In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.
An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.
Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.
The American movie, in part because America's a melting pot, the cultural hodgepodge that America makes, generates movies that have appeal across all international boundaries. And that's really not true for most domestic film industries. It's no longer true of France and Italy, less true than it used to be of the U.K.
Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the generality of people that their opinions - on films, on books, on all manner of widgets, gadgets and even the latest electronic fidgets - simply aren't up to scratch.
The 'low' quality of many American films, and of much American popular culture, induces many art lovers to support cultural protectionism. Few people wish to see the cultural diversity of the world disappear under a wave of American market dominance.
In Europe, there are many filmmakers working in the same territory: immigration, and the things that are most disruptive to European life today. That's not a judgment. I think it's good that cinema looks at such things.
For the most part, the American film market has become very corporatised, even independent film to a degree, and because of the corporate management mentality, they want to take the safe way.
It's hard to market a movie when you're at the mercy of critics and journalists.
The tensions are always based on financial resources. Something like film is very problematic because it is viewed as an art form and also as an industry with a pure commercial base.
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