layla

The other thing that The New Yorker could offer was a full set of dimensions: length, breadth, and width. I remember being impressed, in my youth, by a publication that could offer Pauline Kael three thousand words to write about Popeye, and, although there has been a certain downsizing since then, I was still flattered, in my turn, by the chance not merely to review Showgirls, say, but to consider at leisure the lush philosophical landscape from which it sprang. At a time when, for many viewers, the value of a motion picture is indicated by the rotation of a chubby thumb through 180 degrees, one should remind them that, of all the duties required of the professional critic, perhaps the least important—certainly the least enduring—is the delivery of a verdict. I am always sorry to hear that readers were personally offended, even scandalized, that my opinion of a film diverged from theirs. I wish I could convince them that I am merely starting an argument, as everyone does over dinner, or in a crowded bar, after going to see a film, and that their freedom to disagree is part of the fun. The primary task of the critic, (and nobody has surpassed the late Ms. Kael in this regard), is the recreation of texture—not telling moviegoers what they should see, which is entirely their prerogative, but filing a sensory report on the kind of experience into which they will be wading, or plunging, should they decide to risk a ticket.