Peter Bogdanovich: Critics Are Garbage
“Who is so dumb as to wait to read or hear what a critic thinks before they go see a film?’ Bogdanovich said. “Are you that dumb?”
Peter Bogdanovich and I were both edited by Victoria Wilson at Alfred A. Knopf. Vicky sent Peter a galley of "Follies of God," and he liked it, agreeing to give us a blurb. I thanked him in an email, and he replied. Many times. Peter was the type to open an email with "One more thing..." and off he would go. Eventually, we began to speak by phone.
I found him fascinating. Mercurial. I was always happy to receive an email from his unique address: pb9@luckymail.com or a phone call that typically began with “Are you ready for this?”
However, there was the time Peter became enraged with me. I had made a mortal mistake and had referred to him as a "critic."
"Critics are mostly garbage," he yelled at me. "I have no time for critics. What the hell is a critic, anyway? They have failed, and now they peck at the work of those who take the risks and try to do something. There have been exceptions, but most of them are parasites. I wrote about film from the perspective of an appreciator of films. There are some critics who do this. I will explain this to you."
Okay, I replied, explain this to me.
“I think there are higher standards for those who write about music and art,” Bogdanovich explained, “because so few people can hit those notes or can stand before a canvas and create a work of art. But the so-called critic of film or theatre can sit down and opine about what he or she sees, and this person is suddenly a critic, an authority, despite the fact that I cannot name one film critic who knows how a film is made or distributed. Not one. I have been fond of several critics, but they will eviscerate a film, a director, an actor over aspects of a film that are beyond their understanding and far beyond the control of anyone in the film.”
Examples? I asked.
“I directed a couple of scenes in Love Streams [for John Cassavetes], and a couple of critics used those scenes to tear down John for ‘lazy’ tricks and effects. I will admit that a director owns any film that bears his name, but why didn’t the critics simply write that those scenes felt fake or tinny? Why did they then launch into an attack on what they felt were the waning talents of a director? [Note: I have not been able to find these reviews.]
“The worst was Pauline Kael, an often brilliant writer who never got a fact about films right in her entire writing career. I would talk to her, and she would ask the most puerile questions, indicating that she had never been present at a single meeting with studio executives, had never witnessed a battle with a studio head, had never been on a set when a film is plunged into crisis. Pauline felt that a film happened with all the ease she enjoyed taking a cab to a screening room, where she would blow raspberries or make loud sighs. Just an awful, ugly bitch. I’m not a fan of John Gregory Dunne, but his review of her various errors is perfect. [This piece can be found in Regards.]
“Neither Kathleen Carroll nor Judith Crist could write well. They were two of the most boring people ever born, but Judith justified herself with her seminars, where she at least gave the appearance of trying to learn just how films are made. Rex Reed once confessed to me that he wanted to be an actor: He aspired to a career like that of George Grizzard. Okay, so he failed at that, and now he has adopted this epicene mien of Waldo Lydecker [the character played by Clifton Webb in the Otto Preminger film Laura] and just shits on everyone and everything. Who let him in? I think editors thought he was punchy and quotable and the gentleman bitch everyone loves to hate, so he gets column inches, but what makes him a critic? What makes anyone qualified to be a critic? A love of movies? Well, if you love them, mourn them when they fail: Don’t break into a dance of joy because all of your meanest phrases can be put to use. It’s not an audition for you to become a wit: It is a devastating moment for a lot of people who did not, as Lois Smith, told you, set out to make a piece of shit. And then Vincent Canby, a failed novelist…”
I interjected here to say that I thought this was unfair. I had read one of Canby’s novels—Living Quarters—and felt he had some talent. Also, I had met Canby through Lois Smith, and I enjoyed his company. I did not feel that he was cruel or that he enjoyed watching films that didn’t work. Bogdanovich ridiculed me. “Oh, well,” he said, “you met him through Lois, so he could kidnap and behead a child, and you would forgive him.”
How the hell did you arrive at that? I asked him.
“Well, I do think you’re an appreciator. I don’t think you wrote your book with the idea that you knew anything,” he said.
I told Bogdanovich that I was not writing a biography or theatre history. I did not pretend to be omniscient. I was Tennessee Williams’ witness, and I presented what he told me, went where he told me to go.
“And that is what a critic should be,” Bogdanovich said. “A witness. He or she can say ‘I didn’t like it,’ or ‘It didn’t work for me,’ but don’t pretend to know what goes into a film or how one is made or what choices a director or an actor made.”
Yes, I countered, but readers do want to know if they should see a film.
“Who is so dumb as to wait to read or hear what a critic thinks before they go see a film?’ Bogdanovich said. “Are you that dumb?”
I might be dumb, I replied, but I had to admit that when someone with a writing ability and a dedication to films [such as Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris] writes something, it can help me decide if I want to see a film, or see it again, and I often return to a film with a different attitude, looking for different things.
“Molly and Andrew are okay,” Peter admitted. “I think they love films. I think they care if they work. I don’t recall them ever employing a machete to a film or its director or its cast. I think they are more in the journalistic tradition of film criticism, rather than the sickly personal form. You know, I was a budding young woman and my first period made its warm, scarlet appearance right in the middle of the lovely scene where Leonard Whiting looked with love upon Olivia Hussey.”
I remarked that he had just uttered a pretty good line. Maybe he should consider being a critic.
“Asshole,” he replied, but he chuckled. It was a chuckle that sounded like bales of dessicated wheat being stepped upon, but, still, a chuckle. “Answer the question: Who decides who becomes a critic? What are the requirements? Who let them in?”
I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But I am happy to report that Molly Haskell is completing a memoir that just might answer the question for us.