The Springboard of the Self and the Pool of Ignorance

Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

An excerpt from a comment by one of the great critics of film criticism, Glenn Kenny, on his blog, Some Came Running:

 I remember an interview in Creem magazine (or was it Crawdaddy?) with Ian Anderson in the very early '70s which he bemoaned the musical ignorance of the average rock fan and suggested —jokingly—that punters be required to whistle a twelve-bar blues before being allowed admittance to a performance. I thought that was dumb and, as they say, elitist, even when I was a kid. (I used to have this rather naive belief that in the free arena of opinion exchange, the best idea best expressed would have to win, which didn't turn out well, but that's another story.) And of course critical thought and subjectivity are inextricably linked, and anyone who says they're not is rather willfully lying. That said, beyond the direct experience there can, and should, be some kind of genuine detachment at least attempted; thought ought to do double the work that feeling did during the experience being put up for discussion. This is why the phrase "soundboard for the self" rubbed me so severely the wrong way; when I'm participating in, or consuming, criticism, how someone feels about something is pretty low on the list of potential material. I'm not so much interested in what you feel as what, and how, you think. And if you glibly announce, for instance, that a work we'll call for the purposes of this exercise "MAX" is a stuffy European relic that's ripe for parody, without betraying the slightest hint of awareness that "MAX" is in fact kind of a parody to begin with, then no, I'm not going to respect either your conclusion or your process. Too often the springboard of the self dives straight into a pool of ignorance, which is then privileged with the protest, "Well, that's MY opinion, anyway, and who are you to say it's wrong?"