In a piece discussing the year in cinema, film critic Dana Stevens reflects on Joan Didion's famous quote about film criticism being 'an elaborate embroidery on a surface too ephemeral to sustain it.' Stevens argues against Didion's assertion, believing that film criticism, particularly week-to-week coverage, holds lasting value.
, film critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow critics—for 2024, Bilge Ebiri, K. Austin Collins, Alison Willmore, and Odie Henderson—about the year in cinema.”: an elaborate embroidery on a surface too ephemeral to sustain it. It’s a devastating burn for sure, of the sort Didion specialized in, but though the image may make every critic briefly question their life’s work, that doesn’t make it true.
But like … most of the above has been true for nearly five years now, and some of it for much longer, and yet somehow here people are still going to movies, talking about them on the way down the multiplex escalator, debating their merits and hidden meanings over dinner, getting annoyed with their omnipresent Oscar campaigns.
I noticed, sizing up the year’s films for my own list, that many of the movies that left a mark played with scale in some way. Bilge, at least two of the movies on, that might be seen as a critique of both its subject’s and its director’s toxic ambition, a vast edifice that even a fan like me must admit has significant cracks in its foundation.
a film that made my Top 10 list and was at the very top of Alison’s.
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Film Critics Debate the Ephemerality of Their WorkFilm critic Dana Stevens reflects on Joan Didion's famous quote comparing film criticism to embroidery on Kleenex, arguing that film criticism, with its enduring legacy and impact on audience choices, transcends its ephemeral nature. She engages in an email exchange with fellow critics - Bilge Ebiri, K. Austin Collins, Alison Willmore, and Odie Henderson - about the year in cinema, discussing the enduring power of film criticism despite various challenges faced by the industry.
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