a filmmaker, or I film things and I dream to be released, which is how it goes when you dream to be a filmmaker. I have fantasized with reading a good review of one my works. I write this because I'm horribly afraid every day that you might die, or be in any way impeded of writing. Out of fear no one who saw my work would write great prose apropos, that might make me quit film making. Now the danger is that you seem to question your own abilities as a critic. These are out of the question.
Joel Meza, I don't think it's that "this guy Schneider" spends a lot of his time writing about Ebert in particular. I think he's simply so prolific that anyone notable in the culture surrounding cinema is apt to be referenced in length at least a few times. My question is: how does he pay the bills? How does he hold down a job? Ebert paid the bills by making writing his job, and built up his catalog of writings over the course of 42 years (and counting). Schneider seems determined to match him in quantity, if not quality, over a much steeper timeframe.
I have a great deal of respect for film historians, but I instinctively dislike so-called film academics for the same reason I instinctively dislike academics of literature. They examine the works of others and seek to brand them with their own fixed (and often tortured) interpretation.
I also agree with the consensus that art has at least as much to do with what we feel as what we think. There are films with clearly evident flaws in pacing and structure that I love, in spite of or sometimes because of those flaws. There are technically perfects films that stir nothing in me at all. It is impossible to divorce one's opinion of a film from how one experiences it, and what one brings into the theater with them.
For example, Ebert gave "The Mighty Ducks" two stars, stating: "'The Mighty Ducks' is the kind of movie that might have been written by a computer program. It tells a story that has been told time and time and time again, about the misfit coach who is handed a team of kids who are losers, and turns them into winners while redeeming himself." All of this is indisputably true. It doesn't change the fact that it was one of the most beloved films for a whole generation of children from whom the story "about the misfit coach who is handed a team of kids who are losers, and turns them into winners while redeeming himself" was brand-new. It inspired multiple sequels and pro hockey team.
Ebert wasn't wrong for slamming it, and the children weren't wrong for loving it. The two opinions derive from walking into the theater with different baggage.
I would much rather read a critic whose analysis reflects their true feelings about a film - not their cold calculation of it's technical merits.
I will admit that you've become a bit more of a softie since you were in hospital, but in general I think the worst that can be said is that you use your intellect to justify your intuition. Personally, I have no problem with that - especially when it's all written so beautifully.
I must admit, I admire the professionalism you show in rarely sinking to Mr. Schneider's level (that is calling out another critic in a review). As an art critic, I vow to never do so either (although in private I have my gripes with other critics). I can't see the logic in anyone stating you're a film lover but not a film critic. Is there some trick to criticism that has eluded you all these years of writing reviews? I disagree that you are not a movie critic but a lover of movies because somtimes you do not love them. Sometimes you hate them. Sometimes you hate hate hate hate hate them!
I may be treading on ground that I have no business being on here (not being in any way an aspiring film critic or even a writer), but I am afraid that you, Roger Ebert, have it all over that guy (Dan Schneider). To me, his writing is pretentious, and it makes me wonder what movies are for, anyway. Do we watch as scorekeepers, taking mental note of all the various techniques a filmmaker has used in making the movie? Are we supposed to be impressed with his skill? Or with how he has used the medium to evoke this or that thought or emotion? I do think that sort of analysis is appropriate for film critics, who may want to point out how the movie is accomplishing its purpose (or not). And I see that there are those who approach watching a movie that way, though I'm betting that audience is relatively small. But I think for most people a movie is only so good as it satisfies the reasons they are there, or even better, surprises or delights them with more than they expected. Don't filmmakers have to keep that as well as the purpose and technique for the movie they are making in mind? A good movie to me is one that does that - the moviemaker effectively entertains, or tells his or her story, or gets his or her point across or even "elevates" their intended audience. After all, I may give speeches in Japanese with technical precision, eloquence, and great philosophical insight, but if I am in Pittsburg I'll be a lot better off telling even mediocre jokes in English instead.
Writing has got to be the same way. To say that Roger Ebert only got his Pulitzer Prize for writing is to beg the question, what exactly do you, as a film critic think you are doing, anyway? If you can't write, if you can't entertain, if you can't inspire or enlighten or evoke the sense and feel of time, place, or experience, you are wasting my time. All your analysis and critical thinking adds up to exactly nothing if you fail to connect with me, your audience, through what you write.
I suppose that means I read "Good Roger", that I have found the critic that speaks to me, and that I cast my vote for the emotional movie review. But Mr. Schneider strikes me as a snob, critical thinking skills notwithstanding.
Schneider said "Had the audience been left guessing about whether or not Judy was 'Madeline', it would have been far more effective." He then goes on to criticize you for not understanding that this is the obvious flaw of Vertigo.
Come on, now. This choice is not good fodder to critique a critic. This was Hitchcock's biggest problem! Being dismissive about this choice is naive, and it is also disingenuous when it's used against a critic who favored Hitchcock's choice. It was a very tough choice. Here's why:
Biographers tell how Hitchcock struggled with the choice of whether to include this big reveal early or not.
By not revealing Judy's true self until the end, the audience sees the world only from Scotty's side. Indeed, this choice would have been consistent with the POV of the story, and the mystery would have remained until the end, with the moment of reversal being closer to the moment of revelation.
In contrast, by revealing that Judy is Madelaine, the audience learns that Judy loves Scotty even though she was involved in deceiving him about a murder. Furthermore, we learn that she chooses to pursue her love at the expense of everything else. From that point on, the audience senses the two lovers are doomed, and their affair is newly charged with the suspense of wondering how long she can persist in this deception and avoid destruction.
A case can be made for each choice, and Hitchcock chose the second after expressing his own doubts about it being the right one. It's very interesting that the 1959 audience didn't agree with him (Vertigo flopped), but the current audience agrees (Vertigo is often a "top ten" best-ever pick).
I think people who favor the first choice are not aware of an overriding constraint. The movie had no more than thirty minutes left in it before curtains. If Judy's deceit had not been revealed early, there would be no convincing way to show in the short time remaining her going from being put off about Scotty's perverse advances to falling in love with him. There was only thirty minutes left to show that, plus the scene of her exposing her guilt by mistake, plus the scene of her being dragged to confession at the tower, and plus the moments before her falling to her death a second time. I think Hitchcock decided he had to let the audience know who she really was in order to make her subsequent actions credible. He had to make the film about Judy as well as Scotty.
Vertigo is a mystery about the nature of love itself; it's not a suspense thriller or a film noir. When I first saw it in its first re-release in 1983 (?), I was so caught up in it that I wondered right up to the final seconds whether a love so sick and twisted, yet love at its most passionate, could triumph over death. The blacker than black ending has to be the most powerful ending imaginable.
Some readers may disagree about the merits of Vertigo, but this movie is not one to be used to critique a critic.
