Since we are now living our last month in 2010, Critics everywhere will be doing their countdowns of the “Top 10 best movies” of 2010. Naturally, they may require some advice for how to argue cogently for their picks! Here’s a cartoon by Matt Groening to help out in this desperate final hours of the year and before the last deadlines for these cinematic critics.
From “Life in Hell” series: “How to be a clever film critic”. This was a comic strip Groening penned before “The Simpson’s”.
Ruby Soup with Pearl Juice 
Love this From Groenings ”life in hell” series.
To show how the “Balloon is over inflated in film criticism” at times (and so bursts long before it should) here is Ronald Bergan writing for the Guardian on “What every film critic must know”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2007/mar/26/whateveryfilmcriticmustkn)
(Would put him in academic but his reviews have included Hammer Film Vampire Sex Bombs. Can’t help but let him off for that.)
“I believe that every film critic should know, say, the difference between a pan and a dolly shot, a fill and key light, direct and reflected sound, the signified and the signifier, diegetic and non-diegetic music, and how both a tracking shot and depth of field can be ideological.
They should know their jidai-geki from their gendai-geki, be familiar with the Kuleshov Effect and Truffaut’s “Une certain tendance du cinéma français”, know what the 180-degree rule is and the meaning of “suture”.
They should have read Sergei Eisenstein’s The Film Sense and Film Form and the writings of Bela Balasz, André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Roland Barthes, Christian Metz and Serge Daney.
They should have seen Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire du Cinema, and every film by Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel and Ingmar Bergman, as well as those of Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, and at least one by Germaine Dulac, Marcel L’Herbier, Mrinal Sen, Marguerite Duras, Mikio Naruse, Jean Eustache and Stan Brakhage. They should be well versed in Russian constructivism, German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, Cinema Novo, La Nouvelle Vague and the Dziga Vertov group.
These should be the minimum requirements before anyone can claim to be a film critic.”
Wow, read Eisentein, but not have seen “Battleship Potemkin”? And Where’s Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, or Akira Kurosawa? “Nosferatu”, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, “Modern Times”, and “Vertigo”. Not to mention the Important High Pop of “The Matrix”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “Singing in the Rain”, and “Snow White”?
(And what others can you think of?)
After reading the this I definitely feel inferior so Matt Groening having a poke at this is spot on. (Or I’m just a nasty in my inferiority?=
Other missing masters: Maya Deren, Stanley Kubrick, Jane Campion and of course, Alfred Hitchcock. The “read Einstein, but not have to see his films” is probably the weirdest part of this “canon”. Not only is it strange that “Snow White” is not mentioned, but none Anime films are mentioned either. Like, I don’t know… Where is “Akira”??
He also left out all musicals. Sigh…
What should be seen as important and not important is a matter of taste and culture. Like Finnish film critics should watch “The Unknown soldier” and Kaurimäki’s films, since they are such a big part of the Finnish cinema culture. The Italians would tone up Fellini and Vittoria De Sica. Which reminds me! “The Bicyckle Thief” was not mentioned at all either! Huh.
It is impossible to tell what critics should know and have seen. I, for example, think all critics should see at least one Kubrick film and “Lost in Translation” for more modern history knowledge. Most people will probably say I’m off the wagon. These kind of list are impossible to figure out; A Canon is never “the truth” of whats important. It’s purely favoritism of what seems hippest.
And your not interfering! Our comment fits the comic strip just fine :-).
But, to return to the funny thing about Critics and the Cinema, here is Mel Brookes ”The Critic” (1963). An ordinary citizen reviews an art animation, while sitting in the theater (and not the Siskel and Ebert, thumbs up, kind of situation either!).
Haha. That was hilarious. Best line was: “I think this is symbolic… Symbolic of garbage!”
Kind of a grumpy old man reacting to experimental animation. Pretty funny. Good ol’ Mel Brooks. 🙂