Recap:
There are no bad films. There are opinions about films, sure, but there is no such thing as an objectively bad film. With seven billion people on this planet, chances are that the worst film you’ve ever seen is someone else’s favorite. Furthermore, opinions change over the course of time. When I first saw Pulp Fiction (1994), I didn’t like it. It was so far ahead of its time that I just didn’t get it. Now I consider it a masterpiece, unquestionably one of the very best films I’ve ever seen. Over time, I came to understand that time is the only critic that really matters.
Last week, one of my all-time heroes John Cleese started a debate on the validity of art criticism. Cleese, who is a very active social media presence, simply stated:
“It’s odd that, given [film critics’] inabilities [in acting, directing, or screenwriting], they are then put in judgement over people who can write, direct and act.”
This is of course a far more eloquent and to the point way of saying what I am trying to say with my No. Bad. Films. manifesto.
Cleese is, in my not so humble opinion, 100% right. Why should a person who can’t create art, have the authority to judge it? If you pause for a second and really think about it, you would have to agree that the whole concept of criticism is just utterly ridiculous. I have stated before that I understand and respect the concept of informed essays written by filmmakers as exampled in periodicals like Cahiers du Cinéma. That is, in fact, exactly my point. When François Truffaut analyses the films of Alfred Hitchcock and develops the auteur theory along the way, I believe him because he is a filmmaker.
Critics on the other hand are, in essence, failed artists. Someone who fails at something and still claims to have some kind of authority over it is, in my eyes, an amateur. There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with being an amateur and voicing your experience with a work of art. But then let’s please all agree on that definition. A critic of any form of art is just stating their opinion. Nothing more and nothing less.
In a fierce debate with a political adversary, U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously stated: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." I think that acute observation applies here, too. I really believe the time has come to collectively reject the idea that amateurs get to decide what is high art and what is not.
So, what now? Look, I am in no way claiming to be some kind of art messiah. Quite the opposite, actually. I am just a simple guy who loves films. But the whole point of the No. Bad. Films. theory is that I think there is merit to be found in any work of art. Its value simply lies in the eye of the beholder. Let the audience be the judge. Great things will come from it.
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