Ebert: The audience would also be denied its belated realization that when Scotty undressed the "unconscious" woman after pulling her from the ocean, she was not unconscious. He must have acted gently and like a gentlemen, and that, combined with his heroism in diving in to rescue her, and her guilt about her the deception she was paid to perform, goes a long way toward explaining her feelings for him.
Hitchcock's greatest film.
For a long time, I thought it was "Notorious," but it's flawed by Ingrid Bergman's lips, especially during the longest kissing scene up to that date in a movie.
Dan Schneider compares himself to Einstein here (look to bottom):
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B166-DES110.htm
His great assertion is that he is cerebral, a logically consistent critic. Yet, objectivity is not possible when examining an intrinsically subjective medium. Film is not a medium that provides for true and false propositional claims, instead only good and bad (qualitative) claims. Qualitative claims are practical, but no more reasonable (in so far as they are logically definite) than "bad electrons". So it seems only logically possible for their to be emotive film criticism.
The self-proclaimed poet laureate of his era, ought to take a page from histories most famous bard, "the fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool"-Shakespeare
Mr. Ebert, your blog is more poetic than the entirety of Mr. Schneider's immense database.
Mr. Ebert writes for a famous newspaper, had his own television show and achieved a measure of recognition that Dan Schneider will never experience. This is not only due to the quality of writing found in Mr. Ebert reviews, but also because of the manner in which he communicates and furthermore, he knows what not to say.
Dan Schneider often comes across as pompous and arrogant. Mr Ebert, never.
It was such a pleasure to read Schenider's comments about your review of Stardust Memories. I've disagreed with you about that movie for years, and always return to your review as a kind of masochism whenever I rewatch that movie.
Of course, to put that in perspective, please understand that it's only painful for me to read that review because I typically have so much respect for your writing and opinions.
The other review of yours that always blows my mind is your review of A Clockwork Orange.
And... oh boy... I'm very excited to have a legitimate reason now to ask you the following question, a question I have never asked you in the past because it was never on topic:
Do you still agree with what you said all of those years ago about A Clockwork Orange?
(Spoilers are in here, but the article is full of spoilers as well, so I'd like to suggest a banner that says "Spoilers throughout" be put at the top of this blog entry).
I think this blog is a great example why I've continued to go to your site first everyday for my film study: you are an opinionated person who welcomes other opinions, and in so doing are able to help your readers separate their opinions from yours (if they break away from idolizing you, which is something I'm still in the process of doing), including yourself.
I actually had an argument with a fellow film student on facebook about your current value, and it was oddly similar to the argument on the email: I defended your emotional attachment to film and continual ability do more than any other professional film critic I known, and he (my fellow student) attacked your "unprofessional journalism" (he dislikes the fact that you have too many spoilers in your reviews, and have made editorial mistakes like saying that Tim Roth was in the current "A Christmas Carol".) I don't see those things as a reason why you are not a good reviewer (or as he said, why you "need to be put out of (your) senile misery"), but as small mistakes compared to the enormous amount of devotion you have put into promoting great cinema.
I have no idea what kind of a filmmaker I would be without your emotion. Because of your reviews, I've watched three films from 1950's Japan just this week, films like "Rashomon", which I think will be apart of me for the rest of my life. Recently I've been debating within myself if I should leave your site alone and try to branch out, but then I see something on "Scanners" or on your blog that does that for me. I don't know how someone could see what you are doing, and the ways you have adapted to a new generation of communication, and think you are a problem.
It is funny though that so much of what Schneider said angered me, because he talk as if speaking the truth. For one, not only do I think that Speilberg is a great director, but he is the reason that I am one, and for a similar reason that I've praised you here: he was a part of a computer video game called "Director's Chair". I played it when I was six, and I knew from then on that film was my destiny. Now what if Speilberg had not been one to branch out in such a way, thinking that video games were just a cash in opportunity and wannabe art (which, interestingly enough, is something you think, and that is the only thing I can think of that you are damn wrong about... nothing you've said on your site comes close to the hypocrisy that you've shown in your talks about video games as art/not...but I think I'm weaving too many threads here)? I may have found my love of film later, but maybe not, and certainly not with as much impact, because from that game I got a huge taste of the WONDER and raw emotion of filmmaking.
Second, his comment about your opinion of the ending of "Vertigo"...He says no. BUT YOUR DESCRIPTION IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT ABOUT THE ENDING! AND I SAW IT LONG BEFORE I LOOKED AT YOUR REVIEW! If Speilberg's game was my revelation, then "Vertigo" was my salvation...indeed, I saw it at such a bleak time of my life, when all the joy I knew was drained, and it cemented my certainty that film was my destiny. I've seen it again a few times, and it has a different impact now because of what it was before, which can never be replicated, and yet the ending, inside the tower, never ceases to grip me. As you say, I feel for both characters. And I think Schneider's comment is just a bad observation of Hitchcock, because Hitch used the same technique of telling most of the info early on in almost all of his pictures, and he based how the film would go on the revelation more than the uncertainty. Schneider's not the first person I've seen complain about this technique: on the DVD of "Rope", the writer of the film complains that the audience knows the person is dead, and who it is, from the very beginning, and acts like the film is bad because of it, but... FOR GOODNESS SAKES, HAS HE SEEN THE FILM? The film uses the dead body as the bases for all of the films action; that indicates, to me, that Hitch knew what he was doing.
Which brings me back to "Vertigo": are you (Schneider) to tell me that finding out about Madeline at the middle made the shock less than if it were revealed at the end? Initially, I thought that the film would keep it's mystical feel throughout, but when that was taken away, I didn't hate it; It made things logical (if somewhat ridiculous), and put the focus on Scottie as a broken individual rather than on the realm of Ghosts. I can think of so many ways the film wouldn't have worked if we didn't know Judy. I don't think we could see her as a person like we see Scottie, even after the first viewing; Hitch would have had to hide so much of her intentions to make that ending work as a thriller. Instead, the second half of the film is somewhat of an emotional episodic, and each chapter builds on itself until the climax of Judy becoming Madeline again for Scottie, which for me is the most emotional moment in film history. And then, that dreamlike state that Scottie is in is taken away.
Just describing the film is giving me chills. So for Schneider to say that "Vertigo" is NOT Hitchcock's ultimate emotional vehicle, and just an example of flawed technique taken as genius, is a cold, pointless description, because there most certainly is a method to the madness, a method that was used before and used to the fullest in this film. Just the fact that "Vertigo" is debated as a masterpiece, after initially failing to be embraced, has to speak to that, because time is the best at revealing the truth about both greatness and hype, and time would have revealed that Hitch had no method in his films beyond the realm of the technical; instead, it has proved it.
