Last night watching the daily culture news broadcast as usual there was an interesting report about the future role of film critics facing the new challenge of the internet and the blogs, reviews and data presented there. The German film critic Daniel Kothenschulte was interviewed, a very nice guy I briefly met once who not only writes film reviews, but also does piano accompaniments for silent movies. His reviews are very good, and I respect his opinion very much. I also agreed to most of his insights about online film blogs and reviews, he was quite benevolent about the phenomenon and also admitted using the internet intensively for acquiring information. Interestingly, he does something I do, too: reading the Internet Movie Database - a site I use on a daily basis - he said he does register the viewer ratings there. If a movie he hasn't seen yet or deliberately ignored so far has a good rating, he feels obliged to watch it. Same with me... However, he did say something I cannot agree with. He acknowledged that some bloggers write extremely good and stylistically excellent reviews, but they cannot stand in for the 'professional' film critics, since they were only "well-informed laymen"! I have had to deal with many film critics and 'laymen' in my life, and I also have published a few things as a 'professional' film critic myself. You don't study or learn the profession of film critic, every one of them is a 'well-informed layman', nothing more. Film journalism is one of those wonderful jobs, in which you can make a profession out of your hobby. Besides that fact I also am acquainted with quite a few film buffs who have much more knowledge about movies and cinema history than most film critics. Our local newspaper has 2 film critics I'm friends with. One works for the culture pages in general and occasionally writes a movie review when necessary; he's very well-informed. The other one writes movie reviews only, and she basically doesn't really like movies, knows hardly anything about cinema history and will not review a movie, if she doesn't get a press kit. (Sometimes I had to make my own press kits just to satisfy her request and get her to write about the movie I was playing at my cinema). It was merely an unloved job to her. That's a professional film critic compared to a 'well-informed layman'? Once, at a local film festival, I got a booth and had a chance to sell stuff from my cinema store. I mostly had books and magazines on display. The 'professional' film critic came by, and she started leafing through the mags - all the important mags were there, I was a bit proud of that, but she had never seen any of them before and probably never even had heard about them. In the end, she didn't buy anything, of course, but she said to me: "Nothing for me - this stuff is for specialists."
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Dear William
thank you for your kind words. However I am not quite sure if I made my point clear about these excellent bloggers. I watched my statement again on youtube and I don't think I said that non-professionals could not stand in for professionals ("Laie" in German might not have the same meaning as "laymen" in English - at least it is not intended to have a pejorative reading). On the contrary in many cases they write the better reviews as they are not restricted by the demands of layouters or publishers who want a short and simple piece. I envy them for being so easy with about compicated matters. I always have to address a general audience. Your are absolutely right about the kind of professionals who just do their jobs without caring about what they do. The true advantage that every blogger has is that they love what they do. Otherwise they would not write a single line. It is so hard to keep up this kind of passion in professional life. Just the fact that I have to write about a film for the paper sometimes keeps me from wanting to see it. So I prefer to watch an old classic instead. Finally very late in the evening I do watch the DVD of the new film and in many cases I hate myself for waiting so long to see it as it might be the better one. This is absurd but it has to do with a distinction between the fun parts and the work parts in life. But again you are right. We live our dreams. Who can say that about a job? I only hope to continue as the business gets tougher every day.
Good luck to you
Daniel
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