- begyndelsen på Esquire-enqute ved Corey Atad, hvor 9 filmkritikere afslører film, de ændrede mening om:
"A
lot of readers like to think of critics as people who give definitive
statements: "Here's my opinion, take it as a fact." Images abound of the
critic as a sort of elite, sitting in their ivory tower, throwing barbs
at cultural objects with the fortitude of a person who thinks their
subjective opinion stands as objective reality. They're all Anton Ego
from Ratatouille—steadfast, overly discerning, and often jaded, unable to really enjoy
anything. Of course, there is no objectivity in criticism, and just
like with anyone else, a critic's experience, knowledge, taste, and
preferences will evolve over time. Sometimes, they'll even change their
mind!
In November, the film and TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote in New York Magazine about his experience with Todd Solondz's Happiness,
a film he initially hated, but about which he discovered, in time, how
wrong he was. In the magazine, Seitz wrote, "I was one of the few New
York critics who was not entirely enthused by [Welcome to the Dollhouse], his 1995 breakthrough, and I hated Happiness.
Just hated it." Seitz held that position for a long time, even as he
saw and enjoyed other films by the director. "I'd seen most, though not
all, of Solondz's films and the only one that made me almost violently
reject it was Happiness." Seitz wrote. "I watched Happiness again 12 years after first reviewing it and thought it was amazing."
In
his article, Seitz goes on to talk about offering his mea culpa to the
director of the film himself, in person. The funny thing about Seitz's
story is that such changes of heart are far more common for critics than
many might expect. Critics are people, too, of course. Personally, I
can still remember my first time watching The Godfather,
a movie I only came to in my early 20s. I thought it was impressively
made, with a few standout sequences, but overall dull and too long. How
bold of me to dislike a classic! Of course, another viewing a couple of
years later set me straight. Sometimes we get things wrong. Sometimes
our minds change, or our taste, or our experience. So it goes.
In
thinking about Seitz's story, and the times my own opinion has changed
on a film, I asked several other film critics to share their stories of
films they've had a change of heart over."
- og her er en hurtigt citatmosik af litterære anmeldelser, der gik helt vrang:
- "“Scott Fitzgerald’s new novel, The Great Gatsby, is in form no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that.”
- “In the course of 277 pages, the reader wearies of [Salinger’s] explicitness, repetition and adolescence, exactly as one would weary of Holden himself.”
- “It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.”
- “How a human being could have attempted such a book as [Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights] without committing suicide before he [sic] had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors. …”
- “If the printing of such trash as [Wordsworth’s poetry] be not felt as an insult on the public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.”"
- YOU'RE WELCOME!
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