Now, disagreeing with that method (revealing info that could be left a secret) is valid, but to discredit a film because of not doing something when it could have done something is... well, it's like complaining that a film is different than its trailer; of course we see a trailer first (if at all), and a trailer gives us both emotion and expectation, but a trailer is always made after the film is far along in production or completed, and has a completely different feeling when seeing it after you see the film or after a period of time. Initially, a trailer is meant to get you into the theater or to watch the film, and that is it. But a film is not made to get you into the theater; a film is made for you to watch, to explore, and usually to be understood. Both the film and its trailer will exist after the theatrical run, but only the film can be watched again as it's own entity; a trailer will always tug the same emotional strings, but loses its purpose to factors beyond itself. Once you see the film, the trailer is forever a part of the film. What Schneider suggests is that the ending of "Vertigo" is bad because of factors beyond itself. But those factors can be removed, because they are placed on the film by human reasoning, and not by the film itself.
Indeed, I saw "Vertigo" after only knowing so little about it, and it blew me away. The instant it was over I ran to my brother and proclaimed that it was the best film I'd ever seen. And your writings about the film hit so close to home. On the other end of the spectrum, I saw "Goodfellas" after reading countless writings about its greatness, and was left with much to desire. I've now seen it about 5 times, and every time I see it, it gets better and better. Once the outside factors became less of a part of the film to me, I was able to see the truth of what "Goodfellas" is, and indeed, the words of praise spoken by you or others made much better sense. That is why I think you are not only a good writer but a great critic; you write as an observer, and not as a lawman, like Schneider.
("Video Games cannot be great art...")
Well, most of the time...
Interesting, just to a point. I find myself disappointed with Mr. Schneider. He impresses me as one who is making a point that simply is not helpful. Such an in depth analysis of your work leads me to think Schneider's analysis of his differences with you are less honest than he would like to admit. He made a clear error in discussing these differences: he drew a conclusion that he agreed with Gene much more than you and tried to back up that opinion with examples that defended this preconception. Following over forty years of work, it would not be difficult to identify many examples where he would support your perspective and not Gene's. When you and Gene were on television together, you both would admit that you agreed in your recommendations about 2/3 of the time. If that is true, Schneider's math does not add up either. The 80-85 percent of the time he would agree with Gene would be based only on the 1/3 of the time the two of you differed. He still would find himself agreeing with you at least 70% of the time.
Gene and you both were very cerebral and emotional when working together and competing as critics. It is a false assumption that one of you was more cerebral or emotional than the other. You are who you are, and both thoughts and feelings were readily apparent. The difference emotionally, from what I could tell, were the types of emotions I tended to see you both expressed. I found you to be more sensitive, and Gene angrier. He was such a competitive guy that this side of him came out regularly on your shows together. I saw you as more comfortable in expressing your honest feelings on camera, in large measure because your love of films was so apparent. One of the last shows you did was with Richard Roeper and you both discussed films to enjoy during the summer of 2005. When Richard brought up Eight Men Out because of his love of the White Sox your gaze at him was just something to behold. You so loved to discuss films, but you just beamed when Richard, Gene, and others you had on the show expressed sheer pleasure in their movie going experience.
If Schneider went back to see that episode, he might ask himself what was the point of his long essay in the first place. Is it not the goal of all of us to have a good time, at least, or preferably a moving experience when a film captures us? When the purpose of film going is altered to assessing how our opinions stack up to those of other critics, then we lose the purpose of seeing a film in the first place.
One last point: I am glad he liked Stardust Memories. I actually agreed with him, that I appreciated the look and feel of the film. Gene voted No to the film in 1980 very much for the same reasons as you. Maybe he should look up Gene's review. I'd be interested in seeing if he were to change is position, since he liked Gene's work so much.
"But, before the final scene of the family toting their possessions away in an ox cart comes another scene which shows Ray’s utter mastery of realistic storytelling. While packing up the family’s belongings, Apu comes across a bowl with a large spider spinning a web, and is repulsed. Then, in the next bowl he finds the necklace that the other girl claimed Durga stole. He takes it, runs to a pond of algaed water, and plops the necklace through the scum which recoalesces around the spot left by the necklace- a great touch, visually, but also it shows the brother’s love and loyalty to his flawed sister, to save her reputation in death, as well as his emergence from under the influence of the three women who have dominated his life until then."....from Dan Schneider's review of Pather Panchali
This one brief scene, where Apu hurls the stolen necklace into the cess pond, always struck me as one which shows the director at a humanistic and artistic peak. This one para makes me want to read more of him on cinema. His argument that Rashomon is spoiled by the last five minutes is also sustainable.
Adam L., I think I understand your point on why Schneider does not spend his time referencing Ebert; still, among the (very prolific) critics I read on a regular basis, both from the US and Mexico, I don't see them constantly doing the same about their fellow prolific colleagues, as seems to be the case with Schneider (again, I've never read him; these excerpts above are the only thing I know of him). Again, I don't see the need and from those excerpts and by the comments of the original e-mailer to Ebert, the guy seems more like a person obsessed with proving how smart and knowledgeable he is, than a genuine film critic.
On the other hand, I completely agree with you on the idea that one experiences a film based on what baggage one carries walking in. That is why the more I live, the more I enjoy great films and the less I am willing to spend time seeing garbage. God knows I've had plenty of that in my own bags...
Ebert: After seeing "Up in the Air," you may want to unpack them...
It is unfortunate that this thread has become such a tizzy of Ebert fanbois. Obviously there are many problems with Schneider. He brings a lot more to the table, though, that the bulk of comments here - the many comments which are so quick to immediately dismiss everything he has to say for one or the other choice infraction.
I am deeply grateful, on the other hand, for the spirit in which Roger made this post. Fact is, it's a great read. It's a great read because of the effort and insight Peter and his friend put into their email, and because of the effort - and insight - Dan Schneider has already put into his comments on Roger's criticism. Fact is, there are reasons to read, and not to read Schneider, just as there are reasons to read, and not to read, Ebert. Film criticism is not the high school prom king & queen contest.
Thank you Roger for being a big enough person to let this post stand as you did. I had never heard of Schneider and what a great context indeed to discover him, faults and all.
Ebert: I value comments critical of my reviews. I'm too old to learn new tricks, but young enough to improve my old ones.
If I may paraphrase Joseph Heller, Mr. Schneider knows everything about film except how to enjoy it.
Reading the exchange above brings back two memories of the old S&E.
The first was of an old newspaper cartoon called Marvin, about a very fat baby that was drawn a lot like Garfield. One Sunday panel had Marvin dreaming about you two reviewing his dream, only their names were Gene Cynical and Roger Eager. Kind of summed up your respective personalities quite well I thought at the time. After reading R.A. Wilson for a while there I referred to S&E to my friends as the Oral & Anal show, rather than the more traditional Baldy & Fatty.
The second was one time on the show, I forget what movie you were reviewing, but Gene made a small speech to you explaining why he was a better critic than you (one of several times I heard him assert this). Basically his argument went like this; when you see a part in a movie you really like your emotions take control and run away with it, whereas he sits there more objectively and goes "This is working, this isn't working". While he may have had a point, I did tend to agree with your opinions more than his (mind you I often strongly disagreed with you both. Tank Girl comes to mind).
