The Secret of Criticism

I practice film criticism but I am nowhere near an expert in the field. To some people, when I have a criticism against a film their first thought is whether I ripped that idea off from someone else. Even I think it when someone tells me a long winded reason why they liked or disliked something and their reasons looked like it went beyond their usual realm of knowledge.

Yes, many people really just do just plagiarize their ideas from other people. I do too but in a different way.

Whenever I write about something, I am always borrowing from other writers and critics. What I am not doing is specifically taking ideas about one film and using them as my own for that same film, but taking ideas and thoughts about other films and extending them to a new film where that thought hasn't been applied. When a Jazz musician predicates himself on composition and improvization and is asked how much of his music is improvised, he almost always wants to say none. Improvization isn't a simple making things up on the spot. It's a mechanism in which to use years of experience to approach a new piece. The strength of my criticism depends on my experience and knowledge of other writings. That will allow me greater abilities to challenge with new thoughts.

I say "new thoughts" for a reason. The best part about writing criticism is that you'll start with certain ideas but the creative process of writing it will allow new ideas to grow. These new ideas may or may not change my previous stances. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I just know I've written 80% of a review once only to find my thought process evolved to allow a new idea change everything I wrote. The only choice I had was to start over.