You can engage in film criticism by analyzing and evaluating films and television shows in written form. Film criticisms include comprehensive plot recaps, performance critiques, assessments of visual and aural aesthetics, character analysis, as well as commentary on the political and cultural context of the film. Various individuals, such as film scholars, movie critics, and culture and entertainment journalists, contribute their criticism to a wide array of publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, free weeklies, daily newspapers, online platforms, and industry trade publications.
YouTube has largely influenced the evolution of the film industry and film criticism. Although it is not the only information-sharing service, it is the most visual, popular, and one of the most well-known. We will explore the role of YouTube in the development of film criticism.
Background
Before the rise of blogging, mainstream media’s film criticism revolved around a single purpose: advising readers, viewers, or listeners on whether to watch a recently released film. Such reviews provided a brief summary of the film and quickly discussed its strengths and weaknesses, and often concluded or began with a star rating. A newspaper reviewer typically had around 600 words to cover a recent film, while a broadcast critic might have a five-minute segment at the start of an hour.
This format has remained largely unchanged since its inception in the early 20th century. Frank E. Woods, who started reviewing films for The New York Dramatic Mirror in 1908, is widely regarded as America’s first film critic. As the film industry became popular in the 1930s, newspapers began allocating more resources to cover it. Within a few decades, most newspapers had their own film critics or syndicated columns dedicated to film reviews. A reader interested in watching a new film would grab a newspaper, read the review, and then check the showtimes on the same page.
However, this doesn’t imply that film criticism lacked depth before the internet. In addition to scholarly journals publishing extensive treatises on film theory, some magazines dedicated significant space to articles about movies. Entertainment Weekly, established in 1990, was embraced by an entire generation of film enthusiasts and had millions of readers. Critic Pauline Kael, writing for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, is widely respected for elevating film criticism as an art form. According to Roger Ebert, she had a profound positive impact on the film culture in America for over three decades.
What is the Role of YouTube in Film Criticism?
In the early days of YouTube, film criticism on the platform often involved individuals staring at the camera and sharing their opinions on a film, occasionally interspersed with scenes from the movie. Chris Stuckmann, a YouTuber with 1.1 million subscribers, is an example of this style of film critic. His reviews, which follow a plot summary + opinion model, typically last less than 10 minutes.
However, other more sophisticated formats have also emerged. In 2005, film editor Robert Ryang created a fake trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, portraying the movie as a family comedy. As YouTube was founded the same year, the video went viral, leading to an explosion of recut movie trailers. However, the supercut, which splices together common tropes from a film or series of films, often prompts us to confront the clichés of filmmaking and explore the reasons behind their prevalence.
Frankly speaking, there is one problem with YouTube – advertising. Film critics must continue to exist, but it interferes with viewing. Moreover, there are more and more advertisements. Do you want YouTube without ads? Just buy premium, but that’s not the only option. Some VPNs have YouTube Adblock, which blocks any advertising, and not only on YouTube. With this tool, you can protect yourself from cyber attacks, watch YouTube TV freely outside the US, change your IP address, and even protect yourself from viruses.
YouTubers didn’t invent the video essay. However, YouTube transformed it into a genre for mass consumption, an art form that gathered its own dedicated fandom. I can’t exactly pinpoint where this evolution happened, but let me highlight some of the early practitioners who must have played a part in its transition.
- Jim Emerson. One such person is Jim Emerson, a longtime movie blogger who started uploading videos to Vimeo in the late aughts. Although rougher than many of today’s video essays, his videos went beyond the supercut and added actual commentary.
- Matt Zoller Seitz, a critic for RogerEbert.com, who, in 2013, began adapting his book The Wes Anderson Collection into a series of video essays. These videos featured the combination of voice narration, panning stills, and video cuts that now commonly appear in the genre. By the way, you can still watch his videos. If you can’t find them, try using a VPN for free and changing your country. There’s a good chance it will work.
- Tony Zhou. I would argue that the video essay didn’t gain enormous popularity until 2014 when Tony Zhou introduced his YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting. In 2014 year, a video discussing the comedic editing techniques of director Edgar Wright gained over 4 million views. While the Nerdwriter channel had videos before the founding of Every Frame a Painting, it wasn’t until Puschak started adopting Zhou’s style that his videos consistently went viral.
What Is the Purpose of Film Criticism?
Film criticism serves various functions in academic and commercial contexts. It informs you, as a moviegoer, about a film’s content and perceived quality, helping you decide whether or not to buy tickets. Widely published criticism reaches demographics within and beyond the film’s intended audience. Film critics can become tastemakers and establish themselves as cultural vanguards in the world of cinema. Additionally, film criticism creates a historical record of the film industry for future studies.
Conclusion
But why are these videos so popular, far more popular than traditional film reviews found in newspapers for decades? Because these video essays deviate from the standard film review format, they are often watched after the viewer has already seen the film being critiqued. It’s no coincidence that video essayists often select films that already have a dedicated fan base hungry for more analysis.