Finally, while we can all agree on Ingrid Bergman's beauty in Casablanca, Dan Schneider has a point about your burblings being inappropriate. I dusted off my DVD copy to hear if it was true.
"Whorlagaabaaba ther's Ingrid oh man lookathat oh lookatherlipsohyeahmanooogharloooyeahbabyyeahbaby"
[*fap* *fap* *fap*]
Quite distracting, really.
I propose a more talented man of the web perform some web wizardry and direct the domain metacritic.com to this article.
Ebert: Elaborate?
It was an, admittedly vague, extension of the joke pattern expressed by Mike Spearns a couple posts before mine and the critic critics cartoon originally posted in your article. Since this article and its comments have been very metacritical, I figured it would be a humorous proposal to have the metacritic domain pranked so it would direct here.
Not that I would ever support such irresponsible interneting . . . though I would laugh.
Having confessed my unflinching adoration for your reviews only to find myself in a sea of the same, I wonder. You seem to be answering only to a few, very specific comments on things unrelated to your actual big question up there (good roger or bad roger).
Are you not answering too many comments because you find this topic too personal not to be extremely subjective about, or because you find it redundant to answer to what's essentially a long vindication of your entire critical basis, or because you simply don't have the time to write all the 'thank-you' notes?
Ebert: Let's face it. I am relieved to see many comments in approval, but, as you surmised it is difficult to discuss them.
Roger, your warm personality, enthusiasm and love of movies shows through in your reviews. I imagine you'd be a great guy to have a beer(or non-alcoholic beverage) with. Mr. Schneider seems like he'd be an angry drunk.
You identified the great triumph of Soderbergh's Solaris: its ability to channel ironic regret, "one of the rarest of movie emotions"; I consider you exonerated of all sins.
I always enjoyed watching At The Movies. I don't remember who I agreed with more but it was fun to watch. I started reading Roger Ebert's reviews almost exclusively when I realized he truly loves movies, as I do. I read his review of Peter Jackson's King Kong and he described a certain scene as beautiful. Several other reviews I read basically said the same scene was stupid and pointless. When I saw the movie I agreed the scene was indeed beautiful. I don't always agree with Roger Ebert's reviews but I do like to read them because he does view films with emotion. Films are meant to elicit emotions so why not use them when reviewing a film? Plus I feel like he can watch a film and just be entertained by it. Films don't always have to be great art, they can just be fun and he gets that.
A rising swell of emotions for the great 'emotional'. I approve.
A couple of quotations I remembered this morning:
1) From the introduction to Mary Kinzie's Guide to Poetry (which I haven't actually read but am now very interested in reading):
2) By one of my friends: "1 + 1 = 3, for high values of one."
I believe the top is supposed to be "Whom do you read..."?
Roger, I think you were making fun of me in your response to my last post, but just in case I'll say that I read your reviews for ten days.
Last thing: is there any way of numbering the comments? It's irritating to be somewhere in the middle of a hundred and fifty comments and not know how far along you are.
Ebert: I wasn't making fun of you. I didn't figure that out.
I've asked many times for numbered comments. Movable Type seems rather limited. Curently it's asking me to upgrade twice day.
Mr. Schneider sees his opinions on all things relating to the critical analysis of film to be enlightened and absolute. I instead view them as arrogance. The public reads and builds trust in a movie critic over time if they have something to offer about THE FILM. Not about what somebody else thinks about another critic.
Hello Roger, I basically don't read critics or reviews except for checking your page, so I am unaware of Schneider except for what I've read in this post, and that may be very unfair. The examples here, however, are striking enough to make me question the assertion that he's so darned "analytical" and "consistent."
I suspect Gene Siskel would laugh at these characterizations of him as less emotional, more intellectual, and less tolerant of popular junk. Schneider's paragraph comparing you two and enumerating your sins might lead people to imagine Gene didn't like Star Wars or didn't think Spielberg was a great filmmaker. If his reviews were online, this myth could be put to rest instantly, but a glance at his Top Ten lists should dispel these notions. By the way, his final list, from the top: Babe Pig in the City, The Thin Red Line, Pleasantville, Saving Pvt. Ryan, The Truman Show, Antz, Simon Birch, There's Something About Mary, Waking Ned Devine, Madadayo, and Beloved. What an austere critical mind! Yeah, he had it all over you, Roger.
And I recall that when he reacted badly to a movie, his antipathy could be especially subjective and illogical, much moreso than yours--one example so bizarre it stuck with me was his dismissal of "Wild Man Blues," a documentary on Woody Allen's personal life that wasn't sufficiently about blues music! We had the impression Gene was reacting to the life depicted rather than the movie about it. I loved watching him, but at the end of the day, Gene Siskel was neither a titanic aesthetic intellect nor very far from your own tastes. I'm not insulting his memory, only correcting it, which is a measure of my real respect for him.
Careful analysis? This excerpt of Schneider on why "Vertigo" doesn't work as a mystery thriller is embarrassing, since he doesn't seem to realize he's painfully explaining what people like about it, the source of its radicalism. And unless I misread him (which it seems easy to do), he's trying to argue that the last third isn't equally about Judy because....he's not sufficiently pulled into Scottie's world? Well, isn't that the case for Judy's world?
Hitchcock understood that the "solution" was stupid and wouldn't have satisfied anyone as a surprise ending (as in the novel), because once you focus on it, it reveals itself as the most elaborate and senseless murder plot in history. What, a man hires a double (who then goes about her business as if nothing happened) to enact some cockamamie ghost story that will hook an old friend whose disability will prevent him from stopping the murder? This brilliant plan doesn't even give the killer an alibi, much less explain how he and the double get away from the scene. (They do have to go down A TOWER WITH ONE STAIRCASE after someone has just fallen from it and atracted a crowd!) Hitchcock threw away the "mystery revelation" because there was nothing better to do with it. Saving it for the end would have ruined the picture decisively. He was only interested in the potential for suspense, aberrant psychology, and dreaminess, all of which are maintained through the final third. How analytical and aesthetically aware do you have to be to miss this?
And my goodness, what evidence of clear thinking and good writing is this, from the exhaustive meta-review of Stardust Memories: "Ebert shows he has a basic and fundamental misunderstanding of what art is and what purpose it serves when he writes: 'but that's what artists are for: to hurl their imagination, joy, and conviction into the silent maw.' Not even his apology can excuse Ebert's blunder. Art merely illumines the wisdom of life by condensing it from ponderous philosophy into forms that are simultaneously more accessible to the more intuitively intellectual aspects of the mind, while achieving this via satisfying the emotional aspects of the self that desire entertainment. Ebert's definition buys into the Joseph Campbellian Heroic Artist Hokum that has long been disproved."
Notice that "merely" in that definition of art. By the time I get to the end of his mere definition, it seems to me he's merely saying what you did, Roger, only you put it less ponderously and more accessibly to the intuition and emotion. Someone needs to fax me that hokum disproof, by the way. Is it algebraic or socratic?
