Professor of Film Studies A.O. Scott hosted a panel with three different professional critics to discuss the meaning and art of criticism.

Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism A.O. Scott, the chief film critic at The New York Times, organized and moderated a general discussion on criticism featuring three nationally recognized critics and himself on Tuesday, Nov. 11. The symposium was sponsored by the College of Film and the Moving Image and is the first of five events Scott will be hosting during his five years at the University.

The panelists included Laura Miller, a journalist and book critic and a cofounder of Salon.com; Wesley Morris, a film critic for Grantland; and Emily Nussbaum, a television critic for The New Yorker.

Scott claimed that he wanted to invite people to speak who approach criticism from different backgrounds and who apply the discipline and craft of criticism to different outlets. He acknowledged that though there are distinct fields within criticism, they are all inherently intertwined.

As he introduced the speakers, Scott emphasized their achievements and the influence they have in their respective fields.

“These are some of my guides and most trusted conversation partners in the critical enterprise…from whom I’ve learned a great deal about books, about writing, about television, about film…and about life—which is ultimately what criticism is about,” Scott said. “It’s about everything in the world that the arts are about, which is to say, everything in the world.”

Scott went on to explain the name of the symposium: “Criticism NOW!” He stated that his hope was to move away from a defeated and nostalgic habit of thinking about criticism that prevails today. Scott reflected that many worry about criticism’s trivialization with the rise of the Internet as a place where anyone can voice an opinion on virtually anything. He recognized that many people consider film criticism a thing of the past.

Scott countered these points with his own understanding of the state of criticism.

“It’s always been my feeling that the state of criticism is permanently in crisis and also permanently in a state of vigor, and that those are the same thing,” Scott said. “Because…criticism is a necessary and essential part of our experience of the arts, and more than that, of our experiences of our own pleasures, frustrations and desires.”

The discussion began with the panelists identifying the ways in which they practice criticism, what they have learned in their careers, and how their approaches have changed or remained constant over time.

Miller discussed the difference between online and print publications. She emphasized the fluidity of writing for an online publication—Salon.com is completely web based—and the importance of remembering that the audience is always changing, as is the publication itself.

“You just have to become comfortable with flux in a way that I think most people who work at print publications, especially those that have been around for a long time, are not,” Miller said.

Nussbaum, who works at a primarily print publication, described how the complicated relationship between print and online writing has persisted throughout all of her jobs.

“As a critic, I’m really a creature of the Internet,” Nussbaum said. “I became a critic because of online conversations…. I was really inspired by all the anonymous voices…chitchatting at once…a unified audience of people that were beginning to be both excited and challenged by the whole change of the television landscape, in terms of what the medium was, and really trying to figure that out together.”

Morris described the challenge of changing his writing style to match the non-academic tone of the publications he has worked for, arguing that the way students are encouraged to write throughout their university education is vastly different from the task of writing about culture in a way that will appeal to a mass audience. He also noted the endless amount of space the Internet provides for text, expressing gratitude for the absence of word limits that constricted him when he worked for daily print newspapers.

Nussbaum posed a question to the entire panel, asking the other critics if they know who their audience is.

Miller, coming from an exclusively online background, pointed to the fact that an Internet publication can immediately see how many people are reading certain articles. She said that having a sense of what readers are interested in does shape how she approaches her work. Generally, she said, readers are more interested in nonfiction than they are in fiction.

Scott stated his belief that all publications, whether print or online, assume there is intelligence, curiosity, and goodwill on the other side. He spoke excitedly about the accessibility of criticism, admitting that he fantasizes about someone worlds away from him potentially picking up his work and finding it interesting.

Morris also said that he feels a moral obligation to include issues of race, gender, and sexuality in his writing. In terms of his audience, he spoke about a certain lack of control he feels once his work is out in the world and the fact that he doesn’t have a concrete idea of who is reading it.

“I don’t have a specific person or audience in mind; I assume the person is literate and open,” Morris said.

Ella Weisser ’17 asked the speakers to talk about distinguishing between criticism and personal opinion.

Morris responded by saying that the two are inseparable, but that personal criticism is meant to relate to broader issues in general.

“There’s nothing more personal then the spending of time with a certain work,” Morris said. “But we are all trying to move beyond the thing in question, to resituate it in something larger—whether it’s that author’s work, what else is happening in the world, or what is happening in our personal lives in some way. I think that really good criticism is able to do that, in a way that goes beyond the limits of the work in question.”

Scott argued that criticism is not only personal, but also interpersonal.

“Culture and art are things that we collectively participate in,” Scott said. “You are within the limits of your own subjectivity, your own mind, your own experience, your own prejudices, your own background, trying not only to give an account of your experience, but to communicate something that someone else can respond to and maybe find useful.”

On the central theme of whether or not criticism is its own art form, Nussbaum started off the discussion by referring to the craft as “parasitic,” sparking some controversy among the panelists.

“I like writing criticism; I’m proud of it and I value it,” Nussbaum said. “But it is, by necessity, parasitic, appreciative and destructive…. It’s not breeding art…. what I write is in response to the initial creativity of it…. It’s dependent on the artist.”

Morris disagreed, calling it a job that he considers an art form when done well and properly.

“You’re honoring both the thing you are writing about and the form with which you are performing that writing,” he said.

Miller took a similar stance, stating that she considers memoirs to be art and calling criticism a “memoir of an encounter” with a certain work, something the entire panel later agreed was a definition that embodied the nature of the craft.

“The best criticism that I’ve read, and what I aspire to, particularly when I’m writing about fiction, is a memoir of my encounter with that work,” Miller said. “To me, if you bring that to it, as opposed to a more detached evaluation of it, then I do think criticism can aspire to something more than parasitic.”

Scott added to this, emphasizing what he thinks is important for making criticism exciting and valuable.

“I now think that what actually makes critics who come from all different kinds of different intellectual, personal, and ideological places interesting and worth reading is a voice,” Scott said. “That, in the end, is what you work to achieve. You hope to have a voice that someone else can hear and recognize, and respond to.”

Nussbaum later defined criticism as combining ideas, emotions, and theatrical presentation, calling it the sum total of a person’s take on something.

Regen Routman ’16 attended the lecture specifically because she is a fan of Nussbaum’s writing, but she emphasized how rewarding it was to hear from the entire panel.

“It was interesting to hear from a bunch of different perspectives,” Routman said. “It was pretty life-affirming to hear that you can binge-watch television for a living, because I binge-watch television like it’s my job, but it’s not.”

Mara Woods-Robinson ’16 stated that the panel was her introduction to the field in many ways.

“In a film class, you’re looking at all the devices in [a film] and saying how it creates an emotional effect, but you’re not criticizing it,” Woods-Robinson said. “That’s something we don’t have access to in academia. I love production, but I’ve always had an interest in criticism. I don’t really know where I would begin, but potentially, criticism is something I would be interested in.”

Scott emphasized that students interested in the industry should maintain a commitment to writing and cultivate a personal voice.

“You should be writing as much as you can,” Scott said. “You should be learning, reading, seeing, and studying as much about as many things as you can. You have a unique opportunity right now in college that you’ll never have again, to explore. You should be writing and figuring out who you are.”

Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies Jeanine Basinger commented on the event’s significance.

“I was thrilled with it because these are all top, top people,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for students to hear from the best, find out how they work and how they got their jobs.”