In an earlier post, entitled \u201cWhat is Criticism?\u201d\u00a0 I bemoaned the fact that film \u201creviewers\u201d had all but disappeared.\u00a0 I defined film reviewers as people who wrote for daily or weekly news outlets, but usually had no background in film or the arts (in contrast with so-called critics<\/i>).\u00a0 What they did have, however, was a taste in films which mirrored that of their readers\u2014which explained their tremendous popularity with the public.\u00a0 Furthermore, they usually made no pretense at all on basing their reviews on anything other than their own taste: their reviews either exhorted their readers to see a particular film or not waste their time and money\u2014there was nothing in between.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the last genuine film reviewer that I knew of passed away a few weeks ago.\u00a0 His name was Edward I. Koch (1924 \u2013 2013); he was also a very colorful former three-term mayor of the City of New York.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe People have spoken.\u00a0 Now they must be punished,\u201d he was often quoted as saying after the voters had unceremoniously turned him out of office in the early 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 Being suddenly out of a job, former Mayor Koch did what many other involuntarily unemployed people do to fill in the time:\u00a0 he went to the movies, often as many as three times a week.\u00a0 However, this was not something new to him; he grew up during the Depression when almost everybody did the same\u2014no matter how impoverished they were.\u00a0 \u201cKarl Marx had it all wrong,\u201d he has been quoted as saying.\u00a0 \u201cReligion is not the opiate of the masses.\u00a0 It\u2019s the movies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before long a local publisher of a small weekly neighborhood newspaper heard about Koch\u2019s movie-going habits and invited him to become their rmovie critic.\u00a0 After haggling over his compensation (they finally settled on $250 a week), the former mayor began his film reviewing career in earnest.\u00a0 He delighted in disagreeing with the \u201ccritics.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t listen to them.\u00a0 Listen to me,\u201d he would often say.\u00a0\u00a0 Koch\u2019s reviews were straight forward enough:\u00a0 he either liked a film or didn\u2019t.\u00a0 He awarded no \u201cstars.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0But that didn\u2019t mean that his reviews were not thoughtful.\u00a0\u00a0 He would often go to great lengths to explain what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish, whether he liked the film or not.\u00a0 Although he professed to have no special knowledge of film, that didn\u2019t inhibit him from pointing out what he considered to be bad writing and bad acting.\u00a0 Most important, Koch (at least in the reviews of his that I have read) was never dismissive of a film, no matter how much he disliked it.\u00a0 He appeared to respect the fact that numerous people may have devoted years of their lives in the making of it.\u00a0 This was in stark contrast to his demeanor in politics, where he was not known to suffer fools gladly.<\/p>\n
In 2011 Koch gave up his regular film reviewing duties.\u00a0 However there was one film that he purportedly wanted to review but never did: a documentary on his life (which he actually screened before his death) that recently opened in New York.<\/p>\n
One area in which his loss, I believe, will be especially felt is within the film industry itself: he seemed to like many of the films that he saw.\u00a0 You can still see his reviews on the internet at mayorkoch.com.\u00a0 And I recommend that you do so while they are still available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an earlier post, entitled \u201cWhat is Criticism?\u201d\u00a0 I bemoaned the fact that film \u201creviewers\u201d had all but disappeared.\u00a0 I defined film reviewers as people who wrote for daily or weekly news outlets, but usually had no background in film … Continue reading