Going back to Spielberg as a great filmmaker. Apparently Schneider dismisses this possibility, so let's apply some definition. A great filmmaker would be a person who makes great films, or to beg the question: what's a great film? A subjective answer ("a great film is one I think is great") is obviously capable of satisfying nobody but the subject who asserts it. This leaves us with the objective answer that critics have frequently returned to: our old friend, "the test of time." Over the course of generations, a work still appeals to an audience generally more wide than narrow, and perhaps even an increasing audience (though this doesn't apply to many classics, which are less seen than when they came out). This audience doesn't need to pass an IQ test to be affected by art; they needn't come from one class or language or politcal bent. They can be intellectuals or lumpen proles. As long as people still jump at "Jaws", cry at "E.T." or thrill to "Raiders" after 25 or 35 years, then a great film has been made by this definition, whether any one critic likes them or not. One can explain that one hates these films, but one can't deny their greatness; one can only admit that their greatness doesn't embrace one's own admiration.
But observe how useful it is that Scheider's patly provocative remarks on Hitler are included, for Schneider offers a handy definition of greatness here. We are told: "Hitler did not merely waltz onto the world stage, and have everything fall into his lap from admirers to world events. He had a precise blueprint...worked for years perfecting his craft... and actively shaped his future....Like it or not, Hitler was a great man...as long as one is mindful that great does not only mean 'good' nor 'decent,' and that great men also can have great flaws." Well then, by Schneider's own logic, since Spielberg didn't become the all-time king of popular cinema by waltzing onstage and having everything fall into his lap, but with a blueprint and years of honing his craft, making deliberate stylistic choices in movies for a wide audience response, he must be a great filmmaker, as Frank Lloyd Wright must be a great architect. How's that for an unemotional, analytical Q.E.D.?
Consistency, eh? By the few examples included in the letter, it appears that Schneider is no more consistent than Pauline Kael (who made a philosophy of inconsistency), or yourself Roger, or me, or anyone else who talks about art. By the way, I can explain the inescapability of inconsistency, or why the very element we praise in one movie is what we condemn in another. It's because the reasons we cite are rationales that come after the fact of our immediate emotional (or gut) response, whose true source we don't understand. The sources lie as far back as our potty-training and as recent as what we had for breakfast, but we couldn't explain this even if we comprehended it, because to do so would truly be to understand ourselves, and then we need no longer seek it in art. (Anyway, this wouldn't be helpful to others.) So we settle for surface explanations for our pleasure or displeasure, and come up with our idle remarks on story, style, etc. to justify having an opinion. In the real heart of criticism, I'm not even sure an opinion is needed.
Bejaysus - so now we have critiques of the way critics give criticism!
I remember hearing of an older wiser guy mock the self importance of some younger ones - "You guys." he said, "If there were two doors, one marked 'Heaven' and the other marked 'Analysis of Heaven', you guys would take 'Analysis of Heaven' just so you could look intelligent!"
Ebert: I hope they have a door marked "Analysis of Hell."
Granted this may be an unfair reading because I haven't read Schneiders work before and the above is obviously a very small portion of it. That said while I don't think he is a troll I found many of his comments to be oddly conclusory especially given that his primary insult of your work was that you are not analyitcal.
For example he writes:
"Yet, Ebert is notoriously dense. He thinks that Steven Spielberg is a great filmmaker, and has panned many great films while praising schlock from the above mentioned hack, as well as the "Star Wars" films,"
As if to say Ebert likes film A and doesn't like film B so he is a bad critic without any reference to the underlying reasons why you liked these movies.
Also, he seems to be unfairly singling you out in that most mainstream film critics praised Star Wars and Spielberg's work. Star Wars did after all win the LA film critics best picture award. Maybe your opinion was right or maybe it was wrong but it was hardly an abberration.
If writing a good review of Star Wars makes a critic's opinion somehow non-worthwhile than probably at least 90% of film critics have non-worthwhile opinions. Granted just because a majority agrees on something that doesn't make it correct but at the same time there does seem to be something painfully obtuse about a critic who is willing to categorically dissmiss most of his colleagues because of their taste.
Finally, I would have to agree with you that a review should match the nature of the product. I think for example a review of a movie that is as calm and analytical as say a review of a vacuum cleaner would be thoroughly unsatisfying not to mention missing the point of the product.
Sam E.
I will always regard your movie reviews as advice from a dear friend that really knows movies.
Dan can comment all he wants, but 5 minutes from now I'll forget what he said. What other value should I give for "comments on comments"?
When critics disagree over the value of the work (see Siskel/Ebert bruhaha ove Halloween 3:Season of the Witch, it can add to the anticipation and enjoyment of a good work. And save me the price of admission for a clunker!
But arguments over what somebody said about what somebody else said? Please. Don't we all have something better to do?
Better to eagerly await a review for a movie, such as the upcoming "Avatar" that may be "critic proof" than to listen to sniping.
Off-topic--almost: I appreciated your review of "The New Year Parade." I was born in South Philly, raised in South Jersey, and have been waiting for a movie that uses the weirdest American parade as its backdrop. I already know my reaction to it will be subjective--"emotional"--and I can't wait.
I'll bore you with only one Mummers Parade story--and those of you who don't know what a "Mummer" is, just use the interwebs; be ready to be amazed/perplexed. I'm hanging out at the tail-end of the parade on Broad Street, and a guy wearing a massive costume--part Mardi Gras, part Vegas, mirrors and feathers, all in lime green, including his face--lumbered up to me, weighed down by about 100 lbs. of costume (no exaggeration) and impeded by post-parade libations, pointed at himself and asked, "Have you seen anybody who looks like me?" Unfortunately, I couldn't help this lost Mummer, and he wandered off toward Vine St., the only lime-green human parade float in a mass of electric blue and gold, orange and hot pink. I hope he found his way home.
By the way, nice NYT piece on Facets. Pertinent moment: "Is there a place for 16-millimeter film in a world of streaming video? Mr. Stehlik, unsurprisingly, believes there is. So does Eric Holst, Facets’ operations manager, who, like his boss, talks about film’s capacity for forging 'emotional connections' and fostering 'spiritual enrichment.'"
As Fred Sanford used to say, "How many times do I have to keep closing this case?"
Ebert: Somehow that reminds me of this:
"Hey, you were that guy who was pissed on by the llama!"
"You remember that?
I am always suspicious of reviewers who must contrast their views with other reviewers. Aren't they supposed to be writing about the film (book, music, whatever?) Why are they writing about someone else who is writing about the film (book, music, whatever?) Don't they have enough of an original thought for their review to stand on its own?
In my opinion it's easier to criticize the critic. When you are the original, you have to say what your first impressions are. That's what makes Ebert the best;he doesn't go around reading other reviews to say what he really thinks.
