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| Photo credit: nytimes.com |
A.O. Scott is a film critic at the New York Times. Before joining the New York Times in
2000, Scott wrote for Newsday, Slate and the New York Review of Books.
Scott writes fantastic reviews. His writing is crisp, his opinions are well founded and most
importantly, his reviews show that he really does love movies. This
is the most important requirement for the job. You must love films to be a film critic. And A.O. Scott definitely does.
In the introduction for the “Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made” on
the New York Times’ website, Scott writes that the purpose of reviews is to
start arguments, rather than settle them.
He says that arguments are “one of the solemn duties of criticism and,
most importantly, one of the great pleasures of movie-going.” That said, Scott doesn’t believe in
sugarcoating. His writing is
brilliant because it isn’t reigned in.
Scott writes what he thinks and if it’s going to start controversy,
then all the better. Controversy,
according to Scott, is every great critic’s goal.
But Scott
doesn’t try to pretend that his reviews aren’t biased or flawed; rather, he
embraces the fallibility of his writing and the writing of other critics like
him. He understands that while
films may survive the test of time, individual critics most likely will not. And this is how it should be. After all, as Scott notes, “While film
critics are only human, the movies are divine.”
Melanie,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for taking this assignment and doing exactly what I was hoping for. As someone who wrote arts criticism for more than 20 years, I think — no, I know — that it's important to have a kind of avatar, someone who's writing you respect and admire and want to emulate.
A.O. Scott is certainly a good role model. I, like you, find his writing to be fair and even-handed. More important, as you pointed out, he loves the thing he is writing about. That means that he never writes about it in a mean or snarky way. I know that might be popular today, but I don't think that's a good way to approach a subject.
I really like the way that you are approaching the subjects you are writing about -- with both enthusiasm for the subjects and sympathy for the people involved. I think that is a winning combination.
Keep going!
DCS