My first experience with newspaper critics came in the newsroom of the Montgomery Advertiser in Alabama. I was visiting a friend when the managing editor of the paper emerged from his office with two tickets in his hand. He yelled across the newsroom: “Anybody want to go review a play tonight?”
I did not feel in a much more elevated position when in 1978 my managing editor asked me if I wanted to review movies and plays for the St. Pete Times. He knew I had never reviewed a movie or a play before, and that I had little technical expertise in either film or theater. He picked me because he thought I could think and write, and because I would be comfortable with critical and expository writing from my academic experience as an English teacher.
During my year of writing dangerously, I struggled with this new job, I wrote about 250 reviews, columns, news stories, and features. When it was all over, I sat back and examined the various roles I had been forced to play as someone who wrote about the arts for a daily newspaper. The result was quite amazing and drew me to the conclusion that the modern newspaper critic could be the most ingenious, resilient, and versatile journalist on the staff.
I suppose there are a few arts critics who write reviews and do little else. They are missing out on a lot of the fun and learning. Here are the roles I had to play, with some examples and anecdotes I shared recently with the members of the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors.
Previewer and Reviewer: The reviewer is a critic with newspaper values. She wants to be the first one to see the show, and wants to get her review in the paper before the competition. She loves the scoop, even it it’s an “arts scoop.” As both reviewer and previewer, she operates within strict limits of time and space. She views an evening concert or the photography exhibit or the circus and rushes back to the office to write it in an hour. In this capacity, she functions less as an expert than as an educated member of the public. The reader experiences the event vicariously through her eyes and ears. She writes reviews with the same tools of the craft as the reporter. Her lead is short and to the point and in the spirit of the work she is reviewing. This job is not easy. She must write fast and tight. She usually gets one viewing, one chance to get it right.
Critic: The critic is a reviewer with time, space, special knowledge, and a good idea. The best place to be a critic is in the Sunday newspaper. The reviewer wants the review in the paper for immediate impact. The critic prefers to sit back and make sense of the work, to engage the reader by finding special meaning, and by drawing lines between this work and the previous work of the artist, or the work of other artists. The Sunday think piece gives the critic a chance to add texture, background, and influence.
Don’t be afraid to write about a work twice. A movie such as “Bend It Like Beckham” might deserve two takes. Write a review for the day it opens, and then consider a Sunday piece on the growing influence of Asian-Indian culture on Western filmmakers.
Beat Reporter: Do you live in a town where community symphonies or local theater companies wage war against each other? Do people in your town have to drive an hour to see a good foreign film? What will happen to your neighborhood when a 20-screen movie complex gets built nearby? Why was a teenager in your community fined for downloading music from the Internet?
The critic must attend to her beat. Arts writers have been accused of being too “soft,” of floating above issues and events. It doesn’t have to be that way. After I reviewed “The China Syndrome,” a nuclear accident occurred at Three Mile Island. I partnered with Bill Nottingham, an investigative reporter for the St. Pete Times, and headed for Crystal River, Fla. We both returned from a tour of the local nuclear power plant good stories that led our respective sections.
Arts writers have to fight hard against an armchair image, the notion that we write with our butts rather than our feet.
Consumer Reporter: I pay less than $1200 a year in property taxes, but much, much more than that on arts and entertainment. Just as the newspaper serves as a watchdog to make sure our taxes are spent responsibly, so we arts writers have the opportunity to help readers get their time and money’s worth. The arts reporter’s work helps the public make intelligent choices. It mobilizes them to watch a TV special, head for the museum, or rekindle their interest in opera. It may seem old-fashioned to suggest this, but we can also help adults make decisions about what their children should see and hear.
This means being concerned about truth in advertising, about the quality of the performance, service, and atmosphere. Is the theater filthy? Are those rocking chair movie seats squeaky and distracting? Why does the image drip over the edge of the screen? Why are the pyrotechnic noises from the screen next door allowed to pollute our romantic comedy? What’s really in the butter flavor in the popcorn? Why is the film always breaking? Why do I have to wait so long to talk to a cable rep? Why won’t they fix the acoustics in the concert hall? Why does the rock band show up two hours late? Why does the music CD cost more than the movie DVD?
Profiler: We write about famous people who come to town, actors and performers, and try to give readers a special impression of a celebrity, a peek into character, or we try to put a career into perspective. More important, we also profile local actors, musicians, and artists, people who work with little notoriety while striving to make a living and a contribution to the artistic scene.