Hello Everyone,
I shall not use this post to compare Mr. Ebert to other critics, nor shall I use it to dissect his style of criticism. Rather, I shall use it to adress what keeps me coming back to Mr. Ebert's column: his enthusiasm.
All critics get excited and passionate about films they find great or films that they love, but Roger's zeal bursts off the page. To put it simply: whenever Roger gets fired up about a movie, you want to watch it. Moreover, whenever you see a movie that fires you up, you seek out Roger's review.
It has always been a joy for me to read Roger when he gets in this sort of mood. Hence why his "Great Movies" Section is his best writing on the website. Here you get to witness his boyish energy as he describes what makes the film so damn exciting. You also get to listen in as he provides historical gossip that gives you a better sense of the history of the film. You pause with him as he reveals the beautiful, quiet or reverent moments that define the film. Basically, every time I read the "Great Movies Section" I read a veteran critic using all of his powers to show me why he loves a film. That inspires me to go out and watch it.
Note here, that Roger never persuades you to go watch a film. True, Roger is always blunt about his opions on film (and other topics), but he does not try to force you to watch it. I find that refreshing.
Though I often seek out new viewpoints of different critics, I shall always return here.
Ebert: Readers...
On this subject...
Just as I've always felt, the point is not to "understand" music, but to empathize with it:
http://j.mp/58ag7r
I already had a low opinion of Mr. Schneider due to his repeated insistence that Orson Welles, not Carol Reed, directed "The Third Man" -- something which no serious film historian or Welles scholar actually believes -- but while googling him I found this:
http://www.empireonline.com/forum/tm.asp?m=2462295
So, why does anyone take him seriously?
I thought when I saw the title on this post that it might be a call for more verse. When Roger is good he is... and when he is bad he is....
There is an Everyman quality to your reviews, always has been. The club is not exclusive. We are all welcomed in and invited to join. Not the Johnny Appleseed of movie enjoyment perhaps, but definitely a promoter of enrichment through engagement. Engagement includes context.
It must feel odd to have others battling over their views your work.
Is the quality of a critic determined by how much they agree with you.
The truth of the matter:
1. Siskel was a mediocre critic. Not bad, just very conventional. I feel he usually thought exactly the way he was supposed to think.
Ebert's love for movies was much less measured and more from the gut. If that meant that he sometimes praises trash than so be it.
2. However, the times when Siskel was right and Ebert was wrong stick out to me more than when Ebert was right and Siskel was wrong.
Siskel liked Blue Velvet (of course) Parents, Batman, The Mosquito Coast and panned the Prince of Tides whereas Ebert took the opposing position. In reference to the first three he had seen a lot of movies and I think was particularly receptive to mere novelty. With Roger, I think he rejects pop cinema that misuses its resources. He doesn't get the point of "feel bad" junk. This point comes out very clearly if you investigate the debate over Blue Velvet where Ebert complains that critics are looking at film as nothing but style.
I agree with Siskel on most things, but Ebert's reasoning is superior.
Increasingly, I don't find Ebert's reviews to be useful in figuring out what the watch. There was once a point in which they could just expose buried films, but that point has passed as its very difficult these days for a film to really stay buried for long.
But Ebert is one of my favorite DVD commentators and his Great Movies feature is essential. He doesn't speak as much as a film historian, but as a bright video store clerk eager to share his latest new discoveries. (I will forever assert the superiority of his Sight and Sound 2002 Top Ten against some one like Jim Emmerson's).
Of course, there is a form of `film criticism` that tends to, I think, use film as a pretext for something else - what tends to come across as an axe to grind. I sometimes get the sense that some critics (and writers generally) who would seem to consider themselves more in the intellectual vein, seem guilty of, well, trying too hard.
A recent example is a review on a website, the reviews of which I have widely read and found much of interest, that pans the recent Disney movie The Princess and the Frog. I have no horse in this either way. But I found interesting that the first para of this 1.5/4 star review seems to imply Disney Corp has plundered traditional themes so as to burnish a tarnished image (`because we're all familiar with what Disney represents in this day and age`). This strikes me as axe grinding. Praytell what does Sony, Paramount etc `represent` these days? What does this have to do with what is on the screen? Furthermore, how does one engage this direction of thought by referring to what is on the screen? The movie seems purely a pretext.
The review goes on in an increasingly surly attitude towards a children`s animated feature, mocking it because, though it contains a black princess, does not represent a `Bold Leap Forward`.
This, to me, is not being the film critic. It is being the critic, period. Film is a pretext, and such `insight` tells me nothing, while it seems to snicker with its intended audience at the hypocrisy in the world.
A trivial bit of fun character assassination:
In movies, "Roger that!" means "I understood what you said" whereas "Dan that!" is a curse.
Roger said:
Roger, why do you like j.mp URLs so much? They are good for twitter but it would be good to let us with not so good internet connections read the URL before clicking on it.
i dont agree that cerebral reviews are better than emotional ones. i think films are supposed to make you think, but its more important that you feel when you watch them.
plum
Don't Be a Plum
To split a very fine hair:
I've always found Roger to be not an emotional watcher of film, but a sentimental one. I think that puts him in step with the rest of the US. We are a sentimental people. The Italians, by contrast, are emotional.
Roger is moved by his own past. He is also touched by those who reach out toward their own pasts, even if they do not echo Roger's. Guy Maddin, for example, with the Gimli Hospital picture, shows a singular experience, and I think Roger reacts to the reaching, not to the underlying emotion being reached for. Spielberg has built a career out of this. It's the binding trait in the early Errol Morris work.
Sentimentality is the essence of the American reaction to art. (I think it's also our reaction to religion, but there's plenty of other writing here to that end.)
Roger is the voice of America, an informed and unabashed Paul Harvey of American criticism. I think Roger should be, and probably will be, proud of that comparison. The other options only serve a privileged few or pander to the masses, and Roger has always carefully avoided either of these extremes and remained true to who he is, and who we are, never sacrificing emotional resonance for technical skill, or promoting cheap emotionalism while turning a blind eye to poor construction and shoddy workmanship.
It's always a pleasure to read Roger Ebert.
I read good Roger. Yes, he likes Spielberg etc., but I don't think he'd put him up there on a list of the top 20 directors of all time. There's a lot of good human stories in his 4 star ratings and a lot of interesting things said about a lot of 3 and 3 1/2 ratings that make you want to explore that filmmaker further.
Roger
> Just as I've always felt, the point is not
> to "understand" music, but to empathize with it
I tend to respond to movies much in the same way I do to music. Perhaps this is because I was a music fan in general (and an opera fan in particular) before I became a movie fan. I tend to feel that the best aspects of music and movies are really beyond description in words -- one simply must experience the works themselves. Thus I find it daunting to try to put my responses into (coherent) words -- and admire those who can (like you) manage to do this feat -- on a regular and recurring basis.
