Thank you Siskel and Ebert

Back in the days when film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert had their syndicated movie-review show, I never missed it.
It’s not that I found their recommendations an infallible guide that kept me coming back every week as the fact that it was the easiest way, particularly in the pre-World Wide Web age, to learn about new movies. Thanks to them, I heard about all manner of art films, foreign films, indie films that I would never have known about otherwise (they rarely played Northwest Florida); even if I sometimes found their recommendations over-rated the films, they turned me on to enough good ones that I didn’t mind the flops.
For example, The Long Good Friday, a fine Brit crime drama with Robert Hoskins (I just caught a glimpse of it the other day, which is what prompted this post) that I would never have known existed if Siskel and Ebert hadn’t endorsed it highly.
But it’s not only the recommendations, it’s the fact they had a big influence on the way I think about film. As Bill Warren said in the introduction to Keep Watching The Skies (the definitive 1950s SF movie guide), an important part of good criticism is making you see why you like a particular film.
So here are a few of the insights and phrases I’ve gleaned from S&E over the years:
•”If the movie doesn’t work, we don’t want the director telling us why it had to be that way.” In community theater, I’ve heard a number of directors explain why this or that problem just couldn’t be fixed, as if that made it not a problem. The truth is, if it doesn’t work—regardless of whether “it” is a play, a movie, a book—it doesn’t work, regardless of the problems or the creator’s intention.
•”Consistency only counts if you don’t like the movie.” (actually a quote by Ebert of Vincent Canby) Which I realized when I heard it is true of many things: If I like the film (or the book, or the TV series), I’ll give it a pass on weak characterization, stupid plotlines, inconsistencies; if my gut reaction is negative, I’ll blame my dislike on those flaws.
•”You’re criticizing the movie they didn’t make.” A lot of criticism involves “What they should have done …” discussions, but if it drifts too far from what they did do, it becomes ridiculous. For example, romance writer Janet Dailey once criticized the sitcom Gimme a Break because it wasn’t a love story, and the leads had no romantic chemistry; the fact that it wasn’t a romance and the leads weren’t in a relationship didn’t seem to matter.
•”The premise is what happens.” That’s more or less how Ebert summed up Making Love, in which Kate Jackson learns her husband is gay: The premise is basically the entire plot. Ever since, I keep stumbling across movies where the same is true, such as Guilty By Suspicion in the previous post.
•And while it’s not Siskel and Ebert, I’ll also throw in Vincent Canby’s wonderful phrase, “The in-love-with-Virginia-Mayo school of history,” to describe historical epics where the fall of Rome, the conquest of the West or the outcome of the Crusades somehow hinge on who gets the girl.