And that, asHatchet Jobcontinues to thrive in paperback, is where we started… Youve done Q&As with the people whove read your book, and who you wrote it for.
And I loved that film,Life Itself.
I thought it was really, really wonderful.
So the thing that was good about doing the tour…
I talk for 45 minutes, and do 45 minutes of Q&A.
Firstly, people came along to see a film critic talk for an hour and a half.
More importantly, they were as much engaged with film criticism as they have ever been.
We would always run out of time, there would always be more questions than you could answer.
And what I said to all of them was its like anything else.
There is a community of writing, and good writing will out.
But the thing is that you have to approach the right people.
You have to find sites that you admire, who you think are doing the job properly.
And then approach them.
One of the great things about online writing is that its easier to internet.
It is possible to get your voice heard.
We had some off the back of your tour, oddly enough.
Was that a good or a bad thing?
Its never a bad thing!
But thats always been the case.
The fact is that its not something that everybody can do, or everybody wants to do.
In truth, weve had people where its taken five or six days.
It may be that all the time frames are compressing, and that things are speeding up.
Thats a good thing as far as Im concerned!
I dont want 100 new film critics every week.
Most people, after a while, realise its not what they want to do, and move on.
But the culture of writing now is very much freelance-driven, by necessity more than desire.
And if youre trying to break into writing now, youre inevitably going to be freelance.
And then freelance is arguably 50% about selling your work, as much as the writing itself.
Im sure thats the case.
Im still now a freelancer.
Ive always been self-employed.
For some of us who never knew what a staff job was, that wasnt such a good thing.
Thats kind of the thing that we all live by.
I do think that anyone who really wants to be a film critic, you should encourage them.
Obviously when it gets to what youre doing, the question becomes well are you any good?.
I remember atSight & Sound, there was an open door, but it was very strict.
Are you actually good enough to do this?
It was all about bashing you into shape.
So I think that there is as much enthusiasm and knowledge as there ever was, maybe more so.
Some of the best writers are online.
Clearly the question is how do you make a living out of it.
I think the chips are still in the air.
Newspapers still havent quite figured out whether its paid-for content or advertising.
The internet is not going to cause the end of that marketplace.
The internet has destroyed all of that.
Well, its nonsense.
He writes about the internet with the airy authority of someone whos never been on it.
Who has read about it in books.
It reads well, but its not true.
What the internet has done, in inverted commas, is democratised voices?
Its just demonstrably not true.
I read Will Selfs review of your book.
And it does raise the question as to how you distil criticism of your own work?
Of course it does.
Ive had good and bad reviews: you remember the bad ones, you dont remember the good ones!
But the first thing you do when you read any piece of criticism is ask yourself whether its right.
One of the things Ive always said about the book is that the sales leapt up the next day!
Did that happen because everyone read the review and said Will Self doesnt know what hes talking about?
It happened because it was half a page.
This is why when people say criticism damaged it: no it didnt!
Stuart Barr is a writer I admire very much.
Our relationship began because I did a review of a found footage movie.
As a result of what he said, I did a blog about how he was right.
And thats how our relationship began.
But what nobody should do is see criticism as a negative thing.
You have to do what you want to do.
Its not a beauty contest.
You do something, and its was it what you wanted it to be.
The only criticism that really hurts is when someone points out something [that youve got wrong yourself].
And it was to do with the fact that modern critics have their screenings stacked.
So you have a Monday today where youll have to see four or five films back to back.
Does that, then, make you slightly generous?
Even too generous to the ones later in the day?
Its not to do with later in the day.
One of things about being a film critic is that everybody imagines you become incredibly bitter and twisted.
And you hate everything.
That all that film critics do is go this is rubbish, this is rubbish, this is rubbish.
Actually, the opposite happens.
And in any given week youre seeing seven, eight, nine, ten films.
Despite what everyone thinks, its harder to praise engagingly than it is to snipe.
You remember you really liked it, so you start watching it and go, oh, okay.
Again, that ties into something in the book, that thats the risk to your reputation.
Its much more risky to praise something than it is to criticise it.
Thats all the more reason to do it.
In the end, your reviews are only worth as much as you have to lose.
Can we touch on your exchange, then, with Joe Cornish on your radio programme.
It went against the perception that a filmmaker doesnt have a right to reply.