These arguments all hinge upon (basically) the one true argument about art and film in particular, and that is, "is a movies worth based solely on an objective view of what has been accomplished, or is it the exact opposite being that of a subjective point of view?" the answer must contain a little something of both. However, a great many people undermine the ability of a movie to be objective and not completely subjective (i.e. I liked this because it relates to me). The illustration which I use in order to help make this point more apparent is the inane, humanistic, ego induced, philosophical argument which states, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Of course it does. To say that the human reception, as well as the acceptance of a particular event, constitutes its existence is simply, as stated above, a result if of an over inflated human ego. The fact of the matter is that sound does not exist on the sole basis of what we hear, rather its existence abides in the unseen element of harmonic ripples which disrupt our normal atmosphere creating what we cognitively interpret as sound. This, I think, can also be extended to art. If much debated movies, take Fellini's "8 1/2" for example, had remained unseen would it still be a great movie and work of modern art in motion? Yes, it must be. The importance of the object is not incumbent upon the reception of an audience to determine its worth. There have been many good movies that have entertained small audiences in the past. Take "Wonder Boys" from director Curtis Hanson for instance. This film received wide critical acclaim in its days of release, yet did not do very well at the box office, therefore it was not widely seen by the public. Does the fact that it was not widely received diminish its worth as a good movie? No. For it is not the job of an audience to determine the merit of the object, rather they take on the exterior task of measuring the personal worth of the object for themselves. Will they watch it again, or shall it simply remain a fond memory? Or did they hate it and are now debating whether or not to log onto their personal blogs in order to ignite the inter-web into a raucous frenzy of violent hatred for this thing.
This leads us to the understanding and use of critics in our society today. If the art is completely self contained and does not need the aid of a critic to prove its worth (seeing as the worth of the art is part of its function, having been built into the structure of the object in question) than the role of a critic is not to tell the public whether or not the art is true, but like the prophets in the Bible, they are there to interpret the words of the creator and give these words to the population in order that the objective might be realized by a greater audience. Now there exists both true prophets and false prophets. One does not remain true unless what he or she says remains true; this of course goes along with those of a false nature as well. Does this diminish the importance of our critics, relegating them to those who look to the stars and shout at the top of their lungs that the "sky is falling, the sky is falling!" Again, no. These are the people who's job it is to interpret the art and give a better understanding of what it is that the artist is saying, or attempting to say through their work. In other words, the job of the critic is to look at that which is objective and through subjective means, extract meaning from what is inherently pre-existent.
Definitely I'm with Good Roger. Since the days when I took Roger's Film Class 30 years ago, offered through the Univ. of Chicago at the Spertus College of Judaica, I have felt Roger is the best, bar none, film critic around. Can it be my own particular bias showing through? No doubt, I admit that I agreed with Roger over anyone else (even Siskel) more like 99.9% of the time. He's never failed me yet, and I will be a fan as long as he's a film critic.
Roger,
I would say that everyone watches movies for emotional reasons. It's certainly the essence of film experience. You're correct to point this out. I believe where film criticism becomes important is in challenging people to also experience films from an intellectual standpoint as well. Yet, I believe the ultimate purpose of this is to make the emotional experience of film better. The tension in this dialectic of film understanding becomes where criticism becomes most useful and interesting. It is different to experience films emotionally and to experience films intellectually, yet the relationship betwee the two makes for a more robust experience. In addition, gilms are both aesthetic and ethical, providing distinct strenghts. Yet, finding how these are related is important in understanding both poles (why I agree with Schneider on Thin Red Line... I think you are really good at exploring the emotional/cerebral question, where Jonathan Rosenbaum is really good at the ethical/aesthetic question).
But a bigger question that comes into play is the question of the critic and the "everyday film watcher". In one way we could say that they're one in the same. Every critic has to admit to a subjective, personal experience, and every "everyday film watcher" also has an opinion that they wish to let others know about. I'm a big supporter of the worth of "professional" film critics who are able to provide thoughtful analysis, but when you start to get into a professional criticism of criticism, it's becoming a bit esoteric (which I'm not necessarily opposed to, but esoteric it remains). This is why I enjoy you so much as a critic. You don't deny the difference between the critic and everyday film-goer, yet are acutely aware of the relationship. You typically assume the emotional experience provided by a film, while pressing a reader/viewer into a more mature understanding of that experience.
"It leaves me a little less room to criticize the former(s), but my God, isn't that worth it?"
Ross - Perhaps to you it is. I know more than a few people who happily indulge in all of it. :) Worth, like so much in life, is subjective. Once we buy into the idea of objective forms of value existing in the universe then we start down the path of either philosophical exploration from which we know we will never derive firm answers or the scarier path of religious fervor in which we begin to codify what someone at some point decided was an answer to an objective truth and never look at it again. If we go the objective reality route, I for one would like for us to stick with the philosophical exploration.
Talent, on the other hand, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure someone out there thought TRANSFORMERS 2 was a masterwork of Michael Bay's talent as a filmmaker, and you know, it probably is a testament to HIS talent and the person that believes that probably has a whole different set of values than everyone reading this blog has about movies.
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Roger - What a great post and what amazing responses. Thanks.
Roger,
I always hated you for reasons that had nothing to do with your criticism or writing ability. You worked for the wrong paper. I was always a Trib guy. Everybody in the Trib was better than anybody in the Sun Times. Deeb was better than Feder. Verdi was better than Holtzman, and Siskel was better than Ebert. That's just the way it was. In my world you were the Cubs to Siskel's White Sox.
Let me just say that as I matured and overcame my parochial concerns I became amazed at how much better you got.
I would like to mention one factor in your genius that I haven't seen in any of the prior comments. Writing on deadline for a newspaper is a totally different animal than writing for a blog or a magazine. I realize that sometimes you see a film weeks ahead of the day the review runs, but the fact remains that you are able to craft a well thought out, logical, passionate and beautifully written opinion for or against a film and fit it into the 800-1000 word column (or however long a column is these days), and get it to an editor in time to get it into the paper and on the streets by Friday morning. In my opinion that is your gift. I don't think this Schneider guy could do that.
Ebert: Who were better than Ann Landers, Mike Royko, Bill Gleason, Hugh Hough, Jack R. Griffin and...
Well, that was an odd experience. I don't know what Schneider is like as a person, but he reminded me of the inevitable person in every job that is ~always right~, while others are usually wrong, and whose idea of a compliment is to damn with faint praise. Perhaps he really has found his niche in life, as a "critic".
I'll have to read his review on "Saving Private Ryan", but I'll say this much - its impact diminishes (with one exception - I'll note it at the end) with the size of its screen.
When seen in a darkened theater on the big screen, the Omaha Beach and final Village Combat scenes are completely devastating, and affect the way in which you experience the rest of the movie. On the small screen, the effect shrinks along with the viewing space. In the theater, you FEEL the movie, while on TV, you merely watch it.
There are some scenes that succeed (for me anyway) without needing what the big screen magnifies - like the death of the Medic played by Giovani Ribisi - but in others the artifice shows through, and seem to in the movie just because Spielberg loves the genre, and wanted to include things historically found in it.
