Referencing critics
If you have read about Ingmar Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) you have probably noticed that it is claimed that it was widely, even wildly, criticised by the Swedish film critics when it came out. As an example among many, here is a quote from Peter Cowie’s influential book Ingmar Bergman - A Critical Biography (1982): “The leading critics loathed and detested the film.” (p. 119) This is not true. A few critics disliked it, a hostile review by Sven Jan Hanson (pen name Filmson) has even become famous and frequently quoted1, but the majority of the leading critics in the major newspapers and film journals gave the film great reviews, saying it was Bergman’s finest film and the best Swedish film of the year. Harry Schein wrote in his review that it was one of the best films he had ever seen. It is only a myth that Sawdust and Tinsel was panned.2
This is a somewhat extreme example of how puzzling it is when critics of the past are mentioned; when historians or scholars claim that a particular film got good or bad reviews, that “the critics” loved it or hated it. What does this mean exactly? Who are those critics? How would we know today what they all thought and how many of all the critics would have to love or hate something for it to be possible to say what “the critics” as a group thought? 80%? 51%? And which critics? From where? New York? France? The world?
The number of critics from the past that are mentioned by name are a very small sample. Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, Bosley Crowther (usually as a punching ball), the French critics at Cahiers du Cinéma, and Andrew Sarris. Sometimes Raymond Durgnat, championed especially by Adrian Martin, and some might mention Otis Ferguson or the fabulous James Agee. That is about it. You can probably name a few I have forgotten but of all the critics of the world, how was it decided that these few were the sum of it all?
The two most influential critics for me when I grew up were Tom Milne and Geoff Andrew from the UK. They are rarely mentioned, at least not outside Britain. Someone I discovered later was Dilys Powell, active from 1939 to 1995, and who I always go back to because I like to know what she thought about this or that film. She is rarely mentioned either. There are almost no Swedish critics from the previous century that are ever referred to or discussed. This is a shame because there were many great ones.
If more people were more knowledgeable about earlier generations of film critics, not just from Sweden but from the US, UK, Japan, Italy, India, Australia, and other places, it might once and for all put a stop to the mistaken idea that the French critics in the 1950s brought something new to the world of cinema and criticism.
Another film that, like Sawdust and Tinsel, got great reviews in Sweden was Souls at Sea (1937). Some, like the critic Sven Jan Hanson who hated Sawdust and Tinsel, called it a masterpiece and one of the best films of the year. Henry Hathaway was also mentioned in the reviews as being a master director. (Not Swedish, but I do like Variety’s reviewer describing Hathaway’s direction of Souls at Sea as “bold, brave and sweeping.") But, unlike Sawdust and Tinsel, Souls at Sea is not a film people talk about or care about today outside the handful of people, like myself, who consider Hathaway a major director and Souls at Sea a major film.3
If you feel a need to refer to critics of the past, you should specify which critics you are referring to and what makes the views of these particular critics representative. Only saying that a certain film got good or bad reviews when it came out is close to meaningless. Is there any significance to what the critics thought about Sawdust and Tinsel? What is the relevance of the views of those Swedish critics? Would it make a difference, one way or the other, if it, or Souls at Sea, had been widely panned instead? The implication is usually that the critics back then were wrong and now we enlightened people know the truth about the quality of the film, whether good or bad. This too is questionable for the same reason; which ones, and how many, would have to agree about something for you to be able to say that this is what people thought then and this is what people think today? Do “the critics” like Vertigo (1958) more today than in 1958? Not necessarily.
Invoking criticism of the past is preferably done for the purpose of summing up trends or style, or how a certain critic evolved over time, or how a specific journal or newspaper talked about films. It is also relevant to look at, for example, the initial reviews of films that are today called film noir to see what they were called then, before film noir was a term in use. In his review in The Hollywood Reporter, Jack D. Grant referred to Hathaway’s The Dark Corner (1946) as a superior example of “the currently successful cycle of hard-boiled, hard-bitten melodramas”. Nobody today would call it or similar films a melodrama but that was almost the norm then. Such things are interesting. Whether they liked or disliked The Dark Corner is not.
The famous review of Sawdust and Tinsel is the one containing the phrase “Jag vägrar dock att okulärbesiktiga den uppkastning Ingmar Bergman lämnat efter sig den här gången.”
I assume that this myth originated with Bergman, who complained about being persecuted by all the critics.
I have seen all but three of Hathaway’s films and written about him and his films in different places. You can search at my old blog for starters.