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Commitment in Cinema Criticism LINDSAY ANDERSON

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Commitment in Cinema Criticism LINDSAY ANDERSON Universities & Left Review Spring 1957 Vol.1 No 1 It is beginning to dawn upon us all that what is needed most today is a criticism of criticism . For Commitment it is the critic, rather than the work of art, who should be put for a while upon the dissecting table—ERNESTNEWMAN. It has for some time seemed to me that a criticism in cinema which has at heart the interest of liberalism might find its most useful work not in confirming liberalism in its sense of general rightness, but rather in putting under criticism some degree of pressure the liberal ideas and assump- tions of the present time—LIONEL TRILLING IN "THE LINDSAY ANDERSON* LIBERAL IMAGINATION". Stand up, stand up for Jesus!—GEORGE DUFFIELD. Instead of starting with any theoretical discussion merit of its significance—has actually been reduced. It about the nature of criticism, it may be useful to clear is of course inevitable that the majority of films made the ground by considering some aspects of its practice for popular entertainment in a capitalist society, where at the moment. What basic assumptions, what attitudes the general educational level is low and popular culture do we find common in the writing of present day increasingly corrupt, should be of poor artistic quality; critics? A first important point is that the cinema has nor is it surprising if people whose only experience of at least achieved respectability. the cinema is through such films form a low opinion of Thirty years ago it was only a minority who took it. What is surprising, however, and perhaps significant films seriously: but in their seriousness was passion. as well, is a tendency among critics—that is to say They had the inspiration of knowing they were pioneers. among the articulate representatives of the educated The founders and members of the Film Society, the minority—to subscribe to this opinion themselves, and writers and readers of Close-Up—these revered the even to encourage it. cinema and were burningly aware of its possibilities. It A particularly striking example of this tendency is the was stimulating rather than discouraging to them that habit of certain writers—and they seem to be growing the general attitude of the cultured was contemptuous more rather than less—of turning on the cinema and and undiscerning: names like Griffith, Eisenstein, declaring that it is "not an art". Now I do not intend Pudovkin, Gance, Flaherty and Pabst were good enough to pursue this as a serious argument; I simply want to to fight for. Today you might imagine that the fight draw attention to the phenomenon of its repeated ex- had been won. We already have our National Film pression. The classic instance, I suppose, appeared in Theatre, while the National Theatre remains merely a Miss C. A. Lejeune's column in the Observer just nine broken promise; the health of the British film industry years ago; and it is worth quoting as the openly pro- is discussed frequently and with concern, in the House fessed philosophy of a critic who occupies a leading of Commons; and the posh papers (to borrow John position in her profession. The article was headed Osborne's useful phrase.) devote space to it, send repre- "Taking the Plunge". sentatives to its festivals, and honour its golden jubilee A few weeks ago I hinted that I was on the with ambitious exhibitions. Yet this wider acceptance brink of giving up the pretence that films were seems only to have been won at the price of diluting an art, and settling for the conviction that that original enthusiasm: a great deal of the old serious- "most of them are just vulgar and illiterate ness has been lost. It could even be maintained that the rubbish, and the rest are good entertainment significance of the cinema—or rather the acknowledg- provided for the relaxation of people whose brains are not at the moment up to anything tougher". At the time of writing I was not A Reprint, in slightly abridged form, from Sight And prepared to take the full plunge. Today I am. Sound (Autumn 1956) by kind permission of the Editors Today I am ready to declare categorically that 44 Commitment in cinema criticism films are not an art; and I feel very much the than pugnacious, which shrinks from art because art better for it . presents a challenge. This can be an even more insidious . It is not within the power of electrical enemy, because it often disguises itself with the engineering or mechanical contraption to apparatus of culture, professing the very values which create. They can only reproduce. And what it is in the act of destroying. "Do not misunderstand they reproduce is not art . me, please", writes Miss Lejeune, having just declared I case I may be judged unfair in quoting an article that a film is nothing but 'bits of celluloid and wire', printed in 1947, should add that Miss Lejeune has "I am not intending to belittle the screen". And I do given us evidence that her views remain the same. In not suppose that this is the conscious intention of the fact when this year her newspaper backed an exhibition other critics I have quoted, either. But it is what they of "Sitxy Years of Cinema", her contribution to the are doing. catalogue included the statement: "Too much high- It is a matter of fact, not of opinion, that the cinema flown nonsense is talked about art and culture in is an art. This does not call for theoretical discussion— relation to films". (She went on to advise her readers: unless, of course, you enjoy that kind of intellectual "Cherish the little things: a dance, a tune, a face, a exercise. If it is simply the truth we are after, the movement of water, a ripple in the corn . ."). question has already been answered, empirically. If Miss Lejeune is not alone in taking this attitude. To L'Atalante, Strike, Rashomon and Louisiana Story are a remarkable extent, in fact, denigration of the cinema, not works of art, then there is no way of describing denial of its importance and its significance, has become them. And if Griffith, Renoir, Jennings and de Sica are common among those who write about it professionally. not artists, we will have to invent a new word for them. Consider the tone of a recent column of criticism in the The importance of the cinema as a cultural and Sunday Times by Mr. Kenneth Pearson. propagandist force is a matter of fact also. Everyone Some people consider the film as an art. Others who has seen more than half a dozen films with his less daring, like myself, would classify it as a eyes open knows that if the cinema does not create the craft, capable, on rare occasions, of producing significant social movements of our time, it intimately a work of some significance ... reflects them. And that it provides a reflection just as It is not as if Mr. Pearson were here initiating a real intimate—and just as significant—of social stagnation. discussion: he is simply leading in to a review of A further point worth emphasising is that the cinema Trapeze. What is significant is that such sentiments makes its appeal above all to the youthful: that is to should be felt to provide an acceptable journalistic say, above all to those whose minds are unformed, and opening to a column of cultured film criticism. Mr. open to impression. Pearson can only write like this because he senses that These facts alone are enough to condemn the thought- it is safely fashionable to do so. less denigration of the cinema, of which I have given a Exactly the same fashion is reflected in a recent number of fashionable examples. The consistent im- notice (of The Rains of Ranchipur), from the Times. pression created by such writing is that films provide This is the cinema as the cinema should rightly at worst a vulgar means of escapism or wish-fulfilment be, not concerned with the psychology of drug (Bread-and-Circuses), and at best an amusing, rather addicts and prostitutes, but, in its choice of exotic diversion ("The Arabian Nights" Entertainments subject and treatment, warm, vague, extrava- of our time"). To apply to them serious standards of gant and sentimental. criticism, aesthetic or social, is to indulge in "highflown To reserve your enthusiasm for the more meretricious nonsense" and to prove oneself a glum, humourless and productions of the cinema is only another way of deny- boring person. ing its claim to the same attention as literature, music, Leaving aside for a moment the graver implications painting or any other of the arts. (It is impossible, for of such an attitude, we may remark that at the least it instance, to imagine a reputable dramatic critic writing is damaging, tolerating the shoddy and the third-rate, in this way). But what is the reason for such denial? and muffling work of importance by a flippant or purely Is it to be ascribed to simple, good-old-English Philistin- sentimental response. It is impossible to praise things ism? It is difficult to know what other term to apply to that are bad without injuring things that are good. By the following observation by the critic of the Observer: celebrating the merits of the trivial and the meretricious, / have never understood the taste for violence or by being lengthily funny at its expense, we lower and squalor in the cinema. We know that the prestige of the cinema, and, indirectly, make it more dreadful things go on all around us; we know difficult for anybody to make a good film.
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