No More Critics? Who Cares!

David Carr’s article in the New York Times yesterday, “Now on the Endangered Species List: Movie Critics in Print” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/movies/01crit.html?em&ex=1207195200&en=55d16bb188a0c2e8&ei=5087) delivers on the snark, but fails to delve into the bigger issues his topic should have raised. Carr’s reaction to the recent slew of movie critics’ firings at print publications veers from the indifferent (there are so many web sites with movie criticism that it won’t make much of a difference) to the positive (it won’t affect attendance at “Iron Man,” i.e. critics will stop ruining our fun at low-brow movies), and mentions only one potential con. Quoting mogul Scott Rudin as the spokesperson for independent movies, Carr discusses low-budget, artsier films’ reliance on critics who push them to screens, audiences, and academy awards. The article implicitly takes on the view that this is the only function movie critics might serve, failing to mention the importance of dialogue critics might spark. Perhaps more importantly than creating just audiences, critics may help to create critical audiences, who engage with the work at hand in a thoughtful, analytic way.
Carr’s article concludes with a quote from the founder of New York film blog thereeler.com, who opines that most “viewers of serious films have already migrated to the Web.” Maybe so, but what about those audiences of the first half of the article who need critics to persuade them to see independent films? Only a movie buff would log on to thereeler.com, but any casual reader might flip through Newsweek or The Village Voice and stumble upon a persuasive review. For someone who writes for the Arts and Entertainment section of a print publication, David Carr seems to have given surprisingly little thought to the importance of arts discussion and criticism.