Most obviously, those are things like "the Church scene", the "death of the soldier that either admires the scenery or tries to help civilians", the "Squad ribbing the new guy" stuff, the "enemy you thought you could trust", the "what are we fighting for scene" and so on. Those are balanced, to some extent, by scenes that are less typical but even "Battleground", made in 1949, seemed to be a bit better at embracing the building blocks of the genre while adding a layer of reality to them.
HOWEVER, there is one thing that "Saving Private Ryan" did that no other popular film before it was quite able to do - portray the hellishness and randomness of combat, and the horror of violent death.
Many WWII movies make combat look exciting and even fun, if you survive (something Oliver Stone acknowledged said he tried to avoid in "Platoon"). Even "The Big Red One" has combat moments that make War look like an adventure worth having. But "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't make you feel that way. The dominant emotion I felt, and I think many felt, was fear for the characters' lives, and a terrible sense of vulnerability, and eventually, that all the characters were doomed.
By the time Tom Hanks is lying there, firing his .45 at the Panzer, audience members have gone through the states of combat that Paul Fussell expressed:
"1. It can't happen to me. I am too clever / agile / well-trained / good-looking / beloved / tightly laced / etc.
2. It can happen to me, and I'd better be more careful. I can avoid the danger by keeping extra alert at all times
3. It is going to happen to me, and only my not being there is going to prevent it."
...and even though the P-51s save the day, they can't save the characters' lives. Fussell's Stage 3 - "not being there" is what saves Private Ryan. By the end of the movie, neither, he nor the audience want to see more combat, and those leaving the theater will never look at "military action portrayed as fun and exciting" in quite the same way.
SO DOES VIDEO ADD ANYTHING TO THE EXPERIENCE?
One thing. You may recall that immediatly after Omaha Beach is taken, two older Wehrmacht soldiers try to surrender, and have their hands up. They're shot at point blank by two nameless US troops, one of whom says "What did they say? What did the say?" to which the other replies by smiling meanly, holding up his hands in mock surrender, and saying "Look! I washed my hands for Supper!" Hanks sees this, scowls, but turns around and walks away.
What you don't realize, unless you're watching with Subtitles, or speaking the language, is that the two older men were pleading in Czech, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!"
So, in the movie, the American Troops who came to liberate Europe wound up killing two old Czech men that had been forced into the German army. So far as I know, you never find out about this unless you speak Czech or turn on the Subtitles on DVD. I find that damn interesting.
Final note (if you made it this far, sorry for rattling on) - I STRONGLY recommend anyone interested in film to read Jeanine Basinger's wonderful "The World War II Combat Film", which explores and exposes the elements of any "small unit action" movie, from "The Last Patrol" up to "Aliens". You can see the Google Books free Preview of it here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=lQ3GZuKbidMC&dq=Jeanine+Basinger+combat+film
...but by all means, get a copy from the library or buy it.
Roger,
I like that your reviews are based on your perspective. Comparing what I saw or felt to what another human sees or feels is much more straightforward than reading a review by someone who must draw on intellectual theories of film to prove their points. I think theories are great for trying to understand a film. And I think theories are fun to make for why a movie succeeds or fails with its audience or with an individual. But since many people in the world seem to believe that there are absolute truths about 'stuff' that humanity has created (like film), you're going to get a bunch of dorks complaining about this or that to satisfy their intellectual need. And good for them.
I disagree with a lot of your reviews because you don't seem to 'get' certain facts about the film, and you many of your reviews have inaccuracies dealing with plot or the names of characters (nearly all of your Miyazaki reviews come to mind). But honestly, you're a human being that has lived a life in love of film, and you have a database full of thousands of experiences of movies, as well as human life experience to draw on whenever you do your reviews.
When I read a Roger Ebert review, I don't seek to read a robot or computer program capable of synthesizing all facts and opinions into a few hundred words so that I can read the Holy Grail of criticism about a movie. Actual analysis like that takes probably a year or so to research and to think about. To expect that in a review to be written a day or so after the film opens is absurd.
I read you, Roger, because I watched your show as a kid. I see your "thumbs up[s]" on the cover of movies I enjoyed, and I have a pretty well formed idea of who you are. I've read a crapload of your reviews the past few years and since I like reading criticism anyway, I eat it up. It's fun to read a review of yours and try to guess what I will think of the movie. It's also fun to have thoroughly enjoyed a film like Howl's Moving Castle, only to have you tell me it's not as good and relies too much on spectacle. Whatever. That's why I liked it! Spectacle can be good too. Especially when it brings up deeper into the mythology of a film world.
I'll buy lots of steaks! Peter can have one. His friend gets one. Good Roger gets one. Bad Roger gets one, too.
The only guy I won't invite to the table for a steak is this Schnieder, because I fear he'll ruin the meal for the rest of us by kill-joyingly overanalyzing what he views to be the "inarguably objective'' virtues of my meal, the "inarguably proper'' use of my napkin and the "inarguable fact'' that our attractive waitress ain't nothin' to look at compared to all the girls he knows.
Schneider, will you shut up so I can just enjoy my damn steak?
I enjoy and benefit from all manner of film criticism regardless of the source, if the criticism enables me to be more fully enriched by the film being examined.
The following is from the Peter Weiss play commonly referred to as Marat/Sade.
"Marat: If I am extreme I am not extreme in the same way as you. Against Nature's silence I use action. In the vast indifference I invent a meaning.I don't watch unmoved. I intervene and say that this and this are wrong and I work to alter them and improve them. The important thing is to pull yourself up by your own hair to turn yourself inside out and see the whole world with fresh eyes."
I cannot say how many films have allowed me to see the world with fresh eyes. There have been many. But, I can say that your writings on film have given me the encouragement to "pull myself up by my own hair."
Keep up the good work. It is appreciated.
I just had to roll my eyes. Spielberg bashing is so 1993.
Anyone who can't see the artistry in Duel, Sugarland Express, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Raiders, Schindler's List, ET, or Empire of the Sun is not worthy of writing on film.
Yes Spielberg has lost his edge, but I just listed 9 great films by Spielberg, which is almost as many films as Kubrick and Welles made over the course of their entire careers.
Every prolific director has bombs, and most great directors have more bombs than masterpieces (see Scorsese, Coppola, Allen, Bergman, Welles, Hitchcock, Godard) For Spielberg's part, his bombs are generally more entertaining than your average director's best works.
Spielberg's detriment isn't so much his bombs, but the fact that he has executive produced a LOT of crap. By executive producing, Spielberg basically put his name on a film in order to get the film made. But it is not his work. This is Spielberg the businessman, not Spielberg the director, and that distinction is very important.
(for the record, I have degrees in Film (BA), English (BA) and Urban Planning (MA-URP). I realize the last one have no baring on this post, but hey, a guy's gotta eat.