Sort of a critics’ revue

A critic writing about criticism faces the obvious hazard of reaching the star-collapsing-in-on-itself apex of self-indulgent navel-gazing. In the hands of Phillip Lopate, editor of “American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now,” though, such an exercise becomes a lively pocket history of writing styles, social history, critical practice and, of course, the movies themselves.

Beginning with a 1915 treatise on “the photoplay” and ending with a review of last year’s “A History of Violence,” Lopate -- who previously edited the anthology “The Art of the Personal Essay” and whose own film criticism has been collected in “Totally, Tenderly, Tragically” -- nimbly covers immense ground, from the formative stages of film criticism in the 1930s through the so-called golden age of the late 1950s to the 1970s. He even makes a strong case for the continued vitality and importance of contemporary film culture.

Lopate will be appearing on Thursday at REDCAT at the Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead a panel discussion with critics Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, Time magazine’s Richard Schickel and the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan, all of whom are included in the anthology.

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In compiling the book, were there any writers who were a real discovery for you?

In the historical section of the book there certainly were. I didn’t know Carl Sandberg had been a regular film critic. And Cecilia Ager was a discovery, she was so funny and reviewed films from the women’s angle.

In the beginning, all these film critics were trying to stake out some territory, including simply whether the movies should be considered art. And I think Otis Ferguson was the first who put it all together. He’s one of the secret heroes of the book. A lot of the intellectuals at that time [the 1930s and ‘40s] were appalled by the Hollywood product. They were always waiting for film to break out into a more cerebral and challenging form and saw Hollywood as this dream factory that was just manufacturing junk. But Ferguson understood the craft in this collaboration -- he saw that this was special and that when everybody was pulling in the right direction, there was something miraculous about a well-made Hollywood film.

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There’s so much information out there related to movies -- box office reports, celebrity gossip -- that in an odd way it’s as if everyone is now a critic.

That’s true. The ones who practice in print have got some nerve. It interested me, how do they project this tone of authority? I think that comes down to writing style a great deal. It isn’t that their opinions are extreme, but that their projection of self is very filled-in, so that we have a sense of them as characters. Even the ones who don’t tell us very much about themselves still project a strong autobiographical sensibility. I quote Stanley Cavell, who used the phrase “the missing companion.” It’s a notion that’s prevalent in the personal essay, that the essay is a friend. You go to the friend not expecting to always agree or disagree, but to get that sense of character from them.

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In choosing what to include in the anthology, how difficult was it to leave your own opinions -- whether you agreed or disagreed with someone -- outside your decision-making process?

They didn’t have to agree with my film opinions, but they had to come up to my standards of writing style. Someone like John Simon, who I think is a terrific writer sentence by sentence, often tries to irritate his readers and distance himself from what he sees as the conventional wisdom to get them annoyed. I came to appreciate his style, even if I didn’t always share his politics.

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The question we’re sort of dancing around is this: Does film criticism matter?

If you’re a writer, as I am, you may feel it’s great to have this interesting, distinguished prose being generated. As a reader, I try to situate film criticism as a part of American letters.

I want to dodge your question by giving two answers. If film criticism no longer matters as much, I hope this anthology will be seen as a valuable tribute to what once mattered terrifically. If film criticism continues to matter, let it spur on future film critics.

I think that, for instance, film critics tend to tip the scales. You can wonder whether you’re going to see a movie, and then you’ll read a review by a critic you sort of trust and he or she will say “stay away” or “this is really worth seeing,” and that will push you over the edge.

So I think it has some impact in that way, but I think it also has an impact in terms of understanding difficult work. I included Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of “Eyes Wide Shut.” Now that’s a movie I didn’t love, but I’m grateful that somebody who did love it is attempting to bring me closer to it.

There are movies that are very difficult to understand, and we need the critic to assist in unpacking them. So the film critic performs a very necessary function in tackling a complex work. In other words, film critics are not just consumer guides. They have that function, but it’s not their only function.

-- Mark Olsen