Why Reading Criticism is Good For You
by Alison Wielgus
One evening, not too long ago, I was attending the Broadway play The Lieutenant of Inishmore with a friend. The play has received excellent notices from most major theater critics and posters for the show are splattered with phrases like “This is the funniest show in town, and a guaranteed adrenaline booster. See it.” This quote, from The New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, makes that show seem like something appealing to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest audiences. But when I was at the show, many people were appalled by what they saw and walked out of the play (and the only other time I’ve seen someone walk out of a Broadway show was at Assassins a few years ago), disrupting our viewing experience.
Now, I understood why people walked out of the play. It’s about Irish terrorism, and features many, many acts of torture, violence, and bloodshed. If they had read Brantley’s entire review, they would have come across lines like “Gore and guts will be served in generous portions… if your stomach is reasonably strong, you should find the disgusting spectacle that opened last night at the Atlantic Theater Company appallingly entertaining… Mr. McDonagh [the author of the play] raises the carnage factor to a level that rivals Quentin Tarantino's.” Even if you haven’t seen a Quentin Tarantino movie, titles like Kill Bill and the tale of a diabetic fainting while watching Pulp Fiction should make an audience member realize they’re not going to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
This willingness to see any kind of entertainment without properly preparing for it seems to be prevalent among audiences of both film and theater events. The Lieutenant of Inishmore is an extreme example of why it’s helpful to read a review, or at least look for more information on something than a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Since advertisements emphasize quick, snappy lines from reviews, it often seems that’s all the public looks for when deciding to go see a movie or play. Most of the time they’ll only hurt themselves by doing this; they’ll see a movie or a play that’s not quite right for them and won’t have as good of a time. But they’ll often do a disservice to the other members of the audience whose enjoyment of a film in the movie theater is often dependent on how other filmgoers feel. There are few things that are more awkward than being the only person laughing at jokes in a theater, and there are few things as elating as laughing along with an entire crowd.
By ignoring the critics, you’re also doing a disservice to the critics themselves. In a recent article sparked by the massive chasm between some of the most financially successful films and their box office receipts this summer, A.O. Scott, the chief film critic of The New York Times, said in the response to the question of why critics should review movies, that “We [critics] take entertainment very seriously, which is to say that we don’t go to the movies for fun. Or for money. We do it for you.” Criticism is something that the public should delight in taking the opportunity to read and garner information from.
Since we’ve had the arts, we’ve had critics. Despite oft-quoted opinions like “Those who can – do. Those who can’t – criticize,” some of the most talented writers of the past hundred years have had a hand in writing film or theater criticism. Writers like Ralph Ellison, the author of Invisble Man, Susan Sontag, the famed intellectual, and Carl Sandburg, the Illinoisan poet, have all written about film in their time. Anyone who picks up an issue of The New Yorker or New York Magazine can easily find a high level of criticism that engages with its subject and makes itself accessible to readers who aren’t quite as film savvy as the critics. If one follows criticism closely enough, he’ll find reviewers he likes and dislikes, and some that he trusts almost implicitly, convincing him to see shows and films he never would have seen otherwise. By reading criticism closely, one can also see why it’s so necessary to really read a review, which will not only tell you a critic’s opinion of the performances, mise-en-scène, and cinematography, but why they felt that way about all of those things. For example, if a critic despises scatological humor found in a film like The Aristocrats, but you love it, then there’s no reason for you to have the same opinion.
At best, a critic can become a trusted source of advice on which film or play to see (or to not see), and at worst, a critic can simply be ignored. Critics may not hold the power they once did, and bad critics are all over (especially because of the internet), but some still as compelling as ever. In today’s market, with so many films of little to no substance and with the lack of press that many of the smaller plays or foreign films get, it’s always necessary to look at the critics just to get a taste of the broader and deeper world of entertainment that actually does exist.
