The Critical Critic...

The age old question: What makes art good?

Who determines what is art and what is not, or what is good and what is bad? Can't EVERYONE have an opinion? Can't anyone be a critic? Well, I feel a certain way about these things, the first is that everyone CAN have an opinion, but the validity of their opinion might be skewed. I'll use wine as my illustration.

If someone is a wine connoisseur and has been all over the world tasting wines in all different places, ages, and devotes much of their life to the taste of wine, would you value their opinion of wine more or less than a person who is giving their impression after their first taste of wine? Now, that person may taste wine for the first time and hate it. Fine. Maybe they got a bad bottle, brand, or maybe they just don't like the taste. However, because they have not tasted others or have a broad enough spectrum of wines, their viewpoint is limited with how they judge or critique that wine, so therefore they are probably not necessarily able to articulate what they do or don't like about it other than they know that they didn't like it. This is fine as well. However, that doesn't answer the other question, which is WHY. Critics of all kind need to be able to express WHY they do or don't like something, which is put into the context of their experiences and helps others understand their stance in the matter.

Now back to film...

Film is just the same, most people do not watch movies with the same lens as I do. They simply watch them to be 'entertained'. However, film is a lost art form. It is something that seldom people want to think about afterwards or have in-depth conversations over. The film medium has been reduced to just a quick entertainment fix. But can't our intellect be challenged and worked too and can't that be just as much fun? Some of the best films i've seen have led to awesome discussions afterwards and it's THOSE discussions that made the film all the more valuable in my eyes. One example is after a screening of a newly restored 35mm print of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and having a great discussion with a group of students over the films relevance, influence, and the central themes that the film manages to tie together in unique and deep ways. I agree that movies like this are NOT meant to be enjoyed by everyone, nor do I want to always watch movies that are intellectually stimulating, but I do firmly believe that a good critic and a fair critic is the one who is willing to experience as much as they can in order to be put their subject into a larger perspective.

So what makes a particular piece of art good? or bad? I suppose lots of things. What some people thing is great, others might think is garbage. However, a true critic goes beyond just the surface of the piece. They look at it from a historical perspective, they look at it through the eyes of the artist and gain a sense of how it makes them feel, does it evoke emotion? I could easily go into any art gallery and quickly walk up and down the halls and quickly point out which ones I prefer, which ones I would want on MY walls at home, but I couldn't tell you much about each one. I don't know the history of them, I don't know the style or the level of involvement with certain pieces, which inhibits my ability to fairly judge, I am simply going by my initial impression and reaction. Does that make my opinion wrong about it? No. Just limited again.

It's not a matter of right or wrong....can opinions be wrong? Yes. In my opinion the world is round, well technically it's not fully round, so factually I am wrong, it's more oval-like. In my opinion the MONA LISA is just Ok, well that's my limited opinion because truthfully I have never seen the MONA LISA up close and personal, but have only seen pictures in books, so that doesn't really qualify, which means I can't accurately comment on it. FULL METAL JACKET is the best war movie ever made! Really? Well, it might be my opinion that it's my favorite movie or favorite war movie, but to know if it's the best you need to see many war movies in order to know how it compares to the others before stamping it with a 'best ever' seal.

Anyone can have an opinion, not everyone can be a critic, at least not a good one.

Then again, that's just my opinion.