In my year as a newspaper critic I got to profile, without leaving the city, Robert Altman, James Garner, Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, Henry Gibson, Paul Dooley, Sid Caesar, Kevin McCarthy and Dorothy Lamour. By telephone I interviewed Edwin Newman, Stephen King, and John Housman.
I took one trip to Atlanta to profile Farrah Fawcett, then an international celebrity and sex symbol. It was on that trip that I learned an important lesson about some reviewers: They don’t work hard enough. I was shocked at how ready some of my colleagues from newspaper and TV stations were to be led around by the nose by studio flaks, fed free food and liquor, taxied to a film preview, and herded into a room for 30 minutes with the star.
Critics with any clout should work hard to resist the publicity machine that fuels celebrity media. Do you really want to settle for a 10-minute telephone interview with a celebrity who will be doing dozens of them, knowing you’ll get the same spin, the same canned quotes? Perhaps 10 minutes on the phone with a Robert Duvall would be worth something, but it’s not enough to craft a profile.
Profiling is a demanding form, and some would say, a lost art. It calls upon all our skills as reporters: interviewing, research, observation, and writing. Work hard to keep the profile alive as a newspaper genre.
Standard Bearer: Critics try to create an environment in our community in which standards for excellence are higher. In this sense, we are not neutral. We encourage the public to support better films, concerts, and exhibits. We also encourage and support those who produce such work for the public.
We accomplish this in two ways: By ridiculing irresponsible work (think “Gigli”), and on some occasions even ignoring it so as not to lend it undue publicity. The other is to give special attention to works of daring innovation and surprising excellence (think “Whale Rider”). In this sense, we write from a strong point of view, which demands that we be fair and balanced. Yet our purpose is political, one of support and reform.
In the role of Standard Bearer, I always felt a difficult tension. If I judged works against each other — “Apocalypse Now” vs. “Smokey and the Bandit” — it was clear that Coppola’s epic war movie was the better work. But I also felt the need to judge the work against the standards it set for itself. According to this system, the hokey Smokey wins out.
If I reviewed a play by a theater company that pretends to be the best in the state, I would hold the work against the highest standards. If I reviewed a small college production of “Godspell,” I’d overlook some mediocre singing and give points for effort and enthusiasm.
Voice on the Page: Being a newspaper critic is a high-profile job. We become known in our community without falling victim to the chintzy fame of some media personalities. People may know our faces and our names, but more important, they come to know our voice on the page.
Voice is that quality of writing that creates the illusion of a writer speaking directly to a reader. The voice on the editorial page sounds institutional. The voice on the news page is intentionally neutral. There is a stereotypical critic’s voice, the kind that is quoted in movie advertisements: “the smash hit of the season.” At its best, the voice of the critic is an authentic one, speaking at times with a specialized audience, and more often with a general one.
Notice I’ve written “speaking … with” rather than the “speaking … to” of an earlier draft. I wrote a quarter-century ago with the know-it-all authority of a Modernist age. Post-modernism divides up authority, and invites dialogue, diverse perspectives, and interactivity. The critic who is not taking advantage of new media to inspire and learn from conversations about the work we cover is missing an important opportunity.
Court Jester: Our ability to explain and instruct may derive in no small measure from our ability to entertain. God knows, American journalism needs the lubrication of a little humor, and we who cover arts and entertainment can provide some sweetener to the Castor Oil of daily journalism. The arts writer has a choice: Make the paper blander, or make it better.
The worse the work, the better the review.
For years I’ve saved a review by Ben Steelman of the movie version of “Sheena,” queen of the jungle, played by Tanya Roberts. “While Ms. Roberts doffs her suede bikini to take one of many baths in the local waterfall, trouble is brewing. … Vic (an investigative reporter) gets to watch Sheena bathe in the waterfall. (‘You’re as dirty as a warthog!’ she tells him. ‘Remove those strange skins you wear!’) His admiration for her grows. (‘Your hair smells fantastic. What do you wash it in?’ ‘Zan-zan beans — what else would a woman use?’)”
I love a little passion in my arts writer, a little temperature, a little fun, a little color. This should not be used to pillory local artists, whose work may not pass the test. But when I read an entertaining review of an irresponsibly bad work, I am likely to remember it over time and share its wit with others.
So there you have it: previewer, reviewer, critic, beat reporter, standard bearer, voice on the page, and court jester. Wow. What a journalist. Give her a raise. But wait, there’s even more. She’s also the newspaper’s ultimate meaning maker, the one who connects the dots between the work and the world outside the work. To find out how, check out this sidebar.
