What is behind this popular and patently false critical suspicion that a “well-crafted” movie is automatically phony or inauthentic, while a film that is “unpolished” is considered genuine — automatically real or truthful?

—Jim Emerson

Great question. As I’ve noted, the proficiency-as-deficiency argument has been used most memorably against the likes of No Country for Old Men and Children of Men, but it’s also popped up (with varying degrees of vehemence and slightly different points of attack) in discussions of Beowulf, 28 Weeks Later, even 300.* “Craft is the enemy” is a weird motto for film critics of all people to embrace.

Anyway, read the post and then stick around for the comment thread, which veers off into an engaging discussion of The Mist of all things. This very spoilery post ultimately goes somewhere I don’t agree with, but it starts out by critiquing the film for answering several of the original novella’s most haunting unanswered questions, which I definitely think works against the film.

(Via Ken Lowery, a leading light of ADDTF’s burgeoning comment scene.)

* By linking these movies, I don’t mean to imply that their skillful craftsmanship is deployed to uniform, or uniformly successful, effect.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.