A Q-and-A with Manohla Dargis of the NYT.
Dec. 10
Q. As a film critic, how do you believe your reading or impression of a film is affected by the subsequent need to write a review of it?
— Guy Cardamone, Milwaukee, Wis.
A. Writing is thinking, at least for me. I almost always have a solid sense of a movie after I've seen it; I know if it's good, bad or just adequate, and of course I know too whether I was moved to tears, fury, sleep, hunger or was just bored out of my mind. But it's in writing about a film that I refine my initial thoughts, make connections and translate my emotional responses into words. That, at any rate, is the idea.
Q. In my opinion, there are critics who pack their reviews with too much wit and flair, and leave themselves little space to make declarative, debatable statements about a film's content. Do you think it is more important for a critic to be entertaining or engaging? How did you come to this decision?
— Charles Wells, Birmingham, Ala.
A. Yeah, there are film critics who seem mainly interested in being clever, though generally those critics tend not to have much going on in terms of ideas. It's a problem in all the disciplines, though I think it's worse in rock criticism, where the pressure to be cool (i.e., young) can be lethal to a writer's prose style. Anyway, from what I can tell, this malady is especially rampant in the alternative press and mostly afflicts male writers. As someone who has been accused of being too enamored with her own cleverness, I will say that it can be tough writing reviews of bad films week after week. There are some weeks when all you have to fall back on is wit and flair (whatever that is), because the movie isn't giving you anything to work with.