💭   The Ideal Film Critic

politics

What makes a great film critic? John Simon said he knew. Writing in 1969, he declared that since film is such a complex art, which borrows from so many other media, the critic must be something of a Renaissance man—conversant in everything from cinematography, literature, and acting techniques to painting and sculpture, music, and dance, and, because subtitles are often so shoddily written, as many foreign languages as possible. “I dare say that when T.S. Eliot gave as the requirement for a critic that he be ‘very intelligent,’ he was not thinking of the film critic,” Simon added. “Otherwise, I suspect, he would have had to say ‘very, very intelligent.’” In short, for John Simon the ideal ...

The American Conservative     Nov 25, 2024