It’s a well known saying that those that can’t do, teach. We could just as easily say that those that can’t create, critique. Before we all get carried away and say things that we don’t mean let me state one thing: I am a critic. I write about art and music for a number of different outlets, thinking about them from a critical standpoint. If there’s anyone who can critique the critic, I think that I have a fair idea of what the job constitutes. We spend our lives listening to the thoughts of the chosen few, taking their expertise and inside knowledge as a given. For many of us, even if we think a film or a book is really wonderful, if our favourite critic didn’t get it, our enjoyment is tinged somewhat. We all know, of course, that everything is subjective, yet why is it that the subjective opinion of some seems more valid than those of others?
Throughout art and indeed, all facets of life, the figure of the critic is anticipated with terror, reducing the most stalwart of creators to the most trembling of blubbering wrecks. And for what? In reality, reviews and critiques aren’t worth the paper they’re written on; they’re merely a way for us to categorise the sheer volume of work put in front of us, to reject some with the flip of a hand and to embrace others in just as swift an action. In truth, the critic exists because we need an easy way to differentiate between what’s good and what’s bad. Whilst everyone is free to make up their own minds, in the commercially oversaturated world in which we live, sometimes it’s easier if someone else has done some of the legwork for us.
We loathe and love the critic in equal measures; when they’re on our side, they’re our best friend, when they’re against us, they are entirely worthless. In film, the figure of the critic is played up even more so, blown up to giant proportions, taking on the guise of a pantomime villain. In different areas of life, however, the figure of the critic differs. In one space terrifying, in another, laughable, the critic is a figure that we all love to hate.
The food critic is arguably a force to be reckoned with and in cinema, there’s an abundance to choose from. There seems to be little more terrifying than the thought of presenting a plate of lovingly prepared food in front of the nose of a sniffing critic. In Big Night, things are blown even more out of proportion when, in a last bid to save his failing restaurant, Chefs Primo and Secondo (we see what you did there, Stanley Tucci) invite a world famous bandleader, Louis Prima to sample their food and win them recognition. Whilst not a critic as we would know it, Prima is an incredibly important figure, potentially bringing the brothers the acclaim and adoration they so crave. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t show up. Prima’s absence in the film marks the importance of the critic figure; when he fails to manifest, it says that the Chefs’ restaurant isn’t even worth the paper of a review. Even when they fail to comment, the critic can leave an impact.
Ratatouille, however, features a food critic of an entirely different kind. Telling the unlikely story of a rat who dreams of becoming a chef, the film holds up the food critic in the highest, most earth shattering regard, capable of bringing the most established food masters to an untimely death. Despite the film’s preconceptions of the critic figure, things don’t remain bad for long and after convincing established critic Eno of his talents, the rat enjoys the acclaim and comfort he so craved. The potential power of the critic is never greater than in Ratatouille but the fine balance between power and disregard is also made clear. Whilst Eno has the power to make or break a restaurant, a bad review could also cost him his career. In the end, he learns to follow his heart (and stomach) and enjoy what makes him happy.
The food critic seems an easy competitor in the face of our next figurehead. Truly, was there a person ever more daunting, judgmental or haughty as the music critic? Within classical circles especially, the music critic is very well respected, held up on a pedestal more virtuous than the musicians themselves. Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher has a central figure so twisted and strange that even her own pupils run from her lessons in fear. A critic in a different sense, Erika Kohut judges the talents of others as a way of displacing her sadomasochistic tendencies. Her actions often become violent and in a particularly distressing scene, result in her physically harming her pupils for her own gain. In The Piano Teacher, the critic’s actions aren’t about the talents of her pupils but rather, her own inability to be happy and live out her desires. It’s not about the talent; it’s about her.
Most recently, Birdman has depicted the theatre critic, focusing on the tense and childish relationship between actor and judge. In a particularly memorable scene, Michael Keaton’s Riggan Thomson comes face to face with the mean spirited theatre critic who will judge his own work. Hanging around Broadway like a black widow in waiting, critic Tabitha Dickinson seems to be waiting to run into the actors she so detests, promising to grant only true talent positive reviews, no matter how much she hates them personally. And boy, does Dickinson hate actors. It seems that, rather in a love for theatre, she has entered the world of criticism only to rain down hate on those who are doing what they love and should any not fit into her rigid requirements, they will be utterly ruined. Birdman shows how destructive the critic can be when we give them omnipotent control over their realm and indeed, should be a warning to all of us.
Critiques enable us to simply categorise the sheer volume of work out there but when we take it all too seriously, it can read like a dictatorship on art; we forget that we each have a voice. Whilst it’s good to share opinions, let’s open up the field a little more. The critics of today have had their turn and it’s time they learned to have the attention of the public focused elsewhere.