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May 16, 2006
Walter Chaw Interview
Via an email tip, I was reminded to revisit Jeremiah Kipp's interview with Film Freak Central reviewer Walter Chaw. I haven't read or cited Chaw's reviews as frequently as I should have, but even when I have disagreed with him as I did when he harshly criticized Michael Tucker's Gunner Palace, I've found his writing on film to be consistently insightful (I very much agree with his review of Crash and now wish I'd managed to work it into my far-too-generous review).
The wide-ranging inteview is particularly valuable in addressing some of institutional factors that shape film criticism as it is practiced on the internet by both professional and amateur critics. In particular, I found insightful Chaw's discussion of the process of screening films for critics, a process that he regards as "undemocratic and essentially corrupted." I'm probably a little less concerned about being the first critic to review a movie (although I did manage to catch a world premiere recently), but Chaw's discussion of being based in Denver is a useful reminder that place often detemines access to film and media, an issue I'm likely to confront with my move to Fayetteville a.k.a. Fayettenam.
But while my access to the art house flavor of the week is likely to change considerably, I'll be interested to see how the move shapes what films I see and what I have to say about them. In that sense, I find Chaw's comments about film criticism as autobiography--borrowed from Pauline Kael--worth noting. It will likely come as little surprise to many of my readers that I share Chaw's belief that "good film criticism, as in any good criticism, is 1% savvy, 99% auto-psychoanalysis." Many of my best reviews start with my personal investment in the film or films I'm discussing, and that's perhaps one of the main reasons that I fond writing within the blog format to be so comfortable in that I'm able to foreground those investments in ways that might not work as well in other contexts. At any rate, it's a thought-provoking interview and well worth reading.
Update: Edited to correct the name of the interviewer. Must have written this entry without drinking enough coffee.
Posted by chuck at May 16, 2006 5:22 PM
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