In The Immediate Experience, a book by Robert Warshaw, I found and underlined this sentence: “A man goes to the movies. The critic must admit that he is this man.” I translated that to mean that the critic must place experience above theory, must monitor what he actually thinks and feels during the film, and trust that above all. If the film is by a great director, does that make it a great film? If it comes from a disreputable genre, does that make it unworthy? In the mind of the critic, each film must earn its own living.
