The Pundit

Critiquing the Critics: A Love Letter to Adrian Martin

By Tom Arup ⋅ August 7, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

In his 2004 review of comic book adaptation Catwoman, The Age’s Adrian Martin gave the film four stars. Martin was adamant that the undertones of feminism, mixed with pleasing aesthetics had constructed a ‘fine film’. He was particularly impressed that the film had serious feminist ideals while still being a huge Hollywood blockbuster.

The film was a critical and financial flop, even drawing ire from fans of the genre and character. It won several Razzie Awards, awards for the worst films of the year. Many have said that there is little narrative or character development. Even to me the aesthetics seems forced and overdone.
Martin is a well regarded film reviewer and author of several books on film and culture. He sits highly in what is a well populated community of Australian reviewers, each with their own ideas and approaches to rating the medium, but all facing the same pressures.

I have come to my own personal conclusions as to how a film as critically panned as Pitof’s (Anybody with one name should automatically raise some suspicion.) could earn such a positive review from such a good reviewer.

These are the three options:

a) He had had the best sex of his life in the cinema toilets 10 minutes before the movie, leaving him in such a mood that anything would have been the aesthetically pleasing, feminist masterpiece he described it as;

b) That having suffered short-term deafness and blindness the Braille adaptation of the film he was given was written by Raymond Chandler from beyond the grave, creating a masterpiece of suspense not seen on the big screen;

c) The hallucinogen he took made him see things in the movie that simply weren’t there (Maybe he thought that Catwoman’s S&M outfit represents the tension felt in America in a post September 11 world?).

In April this year, Jim Schembri (The Age) wrote in his article ‘So you want to be a film critic?’ that he dislikes the title ‘film reviewer;’ rather, ‘I prefer ‘film warden.’ This is how I see my job, running around with a whistle and a helmet with ‘W’ painted on it, telling people ‘all clear’ or ‘proceed with caution’ or ‘duck and cover’.’

Upon reflection, Schembri is still happy with this idea of himself. ‘The film warden thing, I am very, very happy with that, because it is like that. I will take the bullet for you [the audience] because in the times we live in there is a lot of crap out there.’

Schembri argues that he acts like a poison taster for the audience. ‘At the end of the day, it is 14 or 15 bucks for one ticket. If you are taking someone out, if it is a night out, you’re talking double that. If you are going to dinner, parking, if you are taking your family, you are talking a chunk of change. Now I don’t want people wasting their time or money.

‘There must also be balance for the reader; they might disagree with you, as they often do…but the idea is to inform the reader and not give some of these flaky, ‘Oh it might be worth checking out’, you know I am really tired of these phrases. If it is worth seeing I’ll tell them; if it’s not I will say that too. I will put qualification in, like it might be a good Friday night movie.’

This approach sees the movie-going audience as consumers, reading reviews largely for the purpose of helping them make choices of ‘product’: particularly important with the ever increasing presence of marketing. A reviewer, in this mindset, acts like a gatekeeper of good and bad to the vulnerable public.

Megan Spencer, reviewer for triple j and SBS, explains it like this: ‘From a purely consumerist aspect of it, we are a navigation tool. We provide information about film, context and opinion. And I think partly the audience will have to trust you, get to know you…I don’t think we are there to make people’s mind up for them, but I think we are there to provide a broad amount of information and also critical opinion within the scheme of things, and the scheme of things is cinema history and cinema culture.’

Schembri argues that his approach is journalistic, as opposed to that of a critic or cinephile. ‘At the end of the day you have to address your responsibilities as a journalist. You are a journalist who works for the reader; it is your job in whatever capacity to keep the interests of the reader at heart.’ He is not the only reviewer to follow this tack and usually these critics cause the most public discussion, often tearing to shreds ‘important’ pictures, while sometimes championing films that are seen by more ’sophisticated’ types as ‘Hollywood pap’. Schembri earlier this year caused a stir with a negative review of Brokeback Mountain.

Spencer, however, insistently flags other roles for reviewers and reviews. ‘Criticism is a critical discourse. I think we are having a discussion with our audience, in the same way a film is having a discourse with its audience, and it up to us to work out what the discussion that the artist is trying to have with the audience might be.’

Spencer comes to reviewing from a different background: film-making. At this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, her documentary Lovestruck: Wrestling’s No.1 Fan (a documentary about wrestling fanatic Sue Chuter) is on show. But Spencer is mindful to offset any perceived biases towards the film industry in her reviews. She contends that her involvement aids her own reviewing. ‘What being a film-maker does is it provides me with knowledge of the process that the film-maker went through… I think I provide a unique viewpoint to film criticism because I make it, but also watching all these films I bring my own understanding of film language to a review.’

The connection between the Australian film industry and reviewers has always been contentious. In August 2002 famed Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz said that she had been gentle on Australian films in the past as, ‘I’ve always been quite open about the fact that I think Australian films deserve a little bit more tenderness than the American films that are thrust down our throats.’ These comments came at a time when the Australian film industry was struggling, and some cultural commentators were arguing that a stronger critical landscape was needed.

The reviews that critics produce are subject to pressure from film industry insiders and popular opinion. With the ever increasing commercialisation of film festivals (even the traditional ‘art’ festivals of Berlin, Venice and Cannes), favourable critical reviews are an imperative for distributors and studios, pushing their annual entries to the international festival and summer blockbuster audiences. In short, there is money, fame, and prestige involved here.

‘I think it is important to be honest,’ says Spencer. ‘I think this whole culture of consensus is bogus, and trying to second-guess the audience is fatal. Writing a review because you think the audience might like it and you don’t want to be out of step with them, that’s not criticism, that is just buying into the commercial imperative, and this consensus thing is just crap really.’

Adrian Martin goes further. ‘I think it’s imperative for critics to try to shut out at least some of the ‘consensus opinion’, which is usually manufactured by the commercial industry and its powerful vested interests, and not true ‘popular opinion’Ôø?Ôø?and to try to see a film fresh. After they have a feeling and an idea about the film, then they can deal with all the crap in the media about it, if they want or need to.

‘I stand by this review [Catwoman] all the way, until the end of time!’ says Martin. ‘I went to this film ‘direct’Ôø?Ôø?not via the killing hype that turned everyone against this fine movie. I found it’and believe I argued this logically’a very intelligent as well as exciting and stylish movie. But it’s a modern feminist movie from Hollywood, and they are not such great box office at present… People should think for themselves about movies, not follow the industry gossip, which is even more of a tidal wave in the internet age.’

When someone reads a review they should be reading an individual reaction to a film, devoid of hype and commercial influence. Erin Free reviewer for Filmink.com.au puts it like this, ‘I think it’s impossible for a critic to be impartial. You can’t really review a film solely on its technical merits or on how it ‘works’. Reviewing is largely about the effect that a film has on your personally. Your specific tastes will always come into it.’

Spencer thinks that the audience should play favourites with reviewers. You should get to know a reviewer and trust their tastes and judgment. And so here is why I trust Martin. I didn’t like Catwoman, but I liked his review. Martin says, ‘For me, quite simply, every film reviewer should strive to be a film critic’that is, someone who is erudite and intelligent, who writes well, who knows their subject. Sometimes complex things can be condensed into a quite short journalistic piece. That’s a challenge, not a limitation.’

Maybe one day someone will adapt his Catwoman review for the big screen and I will die a happy man.