There are two general schools of criticism: elitism and populism. Elitism is the school that wants art to be as creative as it can be, even at the expense of enjoyment. Populism is the school that wants art to be as enjoyable as it can be, even at the expense of creativity.
When elitists say that something could have been better, they mean that it could have been more creative, had more depth, addressed heavier issues, and generally been “better for you.” When populists say something could have been better, they generally mean it wasn’t very entertaining.
This is interesting, because most art critics in this world are elitists, because many can no longer stand being populist after consuming volumes of bad art as part of their job. Most average people are populist; when they consume art, they do so because they want to be entertained.
This creates a disconnect between the reviews people read and the assessments people make of art. Many people don’t trust movie reviews, because the chasm between elitist critics and populist viewers has reached a breaking point: The Dark Knight, the second-most popular film in history, didn’t get any meaningful Oscar nods. Frost/Nixon, a movie no one saw, got a Best Picture nomination.
The only way to reconnect viewers with reviews is for the reviewer to assess art in a different light. Instead of being purely populist or purely elitist, I strive to review any piece of art on whether or not it accomplished its stated goals.
Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story is not going to be on any lists for greatest film ever. It’s pure, unadulterated camp. It is ridiculous to the nth degree. Yet, it is a great film, because it accomplishes all the goals it set out: it’s side-splittingly funny, thoroughly entertaining, and it made money. Is it a “good” movie in the sense that Hotel Rwanda is a good movie? No. Is it a good movie even in the way that more cerebral comedies like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou are good? Definitely not. But it is seated squarely in the pantheon of stupid comedies. In addition to being funny, the movie keeps viewers in suspense. The ending is unexpected. The characters are great. The plot moves quickly without languishing in stupid asides. It’s a well-conceived and well-produced film. It’s good, because it accomplishes what it wanted to be. I’d give it an A.
The Science of Sleep is the most elitist film I could possibly imagine. The sets are bizarre, the characters are vague, the plot is nonexistent, and the entire movie may or may not have happened. It’s very pretty, and it’s very creative, in the sense that no one has done it before. But it fails as a piece of movie-making. Even though it is almost 100% creative from a pure creativity standpoint, it doesn’t connect with the viewer. The characters that I am supposed to empathize with fall flat and have no impact. The story, which is supposed to draw me in, left me cold and aloof. The movie, even though it was artsy and inventive, was absolutely terrible. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Now, to a pure elitist, going and suffering through Science of Sleep would be favorable to sitting through Dodgeball. To a populist, there’s no reason to even acknowledge Science of Sleep, because it’s not entertaining.
While the populist’s view is right, it’s right for the wrong reasons. What a film, album, book or any other piece of art attempts to accomplish is the measuring stick by which we need to measure its success or failure. Its chosen genre cannot be measured; the artistic choice was made to place the film squarely in that genre (slasher, stupid comedy, courtroom drama, action flick, psychological thriller, oscar-attention-getter, whatever).
Iron Man can’t be compared as better or worse than School of Rock; they don’t have the same measuring stick. The Royal Tenenbaums and Big Fish can be compared as better or worse than each other; they set out very similar goals, and whether one accomplishes those goals better than the other is where debate and review comes in.
When a film or album accomplishes its goals, it should not be ridiculed for not living up to a standard that “should” be achieved. Garden State could have been a movie about familial reconciliation; Zach Braff’s character could have reconnected with his father and patched things up in a very dysfunctional relationship. But it didn’t. The writers chose it to be a peculiar love story. It is not very helpful to say it should have been a story of familial reconnection; it was not written to be that. I might as well say that America should have chosen John McCain.
Whether or not that would have been better, that is not what happened; I have to evaluate what I physically see with quantifiable systems (you will laugh in this movie, you will cry in this movie, you will think in this movie, you will cheer in this movie). I can not measure a real thing by an imaginary standard (you would have laughed more if this would have happened, you would have cried more if this would have happened).
This is not to say that the critic can not make suggestions of what the artist can do better next time; this is necessary. If a movie failed its goals, I must state why it did so and what the artist can do to make it better. But I can’t give suggestions to make a piece of art that the artist did not want to make. If a man bakes a fabulous cake, it is not helpful to say that he should have made a pie, then give him directions on how to turn his cake into a pie. Not only will the man not do it, it’s physically impossible to turn his cake into a pie at this point. The next thing he makes might be a pie (and, as such, your suggestions may help then), but you can’t recommend that he turn his completed cake into a pie without coming off as a lunatic.
Populists and elitists don’t always occupy their separate camps. Stranger than Fiction was an artsy movie that happened to have Will Ferrell in it; it was enjoyed by a lot of people who don’t usually go to artsy films. Office Space is generally regarded as one of the funniest movies of all time, and it is appreciated by film critics and stoned 7-11 clerks alike. But the goals of those movies were more high-reaching than National Treasure or even That Thing You Do, both movies that accomplished their goals impeccably.
A movie should not be panned simply because it is not the movie the critic wanted to see. If it accomplishes its set goals, it is a good movie. If it does not accomplish its set goals, it is a bad movie (see: Meet the Spartans, Walk the Line, Indiana Jones and the I’m George Lucas and Do Whatever I Want, Star Wars Episode II, The Day after Tomorrow). There are good stupid comedies. There are terrible artsy films. This is how I review things.
