#edrants sofiacoppola filmcriticism

[weekendwarriorblog]

For Fuck’s Sake, Let’s Stop Molly-Coddling Sofia Fucking Coppola Already!

This actually isn’t a piece specifically about Sofia Coppola, nor is it a rant or review about her new movie The Beguiled, which I’ve already summed up my feelings for in my 140-character tweet.  Nor, in fact, is this about the mostly negative reaction to that tweet on Facebook that followed. 

In fact, I’m a little sorry to admit that YOU HAVE BEEN CLICK-BAITED!!!! (Insert GIF of Rick Astley fly-fishing... surely there’s one out there.)

 Okay, I’m only half-kidding, because obviously this must have something to do with something or why would I bother to write it? You see, I used to write something called “The Battle Cry” as part of my Weekend Warrior column that allowed me to rant on a variety of subjects that didn’t always make me very popular, but I stopped doing them and toned things down... and honestly, I’m no more or less happy for doing that... so I’m back to ranting about stuff.

This is the thing. Having had a lot of difficulty getting work in the last few months, especially in terms of finding new outlets to write reviews for, the general attitude and hypocrisy among the working film critics around me is starting to piss me off. Honestly, I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I just don’t give two shits anymore and figure if no one else is going to offer you some gosh-darned truth, then it’s just going to have to be little old me. 

Mind you, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this has nothing to do with any differing opinions on Ms. Coppola’s The Beguiled or whether or not the movie and she deserved the attention out of Cannes that she got no, this is the fact that so many critics will make an effort even to SEE her movie or Wonder Woman or even Transformers, while there are plenty of indie filmmakers, both men and women, who can’t even get a SINGLE film critic to even BOTHER to see their movies.

I understand perfectly well that there’s only so many hours in the day and that often, preferential treatment will be given to a higher profile movie or one that might warrant a “thinkpiece.” (And even using that term here makes me want to take a hot bath with Brillo to scour my skin.)

Most working movie writers and critics mainly want to focus on the movies that they’re getting paid to see and the movies that they can write about to keep their outlets profitable. It’s becoming more and more clear that the job of film critic is no longer about going out there and seeing a wide variety of films and trying to find the best of the best that can be heralded and championed in a landscape where smaller movies sans stars can barely even get a movie theater screen to play on and are therefore relegated to VOD, DVD, iTunes, etc.  

These are all fine forms of medium, but I’m sure that even that medium is becoming difficult for the end-viewer to navigate with few critics bothering with movies that don’t get a theatrical release.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because I was sitting at the Metrograph waiting for a press screening of a movie I knew absolutely nothing about. Sure, I had received information in an Email about it, plus press notes, but I didn’t bother to read them. I just figured, “Hey, if it’s playing at the Metrograph, it’s a block away, and it’s no skin off my teeth to spend ninety minutes to check it out.” There were only two other critics there (who won’t be mentioned by name) but as they sat down, they were busy talking about... guess what? Yup... Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled.  I literally was gritting my teeth as I heard one of them talk about the negative debate on “Film Twitter” to the movie blah blah blah... it was just more of the same, “Let’s talk about the flavor of the week” crap I’ve been hearing for the past 16 years I’ve been doing this, no biggie.

But the point is that at least the two of them bothered to see this smaller indie movie that was press screening, so good for them. Where were the literally DOZENS of others that showed up for an equally inconvenient early morning screening of The Beguiled the day before? See, for Sofia Coppola, we have to go out there and have an opinion on her latest work because she’s such an “important” filmmaker... or let’s call it as it is... “such an important female filmmaker.” (Some critics at that screening were seeing the movie for a second time.) 

Again, not to disparage Coppola or the movie but what on earth makes her such an important filmmaker? Besides let’s see...  She was nominated for an Oscar. Okay. For a fairly decent movie called Lost in Translation. Fair enough. She is Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter. There we go. So for all those things, that movie gets more attention (and praise) than most of the other movies being released this month, and meanwhile, the movie I was at the Metrograph to see, a FINE and quite original New Zealand film both written and directed by women is basically being ignored. Granted, the movie I mention--called The Rehearsal-- played the New York Film Festival last year, and getting into that festival alone is quite a remarkable achievement, but I wonder how many of the local critics bothered to go to that press screening or write about the movie then?

At this writing, there are 11 reviews on RottenTomatoes, only one from anyone I know (nice job, Matt Donato!), four from reputable North American outlets (none of them from their regular writers) and exactly ZERO from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap or Deadline, the four primary trade magazines.

And yet, every single person seems to feel the need to see and share their opinion on any Sofia Coppola movie, and she automatically gets way more attention for anything she does than probably 95% of the women filmmakers out there, many whom in my opinion are far better and who I’ve been heralding for a decade and a half.  So right off the bat, we can throw out this running narrative of “Let’s draw more attention to women directors by having more women film writers”... because they’re just going to glom praise on the same five women directors as everyone else does.

Heck, if the Cannes jury really were trying to make a statement, they could have given their directing award to ANY of the other women directors in competition, who probably could have used and maybe even deserved the attention more than Coppola does—like one of the foreign filmmakers who probably had to work far harder to get the budget and cast for their films. But nope.... she’s Sofia Coppola, so of course, we’re going to fall over ourselves to make her feel important, so she can get money for her next star-studded movie.

It’s absolute and total garbage, and it gets really tiring, because critics are always ready to heap praise on the exact same filmmakers (either men or women) even when they’re doing lesser work, then they are willing to go out there to find NEW talented filmmakers (either men or women) trying to do different things that may try to create their own narrative.

I can count maybe a half dozen film critics in my circle that actually make an effort to see enough movies that they’ll bother to go out of their way to call attention to the better ones that they see at film festivals, even if they’re not the big ticket gala premieres. That is fucking ridiculous.

Instead it’s all the exact same narrative that has turned the art of film criticism into basically a bunch of circle-jerking yes-men and yes-women and 24-hour cynics afraid to have or state their own opinions in fear they’ll distance themselves from the herd.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on that subject soon, but let’s get back to the title of this rant, which in some ways actually does have everything to do with Sofia Coppola and The Beguiled and the reactions to my tweet.

Read the title again and figure it out. (Warning: This will be the first of a series.)

Oh, and I feel like each of these should be accompanied by a George Constanza clip so...