Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The critic who played with fire”

Do early reviews make a difference to the marketing of a movie? Not to some of us, at least.

What is the value of a critical opinion? A lot, apparently, at least in the US. The New Yorker critic David Denby saw David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at a screening for the New York Film Critics Circle and signed a waiver that he wouldn’t review the film until December 13. (The release date is December 21.) But he did exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. The review was something of a rave, but the producer, Scott Rudin, was not impressed. To him, it was a matter of principle, not plaudits. He announced that Denby was banned from all future screenings of his films. A controversy ensued that lasted an eternity – otherwise known, in this age of social networking, as two whole days, after which the next controversy reared its head and distracted everybody. The issue now lies forgotten, but it’s fascinating that something so seemingly inconsequential was allowed to become an issue in the first place.

With Oscar season underway, why would Rudin contest a positive review from a prestigious publication? Wouldn’t it add to the film’s marketability? Wouldn’t it make for better blurbs in the “for your consideration” ads aimed at Oscar voters? But Fincher looks at it differently. In an interview published in miami.com, the director said, “Look, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t show movies to anybody before they were released. I wouldn’t give clips to talk shows. I would do one trailer and three television spots and let the chips fall where they may. That’s how far in the other direction I am. If I had my way, the New York Film Critics Circle would not have seen this movie and then we would not be in this situation.” He added, “My whole thing is ‘If people want to come, they’ll come.’ But they should be completely virgin. I’m not of the mind to tell anybody anything about the movie they are going to see.”

This was the sole voice of sanity in this silly affair, which Fincher rightly described as “privileged people bickering.” I agree with Fincher. I like to see movies cold. If you stick your head out, there’s a bit of the movie in the air around you – in a snatch of music from a tea-stall radio, in a poster, in the headlines in the leisure sections of newspapers (even if you don’t actually read the piece beneath) – and that sense is enough. Because if you’re serious about movies – and especially if you write about movies – a review can be a dangerous thing. However spoiler-resistant a reviewer is, he will let slip details about a performance he liked, a plot point he loathed, and the blank slates of our minds are coloured by these perceptions. Inside the theatre, we begin to anticipate the performance the reviewer liked, the plot point he loathed. The opinions of reviewers and those of social-media posters become voices inside our heads. There’s no escaping them.

It’s like how we see trailers of songs, and the minute – inside the theatre – we see the actors in those costumes we know that the song is coming up. There is no surprise, any longer, in the lead-up to the song. It cannot burst upon us anymore like a sudden shower – it’s instead a slow and insistent drizzle that we know is going to burst upon us any moment now. I like the sudden shower. I like to read reviews after I watch a film. I’ve experienced it and processed my thoughts about it, and now I want to know how others experienced it and what they thought about it. It’s not about whether my opinions about the film were right or wrong. The way my inner workings process a movie is always going to be “right.” That’s the only way I can see the film, not through the eyes of someone else. But he will hopefully bolster his views with a well-argued case and give me something to think about. That, in my opinion, is the only purpose of a review. That’s why it’s irrelevant that Denby’s review appeared this many days before the release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – I’m only going to need it after.

Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here.

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