Chapter 10 Film Criticism and Interpretation What Criticism

Chapter 10: Film Criticism and Interpretation

What Criticism Does ä Uncovers subtle or implicit meaning ä Clarifies contradictory meanings ä Creates a novel interpretation ä Uses rhetoric to persuade

Modes of Criticism ä Newspaper and television reviews ä Aimed at a general audience ä Tells the moviegoer whether a film is worth seeing ä The reviewer gives a highly personal and emotional response to films ä Gives plot summary ä Little discussion of film structure or historical context

ä General Interest Journal-based Criticism ä More literate and informed criticism than newspaper and TV reviewing ä Offers more sophisticated portrait of a film’s structure, meaning and historical context ä Pauline Kael

ä Scholarly criticism ä Aimed at smaller community of readers and film scholars ä Does not serve the consumer function of the other modes ä Little attention paid to issues of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ä Detailed treatment of film history, theory, structure

Creating Criticism ä Three stages in the creation of criticism ä Identification ä ä ä Description ä ä ä Proceeds deductively Based on a pre-existing framework of interpretation Requires precise terminology Selection of details to support the framework of interpretation Interpretation ä Assigning meaning to a scene or film ä Uncovering latent meaning

Attributional Errors ä Errors of intended meaning ä Errors in assigning authorship