The Movie Critic

There is no record of who the first theatrical critic was but no doubt there were times when what he wrote about some performance was heartily ignored by the public. Whether it was some tribesman on the Savanna in Africa or a Greek playwright who first felt the sting of the critics pen those that sit back and knock what others do with their talent have been with us and are likely to remain. The purpose of the critic in these latter days seems to be one of saving the movie going public from wasting money on some turkey of a movie that should have never been released. The critic, a person who often comes from regular journalism, there is no college course on how to be a movie critic that I know of, is supposed to with an objective eye tear a movie apart and see if the parts add up to something worth seeing.

When the movies first began most critics, as did writers, came from the theater to film that particular discipline being the closest to the film form. Theater critics were used to having their word taken as gospel on whether a show was good or bad and like God they could give life to a production or send the grim reaper around to the box office. Though they tried the same approach with the movies they found the audience for film to be a very different animal. Though writers and directors, who also came mostly from stage work, brought the basic tried and true form of three acts to making movies the similarities stopped there. Movies had people doing things as did stage plays, but movies, even accounting for the fact they were silent at that time, brought an unprecedented level of action to the story being told.

Stage plays had props, characters were at the beach, you saw a static painting and heard some sound effects. With the movies you were actually at the beach with waves rolling in and when people were drowning you saw the water and their head going under. The theater didn't begin to approach that kind of realism. ( Now of course special effects on stage are much more sophisticated) In the face of such a change from what they were used to critics were often at a loss and often simple dismissed movies as beneath the legitimate theater. The public however didn't agree. Some critics began to adapt and see films for the art form they were in and of themselves.

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