Critics Quotes - Page 27

• I never really wanted to be a daily critic who goes out every night and writes 300 word reviews, I wanted to write essays. And that gave me the luxury to be able to go out and if it was lousy, I could just say, well the hell with that, I'll go to hear something else, or, I'll go tomorrow night; I as writing for a weekly.

  Gary Giddins

  Writing, Night, Tomorrow

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Criticism ultimately at some degree is about the writer and not the subject. It's very easy if everybody else says, "He's a genius," to echo that, but then you're not functioning as a critic or as a writer in any meaningful way. You've got to take the risk of being wrong.

  Gary Giddins

  Meaningful, Risk, Criticism

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Even my colleagues don't read classic criticism. And my feeling is that if you don't do that then you're not really practicing your craft. That's how you learn how to do it. You don't learn how to write about jazz just from listening to jazz. You learn how to write by reading the great writers and how they worked, the great music critics.

  Gary Giddins

  Reading, Writing, Feelings

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Humility is a very important trait in a critic.

  Gary Giddins

  Humility, Important, Traits

  Source: bigthink.com

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• One film critic back in the early days said "It's a pity Mr. Harryhausen didn't animated the actors, too."

  Ray Harryhausen

  Film, Pity, Animated

  Source: www.austinchronicle.com

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• The way I try to explain it the best is that if Critic A from publication A hates our show, and Critic B from publication B loves our show, what are we supposed to do with that? We have to just respect everyone's opinions and go on making the show we want to make. I've never worked on a show that was altered by critical reception. You just can't afford to do that. So in that regard, it's actually no different that working in theater. It's just a lot more voices.

  Thomas Sadoski

  Hate, Trying, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I'm a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my own stuff or things that come from my work.

  Michael Connelly

  Harsh

  "Michael Connelly Talks about his New Series (and his Brand New Character)". Interview With Chris Schluep, www.amazonbookreview.com. July 17, 2017.

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• That's something you can't get off the wires in New York is people providing intelligent coverage of what your theater company in Podunk is up to. Many of the people who write what we call amateur criticism are professionals in anything other than name and receiving a paycheck. Very often, they know more than the professional critic who might be writing for their local newspaper. So, really, I'm all for it. It's changing the playing field, it's shaking things up, it's going to make the critical environment a healthier environment.

  Terry Teachout

  Writing, Intelligent, People

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Direction is the most invisible part of the theatrical art. It's not like the conductor in the symphony orchestra performance because he's standing in front of you waiving his arms. You now what he's doing. You don't know what the director is doing unless you know a lot about theater and even then you can only deduce it. You know it when you go to rehearsal. You really know it when they are rehearsing something of yours. I learned more in the rehearsals for The Letter than I have ever dreamed of know in the theater as a critic. If it doesn't make me a better critic, I'm an idiot.

  Terry Teachout

  Art, Idiot, Invisible

  Source: bigthink.com

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• There will be this mix of people like me who write for major national newspapers and amateur critics, practitioner critics, whose primary way of distributing what they talk about is through blogs and on the web. The line between professional and amateur criticism will become increasingly blurred. The problem here is that if you want to do this for a living, you have to be able to earn a living doing it.

  Terry Teachout

  Writing, People, Criticism

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Virgil Thomson, the great classical music critic, who was also a composer, but said that criticism was the only antidote he knew to pay publicity. Critics at their best are independent voices people take seriously their responsibility to see as many things as they can see, put them in the widest possible perspective, educate their readers, I really do think of myself as a teacher. Newspapers that don't carry arts criticism at all while not fulfill this function. And probably their arts journalism will be deprived as a result.

  Terry Teachout

  Teacher, Art, Independent

  Source: bigthink.com

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• There is nothing more common than critics of journalists accusing them of practicing journalism. It is our function in the world to take things that are complicated and render them in a form that non-experts can follow and make sense of.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  World, Common, Journalism

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• I look for the ability to work. Directing is hard work. They don't teach you that in film school. Critics are not aware of it, but it is hard, physical work.

  Roger Corman

  Hard Work, School, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I think without the harsh critics, I would maybe have not made progress. From BloodRayne on, I spent more time and money on the development.

  Uwe Boll

  Thinking, Progress, Harsh

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I think the harsh reviews helped, in that I spent way more energy in the preproduction and development. From this point of view, I'm very thankful for the harsh critics. I still think the critics were unnecessarily insulting in a lot of things, but I think it helped.

  Uwe Boll

  Thinking, Insulting, Energy

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I reject criticism because the last thing I wanted was to sit there and look at people talking. I think people are conditioned to think of documentaries now as talking heads. This movie about Valentino is not about that at all. It's about watching people in action. To the critics who wanted more talking heads, I send a dozen dead roses.

  Matt Tyrnauer

  Thinking, People, Rose

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Our recent pop-music icons, even the most radical ones, like Björk or Caetano Veloso, often have to present themselves as happy and make positive work because they have such a large young fan base to whom they feel responsible. They can't be too negative. Now, criticism is basically a negative act. As you know, critics are neither pop stars nor popular. They are the gripers. But someone has to speak up and say no to this and yes to that.

  Diego Cortez

  Criticism, Negative, Speak

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think at one point, a whole new younger generation of critics come in and they're really aware of zeitgeist in their group, and the older artists tend to get forgotten as their critics retire and do other things or stop paying attention. So there's a factor of aging that I think is to be considered, too. As a middle-aged artist, you kind of get put on a shelf for the young ones.

  Michael C. McMillen

  Artist, Thinking, Attention

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• Any critic will tell you that there are a few dealers where you get a little bit scared to go into their gallery, and that's unfair to them, to yourself, to the reader, and to the artist. But I just want to look. When I'm done looking and writing, I love talking to art dealers. They are so alive and interesting and amazing - from Larry Gagosian all the way on down.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Writing, Interesting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Any negative review you write, they'll say, "Oh, you're being so mean." I think the problem with a lot of criticism is that too many critics either write just description or they write in a Mandarin jargon that only a handful of people can understand, or they write happy criticis - everything is good that they write about. I think that's really not good. I think it's damaged a lot of our critical voices.

  Jerry Saltz

  Writing, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The reason I love blogs so much right now is that I am seeing more critical voices appear, and that's kind of thrilling. I think a lot of critics in their forties or even their thirties have had their voice scared or trained out of them by the academy. I have nothing against the academy. I think it's brilliant and fantastic, but I also think that it's become almost monolithic. The same way a lot of art looks the same, a lot of writing can sound the same and quotes the same theorists.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. No sports writer would say, "Well the Yankees had a great season this year." No food critic would get a bad meal and say, "Oh, it was so lovely." It always strikes me as odd when people say, "Why do you write negatively about any art?" I think that everybody has mixed feelings about everything - even Goya. I mean, I look at Rembrandt sometimes and I hear a voice in my head go, "It's pretty brown."

  Jerry Saltz

  Sports, Art, Writing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• My job as art critic is to watch artists dance naked in public, and then I will, in turn, dance naked critically in public.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Every art critic and every writer doesn't have a frame to start off from. If I made a statement saying, "This is Abstract Expressionism," they could go, "Well, he failed miserably," or, "Fantastic, this is a new genius!" But in art history, I don't see any of the artists I like spewing bullshit. I don't see anyone recording it or pronouncing what they were doing.

  Damian Loeb

  Art, Bullshit, Genius

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I definitely think I put more pressure on myself. I can be hard on myself and super-critical and very rarely satisfied or happy. I am my biggest critic.

  Allyson Felix

  Thinking

  "The Road to Rio". Interview with Avery Stone, www.yahoo.com. August 3, 2016.

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