And we had a very good discussion about it.
I thought it was a great bit of radio, and Im really proud of it.
I dont think filmmakers should pay any attention to critics at all.
And I think that filmmakers should feel utterly justified to say what they want about criticism.
Opinions are everything, and it is just opinions.
As long as you understand thats what it is.
Yes, but thats a mistake.
I didnt like his movie, thats perfectly fine.
I didnt write the review for him, and he didnt make the film for me.
But what was interesting about Joe was that he was engaging with it.
It wasnt a case of him saying I like this or I dont like this.
It was more saying that I want to have this out.
And Im really proud of the programme for having enough space to allow him to do that.
I dont agree with him, but I thought he argued the point very well.
Which has always been my position anyway.
Audiences make up their own mind.
In the case ofAttack The Block, the posters were selling it as akin toShaun Of The Dead.
That was the crux of it.
But you talk, say, aboutTransformers 4.
You said beforehand that you have to go in with an open mind.
That this might be the film of the year.
Can you purely do that?
I think you have to.
But its like anything else: its discipline.
Yes, itd be easy to go in with preconceptions, and Im sure we all do.
But you should strive not to.
You should at least try not to.
I thinkBad Boyswas kind of fun when it came out.
And we all watchThe Rock, but that was a long time ago.
But that was okay.
But I did go intoPain And Gainthinking okay, hes made an art house movie.
And its lesser budget, script driven… is this going to be the Guy Ritchie moment?
Where you suddenly go Oh!
And then it was horrible.
Beyond my wildest dreams it was horrible.
But I promise you that until the moment the film started, I had an open mind.
And how that got to him.
That he couldnt avoid it getting to him.
Have you experienced filmmakers who have had a similar reaction to your criticism?
Or appreciated the impact its had on them?
There are filmmakers who do that.
And there are filmmakers with whom I have subsequently become friends.
I dont have many filmmaker friends, and I think thats quite a good thing.
You think this, but actually this.
Some years later he changed his tune a little bit, but hes always been very engaged with it.
But its up to the filmmaker whether they want to read reviews or not read reviews.
Its up to the filmmaker to take criticism.
Other filmmakers, as a rule, just dont have anything to do with film criticism.
And its up to them.
Well, thats a very dangerous precedent.
And yet the opposite has been taught in at least one case.
Its the only case I know of, to be fair.
In a way, from a very cynical point of view, it would kind of make sense.
Which is not a surprise.
Hey, try and get the people onside.
I think its best not to, though.
But how healthy do you think that is?
That for someone so early in their critical career to meet the people theyre criticising?
Youve talked about discipline a lot.
So I think that is difficult.
We might as well have been meeting on a railway platform.
They might not even have clocked you were there.
I dont know that thats a problem.
Theres not like a relationship formed thats going to be threatened.
What I do think is that film journalism isnt about meeting filmmakers.
Film journalism is about writing about film.
You could be the best film journalist in the world without ever meeting or interviewing a filmmaker.
you oughta remember that.
Youre not a columnist or a profiler.
Sometimes, those things can be really interesting or really useful.
And I do find those conversations interesting.
But thats not the meat and potatoes of film criticism.
The meat and potatoes is watching films and talking about them.
Everything else is sort of tangential.
You shouldnt ever think ooh, Im in a room with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Im doing really well!
Our record was we were offered three minutes with Jerry Bruckheimer.
[Laughs]
Its the reason we do so few interviews!
That doesnt surprise me.
Im very lucky with the show I do with Simon Mayo, because he does most of the interviews.
Is that a deliberate divide?
Firstly, hes a better interviewer than I am anyway.
Secondly, I dont really like interviews.
Unless its a filmmaker Im really interested in, or fascinated by.
Its not the thing I live to do.
There will be some cases in which I am interested, and I do want to talk to them.
But I think its a good idea to keep the film separate.
Youre not reviewing the filmmaker, youre reviewing the film.
Where the accusation is that youre dim for not seeing something in a film that others did.
That I cant believe you missed it thing.
But does everyone have that point?
Well, its more obvious if youve read the source.
But you wrote this line: I no longer trust myself when it comes to judging movies.
And yet thats what you do?
Heres what I think in the end.
Film criticism isnt to do with passing judgement on something.
