The Film Critic, the Historian, the Pundit, and Democracy

There's an excellent article today at Salon about film criticism. I love Salon. They have great articles, and solid writing. They are broke, unfortunately, and have had to require subscription to see much of the site, particularly politics. So rarely comment on their site. Today however, Charles Taylor, writes an article on the necessity of FIlm Critics. He is responding to an article in Daily Variety, which slammed critics as being elitist and unnecessary. Taylor, as a critic, comes back with a somewhat nebulous argument on the value of criticism. He points out that movie makers would love to get rid of criticism as a bad review could and does hurt movies.

However he also grapples with one of the key problems with film criticism; anybody can do it. He tries to defend the critics, say, "It risks the elitist label to say that critics should know more than their readers about movies, but it's really just common sense. Don't we expect a foreign correspondent to know more about the Middle East or equatorial Africa than the readers do? Do we second-guess our plumbers about our clogged drains, or our doctor about our clogged arteries? But expertise in an area where everyone assumes they are an expert is assumed to be snobbery."

This idea, that anybody can be an expert in films, applies elsewhere. Anybody can be an expert in history for example. I've had historical discussions with people based on half remembered high school classes, stories their grandpa told them, and theories picked up on the internet or elsewhere. It is difficult in those discussions to say, "Well, nothing i've read in the dozens of books i've reviewed, argues that or provides any information to support that position." When argueing with a Historian, he or she would be required to point to evidence, and that gives one a solid point to pound against. But argueing history with a non-historian is often like punching fog--there's nothing solid to latch on to, no proof, just an opinion. And tearing down someones opinion based on your own personal authority does make one feel like a bit of a snob or elitist.

Politics is another area where this problem exists. We are all citizens of the United States, and as such we should all be experts in the politics of the day. But of course many of us aren't. And both parties and their spokesmen have a vested information in obfuscating certain facts. Perhaps we should have a special class of people, designed to study the issues of the day, and present to us their opinions, which we normal people could then follow. We could call them Pundits or Commentators. Wait a minute, we already have Pundits and Commentators. And they obfuscate as much as anybody. So what's the solution? How do we negotiate between the scylla of Expertise and the Charybdis of Democracy? Anybody with a definitive answer, e-mail me.

Incidently, movie critics and commentators aren't picked for their knowledge, however much Mr. Taylor might want to suggest that. They are picked for their ability to present their information well. Either they write well, or they look smart on tv. But you already knew that.