The Hunger (1983)

In Tony Scott’s Domino (2005), Mena Suvari plays an entertainment executive who describes her boss’s (Christopher Walken) attention span as being one of “a ferret on crystal meth.” Ironically, this throwaway line of dialogue effectively describes the editing style of its director. Commonly employing two editors on each of his films, Tony Scott’s films are essentially case studies of an ongoing series I would like to title “When MTV Editing Goes Wrong.” Keep in mind that I am not criticizing film style or shorter shot lengths here. Rather, I am criticizing film style when it is used as a crutch to overcompensate for the deficiencies of a film. The depressing realization I came to while watching the opening of his debut film The Hunger (1983) was that, for a brief moment, Tony Scott actually knew how to use editing for engaging purposes rather than visceral ones.

Why I Care About the Ethics of Film Criticism

Watching movies for twenty years - not to mention being a cinema and media studies academic for almost a decade now - has impacted my life in several ways.  Most of these symptoms have been beneficial to me (socially, my gratuitous popular culture references don't always fly).  My love of movies resulted in a life in academia that requires historical research and critical analysis of film form, ideology, and the industry.  This, when I look back to the early reviews I wrote for my high school newspaper The Pirate, has made my writing on the arts more refined and thoughtful.  I am careful to avoid sweeping generalizations or hyperbolic value judgments that plagued my early material.  More importantly, these critical thinking and research skills extend beyond film.  This is not intended to be a rallying cry for a humanities education;  I fundamentally feel, as both a product of America's higher educational system and as an occasional instructor, that these skills have made me a more informed citizen, a more thoughtful and empathetic person, and I feel like I've made better life decisions - that better fit my lifestyle and personality at least - than I would have if I had stopped at high school or even with a Bachelor's Degree.