The State of Film Criticism

Actually I'm not going to tackle the breadth of the issue suggested by that heading-- I mainly want to talk about the program that has replaced the old Ebert-Roeper clip show on TV (if you want something more in-depth, let me recommend recent issues of Film Comment and Cineaste, both of which have covered the evolution of the craft as the internet has supplanted newspapers as the primary source of movie criticism).

I remember when Siskel and Ebert launched the show Sneak Previews on PBS way back in the early 80s. From the start it was obvious that Ebert knew something about films and film history and Siskel was a reporter who somehow fell into movie reviewing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and he was occasionally an astute commentator on the films under discussion. But it was quite clear which of the two spoke with more authority. That trend continued once Siskel passed away and was eventually replaced by the even more lightweight Richard Roeper (at a time when the likes of Dave Kehr and Jonathan Rosenbaum were plying their craft in Chicage, home of the series-- it made me shake my head in wonder).

When Siskel & Ebert took their show to syndication, they were replaced on PBS by a similar pair, Jeffrey Lyons and Neal Gabler, wherein Gabler had some substance and Lyons was a bit of a goof (I remember someone once counting up the number of times he called a film "one of the year's ten best" and it totalled somewhere in the thirties-- some critical acumen, huh?). Maybe the attitude of producers was that the public wasn't ready for really solid, thoughtful discussion about movies?

If so, evidently that's still the case. When Ebert's health caused the recent cancellation of his program with Roeper, it was replaced by a new version of the show called At the Movies, hosted by Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz has a Hollywood pedigree (he's related somehow to Joseph who wrote and directed such classics as All About Eve and Herman who, among other things, co-wrote Citizen Kane). He's pretty sharp, and approaches the job with a certain amount of intelligence and wit. Lyons, on the other hand, seems to speak in movie ad blurbs (even when he doesn't like something). He seems to think glibness is a substitute for thoughtfulness, and I kind of get the impression that he expresses opinions following a set of templates he's laid out to service any occasion. In other words, opinions without any insight.

I know that the point of these shows is really to serve as advertising for Hollywood product, but it's disappointing that that cannot happen in the context of some really well-reasoned criticism. Oh well, I guess this is one of those areas where I'm nothing but an old curmudgeon.