Geraldine Pascall Foundation

First of all, let me say thank you to the judges and the committee of the Geraldine Pascall award.

What a discerning and sensible bunch of people you are – finally.

I have to admit I have wanted to win this prize for a while. I told my partner Mary earlier this year that this was the last time I would enter the competition, because I was sick of not winning. Reviewing films is to some extent a confidence game, and losing wasn’t doing much for my confidence. So your timing couldn’t be better.

I never met Geraldine Pascall, although I know she was passionate about criticism, and that is something we have in common. I do believe strongly that we need good critics, and this prize is a good way to encourage them.

Mind you, not everyone agrees that I am a good critic, starting with me. On my best days, I think of myself as a gifted amateur, but some of my readers wouldn’t go even that far. I keep a file of their emails, and I thought you might enjoy hearing some of their assessments.

The biggest roasting I have received this year came from people who loved 300 – a movie I loathed. It’s a cartoonish retelling of the story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae; I said it was violent enough to make you shudder and close enough to neo-Fascist art to make your skin crawl.

Next day, I got this message from a reader:

Dear Comrade Byrnes: I go to the movies constantly, read all the reviews......yours on "300" gets the "Braying Jackass Award: 1948-2007"......allowing your own personal left-wing political thoughts into a lousy movie review is immature…

Sincerely, M.A. Murray - Ettalong Beach

HERE’S ANOTHER:

Mr Byrnes,

I suggest that you read Rob Lowing's review of "300" in the Sun Herald and

wake up to yourself, you pompous fool.…

Stop promoting bitterness and hatred and let normal, healthy people enjoy a

night out at the cinema escaping the reality of their existence for two

hours. Believe it or not, if it weren't for twisted people like yourself,

the average cinema-goer wouldn't look any deeper into this film than the

director intended.

P. Fisher Sydney

Not all of my emails are hate mail, of course, but I don’t mind the abuse. After all, if you dish it out, you should be prepared to take it. I’d be more worried if they stopped writing.

A few years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic – Do film critics matter anymore? You won’t be surprised to hear me say I think they do – nor that I recognize that the public largely thinks they don’t.

This is precisely why it does matter. To put it more plainly – film criticism matters most when it no longer exists.

I think we are getting closer to the death of serious criticism, and I’m not the only one. The Irish director John Boorman wrote recently that “a pall of dismay hangs over the craft of criticism. It is as much in crisis as film itself.”

Why is this so?

The biggest reason is that the most powerful parts of the film industry want it to die and they always have. Criticism exists in the space between what the movies are and what they could be – between a definition of film as an industry and a belief in film as an art, albeit a fallen one.

As Oscar Wilde once said “We’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the Stars”. That’s where the film critic lives, most of the time. We always want the cinema to be better: we’re never satisfied. We’re always telling the public why they shouldn’t like the latest Bruce Willis blockbuster or the new Star Wars – even when they do. We’re always “out of step” with public tastes and with the march of Hollywood, which has somehow succeeded in convincing a large number of people that Hollywood knows best.

This reminds me of a line in one of my favourite screwball comedies: Sullivan’s Travels from 1941, in which Joel McCrea plays a very successful film director who decides he wants to make ‘real pictures’ on behalf of the real people, the poor and downtrodden - not the fluffy comedies his studio makes lots of money off.

They tell him his latest ‘serious’ picture ‘died in Pittsburgh.’

McCrea responds: “What do they know in Pittsburgh?”

“They know what they like!” cries the studio executive.

‘If they knew what they liked, they wouldn’t live in Pittsburgh!” says McCrea.

That’s pretty much the argument. Hollywood’s job has never been to make films: it’s to make money. What has happened in the last 30 years is that great films and great box-office have become entwined in a way they never were before.

Since Star Wars and Jaws, the balance between audience, critic and film has shifted to the extent that much of the public now believes that a great film can’t be great unless the box office makes it great.

The industry has succeeded in a huge con: a kind of self-perpetuating myth based solely on money. There are now three generations of people who believe that Star Wars is a profound movie because it made more money than any movie before it, and that Independence Day is a terrific film because it had a terrific marketing strategy. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy these movies – I still do – or that I think the public is always wrong. It’s just that the industry has become too good at fooling some of the people all of the time, and too greedy to go after just a modest profit.

The irony is that the printed media is helping to undermine criticism by collaborating with the desire for consumer – advice reviewing instead of good, hard criticism. Most of the media believes what the public believes, that critics are jumped-up amateurs, who pretend they somehow know better than you do what’s good. Much of the time, that is true, but it’s not true of the really good ones.

I count myself very lucky to work for a paper that does believe in good criticism, and in paying for it, but I know most of my colleagues aren’t as fortunate.

I would like to publicly thank the Herald for giving me the time to learn the craft. I’d like to thank the Geraldine Pascall award again, for the recognition and the very generous prize. Most of all, I’d like to thank my partner Mary Dickie for introducing me to great criticism in the first place.

In the late 1970’s, while I was still a cub reporter, she gave me a book of collected reviews by the late great Pauline Kael, from the New Yorker magazine. That was where I learned how good it could get, and what to aspire to. Thank you everyone for this great honour. Good night and Good Luck.

PAUL BYRNES