Eureka awards at Cannes

[chuck mcmahon]

Just to add another note to the ongoing media discussion:

One of the things which I find, in general, regarding the media and the arts -- very few people in any walk of the media know "how" to write about the arts.  The example which comes to mind was a recent review of the Pearl Theatre's production of the "Orestia" in the "New York Times."  Four columns of historical content, one paragraph of production review.  The critic didn't even touch upon the majority of criteria central to what makes for a good/bad production (after all, a review falls under the classical rhetorical mode of "evaluation" -- and therefore should have a set of criteria against which the thing being evaluated is measured as good or bad).  

And I find this true of almost all media dealings with the arts: what are their criteria?  How are these people trained?  Naturally, centered in New York City, as I am, I have less access to Japanese media.  However, while people may praise the "western press" for its ability to criticize, most of the major newspaper/magazine reviews I read are a smattering of plot summary tagged with "I liked/didn't like it."  And this is frequently true of very specialized magazines as well -- in the states they seem to border somewhere between popular and academic, in some sort of hybrid no-man's land where they are not enough of either thing to be useful to anyone (except as a shelf decoration).

W.H. Auden, in "The Dyer's Hand," once said something which I thought quite accurate in relation of the audience to the critic: (and this is a paraphrase, but more or less to the point) that function of the critic is to save me the time and money necessary to see/read what would be valuable to me by weeding through the bulk of it for me.  And that that value is no less if I always agree or always disagree -- as long as I know what my relationship is to the critic.  

But if there is no sense of the criteria being used, that function is defeated, and all I'm really left to go on is if I like "this particular kind of story."  Or if I usually like what Janet Maslin likes (although I will admit that she is usually a cut above the others I read).

The other kind of criticism which I encounter in this city is the agenda based critic -- those who like movies which espouse certain causes, and disdain even good movies in which their causes are not given a sterling image.  There is freedom here to express critical remarks, but to what end?

My whole point is that, while Japanese cinematic criticism may have a "kisha club" mentality, the state of criticism as a whole lacks teeth.  Most critics merely gum the plot until it's mashed into baby food bites, and then either spit it out or swallow.  I think it has a great deal to do with the academic disdain in most quarters for classical rhetorical modes, which although perhaps outdated in use, still provide the clarity of structure that criticism currently lacks.

c