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.
I put one questions. For whom I compose? My answer is I wanted to address to all my people. And if I write music for the Greek people because I'm Greek, I compose for all the people.
I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things.
If you can make people understand why freedom is so important through the arts, that would be a big help.
I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.
I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of, necessarily, but writing about it, putting it into your words, can be a very powerful experience.
Fantasy isn't just a jolly escape: It's an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It's where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying. You move into a world of conflicting extremes.
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