Film Criticism: A Basic Conflict

I am studying classical film criticism, mostly Auteur Theory (which I will get into much greater depth later). I have studied most of this in the past, but I am bringing a new angle to this research now that I am not being forced to do it by graduation requirements. There exists in classical film criticism, and I assume most artistic study, a number of basic conflicts.

Auteur Theory, for instance, rose out of a specific set of socio-economic conditions in a very specific place and time (post-WWII France.) One could just as easily study the early incarnations of the theory in the context of those conditions, filmmakers and theorists (in this case, the same people) who developed it. It is often said that a historical work is more a reflection of the author and author's society than the subject, because there is no such thing as an unbiased account. Within these contexts, Auteur Theory may be the most important development in the industry of filmmaking, at least for a small group of people within a small subset of time. Here enters the most basic conflict in criticism in general, thanks to modern criticism: Even if Auteur Theory is relevant or even important in such a narrow place and time, film itself is a commodity, a reflection of capitalistic forces. Auteur theory cannot grant artful status upon this commodity any more than classical economics can bestow artful status upon any other assembly line product. The conflict is this: no matter how elegant or interesting studying these other contexts of production and product may be, the just don't mean anything; it is useless.

Trust me, there is no better way to turn off college kids on a subject than to force them to spend many precious, sleep-deprived hours reading incredibly dry material on tightly focused topics, and then to spend ten minutes in lecture telling them that, in the end those hundred pages of text are worthless. Modern criticism has morphed into a study of audiences, not works or artists. Art can only be defined through its interaction with an audience, regardless of the creator, the production method or even the work itself. Audience is king.

This is nothing new. We now shift the labeling of artistic status from one determining context (production or aurthorship) to another (audience interaction). This modern critical framework is essentially the same equation as other older models: the same result, the same operations, just different variables. The real problem is the fact that modern criticism is so good at marginalizing the other methods. It allows a model, such as Auteur theory to be as elegant and interesting as it wants, but at the end of the day, my context means that yours is entirely meaningless in the conversation of film as art.

Even modern criticism has its own detractors and even nullifiers. In fact, some of the most basic elements of every new school are the elements that cancel out the other leading contemporary or historically important thoughts. This perpetual conflict within criticism numbs the field to everyone but the most ardent disciples of one binary school or another. Unless you are extremely vested in one theory or another (like the authors of the Cahier du Cinema) you are very likely to see all of film criticism as a pointless exercise of ego-stroking.

However, there is another angle we can take. If we return to studying the context of these theories, we can make these theories more relevant and therefore more useful for our modern applications. The contexts of digital production, the state of Hollywood and our current recession economy are not a unique combination. What makes Auteur Theory so attractive to me, is the fact that the French politique des Auteurs, the groundwork for Auteur Theory, was developed as a responds to the conditions of that time and place, and was subsequently a trigger for real change in that world. I believe what has really prevented the "digital revolution" of filmmaking is that the potential foot soilders in this uprising are ignoring the contexts that we live in. Once we turn a critical eye to these contexts, we may be able to follow in the footsteps of Truffaut and Goddard, and make a real impact on the modern economics of filmmaking.