Auteurs & Amateurs: Toward an Ethics of Film Criticism

Film criticism in the active film industries of Asia mimics the Western models on which film production is premised as well. The problem of sifting through and determining what constitutes film criticism first encounters the question of motive, admittedly an ethical one: is the critique independent enough to be taken as an evaluation free from the promotional requisite of the film being reviewed? From this distinction between serious commentary and presumably disposable publicity comes a hierarchy of writing on cinema, policed by a growing cadre of commentators on social networks and affirmed by instructors of communication and institutions that seek to bestow recognition for quality achievements. In ascending order, these would be film reporting (including gossip writing), promotions, reviewing, and criticism. I would argue, however, that this ground-level upward-gazing perspective impedes the larger envisioning of the discursive fields of film and culture. Criticism, in the industrially fostered operations of media, also serves its own promotional function, no matter how badly its practitioners claim to disavow the notion. What it promotes are the schools of thought and/or practice that give rise to theories that predetermine writers’ and artists’ orientations. This paper aims to consider the various dominant schools in Asian practice, with focus on the Philippines, and to determine ways in which film theories may be made more responsive to local experience.