We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work. The judgments we can usually make for ourselves.
Interpretation
Critics provide insights into art that we might overlook, while we are capable of forming our own judgments.
Pauline Kael highlights the value of critics in the appreciation of art. She suggests that while viewers can often form their own opinions about a piece, critics offer perspectives that deepen our understanding and reveal elements we might not have recognized initially.
In practice
In a discussion on the role of critics in art, one could quote Kael to emphasize their importance in enhancing our understanding.
I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what youβve seen.
The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.
It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists, but simply announce that they are, don't have the patience to make art.
Imagining [The Wizard of Oz] without Judy Garland is a bit like dancing on wet cement: you can do it, but why would you want to?
What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.
Erotica is using a feather; pornograpy is using the whole chicken.
My early childhood equipped me really well for my portrait work: The quick encounter, where you are not going to know the subject for very long. These days I am much more comfortable with the fifteen minute relationship, than I am with a life long relationship.
It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.
In film, you have to let go sometimes.
I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.
I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time, before I write them down; meanwhile my memory is so faithful that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me.
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