Its to do with writing about something.
There is an element of that.
The older you get, the more you tend to write about films, rather than pass judgement.
Its one of the reasons I hate star ratings.
That was the deal that we struck
But do you put the stars on yourself?
Yeah, I do.
Because if I didnt, somebody else would.
But I dont like them.
One of my plans at one point was to give everything three stars.
What you want to do is discuss all those things.
If I look at the criticism that I really like now, it is discursive.
Its people talking about films, rather than judging films.
Thats not to say theres not an element of judgement: of course there is.
But look at the way Ebert would write about stuff, or Phillip French.
To which the answer is thats not the point!
The point is did you learn something about it?
Were you engaged with it?
Film criticism is secondary text stuff.
The primary text is the film, the secondary text is writing about the film.
But its also a legitimate thing to say I like it as much as I said in the review.
Sometimes you’re free to feel people dancing around judgement.
And weve all been guilty of it.
Its just not that simple.
That said, yes, you do have to be honest about your gut feeling.
But it is all personal.
Thats the other thing: objective film criticism is just nonsense.
In the end, whether it worked for you or not is utterly subjective.
Yeah, but thats a perfectly legitimate response.
It was as I was writing it.
And all I could say was Wait, too soon!
It wasnt because I wanted to protect my thoughts.
It was two days before I could actually start to piece together what I did think of it.
Youve talked in the past about first but wrong.
Thats a big thing for me.
Weve touched in the past on the PR industry, that is pushing for faster and faster reactions.
After a certain amount of time I dont really do instant reactions they stop asking you.
One of the reasons I dont do that is that my living is the reviews.
If I blow it online beforehand, then whats the point?
This is what I do for a living!
And lots of that goes on.
It really is, and I think thats very difficult.
And when it happens you go, oh, Ive arrived!
And then you… hmmm.
Somebody said recently that I never get quoted on posters.
And I was kind of rather proud of that.
Sometimes a single-edged sword.
Sometimes theres only a downside to it.
I can relate fully to the thrill of the first time.
I think you mean the animated feature.
Yeah!Rango, rather thanDjango!
But how does a critic, particularly a new one, stay apart from the marketing pressure?
Is that possible if you need access to see films in the first place?
Its definitely true that the longer youve been doing it for, the more possible that is.
Im in a really privileged position that I dont really get hassled by that stuff any more.
Part of me thinks okay, Ive kind of earned that right.
Ive got to a point where Ive been left alone to get on with it, and thats great.
What you do is you slowly wall yourself off from it.
I think it would be very different if you were starting out.
The only thing Id say to anyone starting out is that you oughta be careful of those things.
They get in the way.
And thats probably more true now than it ever was before.
When I started in film criticism, not everyone wanted to write film reviews.
Its a funny little profession.
Im not saying its changed for the worse, because every generation says oh it used to be worse.
But it is different.
And all those things that youre talking about are things that I would be very afeared of.
And Im in a very, very lucky position, and I dont have to deal with them anymore.
Everyone wants to reviewGuardians Of The Galaxythough, and nobody wants to reviewMoshi Monsters…
Well thats nuts.
You have to do both.
And Ill draw you back to the example that Kim Newman always gave.
The ones that didnt make any sense before somebody cut them.
Then they made even less sense once theyd had all the sex scenes cut out of them.
And then you had to write a review of them with a plot synopsis that made sense.
Doing the job properly means seeing as much as is possible.
It takes something else to look atPiranha Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Deathand decide whether its any good.
And incidentally, it is.
I cant believe Ive never asked you this before, then.
Last question: whats your favourite Jason Statham film?
Well I really loveTransporter 3.
Its probably the wrong one to like.
And she makes him to do the striptease.
I was writing a piece for The Observer some time ago, whenEastern Promisescame out.
And theres that wrestling scene in the changing room in it.
Its interesting: it ties intoWomen In Love.
And they said lets do a little piece about that, about naked male wrestling.
So I went onto Google and put in Jason Statham stripped male oil wrestling.
All I can tell you is: dont go there.
There are entire sites dedicated to Jasons oily wrestling.
And then the thing comes up that says if you enjoyed this, why not try this.
Mark Kermode, thank you very much.
Hatchet Job is available in paperback now.
Marks latest book on Silent Running is also out now.
