Expanding on a thought I had during PB2.
While researching and eventually writing about my chosen critic (Nick Pinkerton) I found myself going through a minor crisis.
After reading an interview featuring Pinkerton online I came to the firm opinion that I thought this writer was an absolute tool. Anyone who so comfortably refers to themselves as a ‘cult (anything)’ or in this very specific case a ‘critic’s critic’ automatically loses my respect. From there I read a series of his articles and reviews on a number of different publications and with every word my dissent grew.
This then got me thinking about why I had grown to hate a critic who I usually read religiously.
To answer this question I decided to take a step back from Nick and read some other critics’s work. Firstly, I read a Guardian review on Dunkirk and was thoroughly unimpressed, I then went on to read a Roger Ebert article on Neruda and again left the article with nothing. Finally I went to my old faithful Mubi and read the review for 20th Century Woman. I thought this review was the most tedious out of the three and left me in incredibly low spirits.
From there I went into a state of further re-evaluation. I was again left facing more internal questions.
Why don’t I like anything?
Do I even like cinema?
After further time deliberating and watching more films I realised that I had been sitting on the answer the entire time. In my research this week for all three of my subjects at (Popular Cinema, Aus Cinama, EAC) the word cinephile had popped up a lot more then usual. I’d read that Pinkerton is a cinephile, every third person’s bio on Mubi contains the word cinephile and someone in my aus cinema class had the audacity to call themselves a cinephile, and yet I who very much want to spend my life in the cinema industry shy away from the word.
Why?
To me a cinephile is someone with an extraordinary knowledge of film, someone who would thinks Fellini is overrated, someone who literally lives and breathes cinema. I then concluded that reading this word filled me not with hate but with another one the seven deadly sins, this one being envy.
With this in mind I decided to go back and finish off the task Nick and I had started. I started to enjoy his critiques again and funnily enough started to agree with wverything he was saying. I even started to turn a blind eye to the obvious self congratulatory tone that he writes with.
I fell back in love.
p.s
From all account I’ve heard Nick Pinkerton is a total piece of work.
AG