When we were talking about this in class...that there is a journalist who thinks that movie critics should be nicer to those poor movie stars who have to go home and cry into a bag of money after a bad review...sorry, tangent...well, it made me think of the movie Almost Famous. It's a good movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should: good classic rock sound track, Kate Hudsen has ringlets, and it's genuinely entertaining. But now I see it as a defence of the integrity and importance of criticism.
Lester Bangs was a semi-popular rock critic who wrote free lance for Rolling Stone Magazine...well, he was criticized for being too critical (this is evident in this interview http://www.furious.com/Perfect/lesterbangs.html ) Anyway, in the movie he mentors the main character and warns him agains writing "sanctamoneous stories about the genius of rock stars" because it will ruin rock and roll. The main character goes on tour with a rock and roll group in the 70s with the aim of writing a cover article for Rolling Stone, but he's young and he gets swept up in the world and becomes friends with group. In the end he follows Lester's advice and is "honest and unmerciful" in his article.
The consequence for being to friendly and praising is making the industry more powerful. We are consumers who deserve products that are the result of the best effort made. Critics keep artists honest.
Then, of course, MTV blew that to hell.
1 comment:
Almost Famous is a fabulous film! Thanks for reminding me of it.
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