What every film critic must know

There's a common fallacy that anyone can review a film. But how can you do it if you don't have the proper tools to 'read' a film?

La Regle du jeu
The rules of the game... Paulette Dubost and Nora Gregor in Renoir's La Règle du jeu.

Some years ago, when a veteran film critic on one of the quality dailies took his retirement, everyone expected his extremely competent young deputy to take over the job. However, this was not to be because, according to the editor of the paper, "he knows too much about cinema".

Imagine the same editor saying that about the literature, theatre, art, ballet, opera or architecture critics. No way. Yet it seems that film, the most accessible and popular art form, is just not treated on the same level or with the same degree of seriousness as the other arts.

Unfortunately, this has led to a deterioration in film criticism, which has become primarily descriptive, anecdotal and subjectively evaluative rather than analytical. Most reviewers deal primarily with the content of a film - anybody can tell you what a film is about - rather than the style, because they do not have the necessary knowledge to do so. This leads me to believe that film critics should have some formal education in their subject, such as a degree in film studies.

I teach film history and film theory at an American university, and know that most of the students take the course because they think it is an easy option (perhaps they would be allowed to eat popcorn during the lectures). But they are soon disabused of that notion. Learning to "read" films is a complex, though enjoyable, business.

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.


These should be the minimum requirements before anyone can claim to be a film critic. But then, they might never get a job because they would then "know too much about cinema".