Film Criticism Beyond Judgment
Film criticism is thus not a matter of absolute judgment, but of passion, love and hate; not a war for Truth, but a combat for knowledge-making and awareness-raising.
Katja Cicigoj
“If it is so disgusting to judge, it is not because everything is of equal value, but on the contrary because what has value can be made or distinguished only by defying judgment. What expert judgment, in art, could ever bear on the work to come? It is not a question of judging other existing beings, but of sensing whether they agree or disagree with us, that is, whether they bring forces to us, or whether they return us to the miseries of war, to the poverty of the dream, to the rigors of organization…this is not subjectivism, since to pose the problem in terms of force, and not in other terms, already surpasses all subjectivity.” Gilles Deleuze - To Have Done With Judgement
The position of a film critic today cannot remain unquestioned. Not only does the proliferation of all kinds of public opinion expressed on films (enhanced by web technologies that open potentially infinite platforms) work towards undermining the authority of the film critic, who can no longer be considered an arbiter elegantiae of this relatively new art form or of the entertaining quality of film as a work of mass entertainment. And I am tempted to write: rightly so. Even though knowledge of film history and theory certainly enables one to consider more contextual factors when analyzing a film-text, there can be no unequivocal set of norms that would enable us to “objectively” assess a film’s value.
Why then engage in film criticism at all? In a country like Slovenia (but as far as I know this is the tendency elsewhere in Europe as well), where film (and other) critics are by and large precarious workers that have to entertain several other occupations to make ends meet, this is not exactly a prospect for a nice and easy career, certainly not for the young generation. Why perseverating then, if not with the belief of separating what is good from what is bad?
“As Spinoza had said, it is a problem of love and hate and not judgment; 'my soul and body are one .... What my soul loves, I love. What my soul hates, I hate... All the subtle sympathizings of the incalculable soul, from the bitterest hate to passionate love '” (Deleuze).
By this I do not mean to romanticize this profession and turn it back into a naïf cinephilia or quasi-democratic subjectivism. Film criticism might be grasped also as an opportunity for public analyses of cultural objects that we cherish, an opportunity to produce knowledge about them (not to discern the Truth in the form of a value judgment), as well as an opportunity to raise certain issues we deem important, to (ideally) encourage a public debate. Film criticism might be used to turn the attention of the public towards works that might otherwise go unnoticed or to raise issues that are generally overlooked. This might be of some help especially to young filmmakers making their way towards film audiences.
After long periods (or waves) of difficulties in film production in Slovenia due to an obscure system of state financing (the main financial source for Slovene filmmakers) and political games within it, which made it very hard for filmmakers to get to do their first, and made it even harder to do their second feature, they are slowly finding their way out, also by resorting to low budget or independent productions. At this year's national film festival in Portorož, two young filmmakers with their first features overshadowed the already established middle-aged generation. While this had gone unnoticed by the main jury, the film critics' jury chose to point to these nascent talents. Of course this will not completely turn the tables; but if it helps them gaining at least a tiny bit more public attention and references for next projects, maybe this is good enough.
Film criticism is thus, not as a matter of absolute judgment, but of passion love and hate; not a war for Truth, but a combat for knowledge-making and awareness-raising. But, more than anything, a (very Deleuzian) meeting between the writer (the critic, the journalist, the theoretician) and the film, a meeting that might generate new concepts, percepts and affects.
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