3698
« on: July 11, 2002, 12:57:59 PM »
I think 42 has a point here, though I'm not sure if it's the point he just reinforced. Above, he said:
"The problem is that critics and movie buffs can take a lot more than the average film-goer. They simply have become less sensitive to emotional manipulation and have higher tolerance levels. "--42
To which Kid said:
"It's nice to be able to say that an intelligent, insightful expert on a genre like Roger Ebert is out of touch and easily manipulated, but I doubt you'd be able to convince many people of that."--Kid
42 said that Ebert would be LESS sensitive to manipulation. I think 42 grazed something larger, however. I think that by seeing so many movies, and becoming so much of an expert on them, you start to enjoy them for different reasons. This is perhaps the biggest conundrum in criticism. By becoming a critic, you begin to lose touch with the interests of people not as fluent in the genre as yourself.
In example, I put forward writing books. Not to tout my abilities--it's rather unaligned with abilities, it simply has to do with time spent--but I have written so much, and looked into the philosophy of fiction writing so much, that I can no longer read and enjoy a fiction novel. As I read one, I dissect, trying to discover what the author is doing, why he/she is doing it, and how I can learn from it. I can't just read a book anymore, and I've started liking books for different reasons.
I think the same thing happens with movie experts. They begin to look for different items than the average, inexperienced person, and so their reviews lose potency.
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