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By David Ansen
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Do movie critics ever have second thoughts about what they've written? Ever change their minds about movies? If they (alright, let's make that we) do, you're not likely to see it in print.
The late Pauline Kael was famous for never changing her brilliantly obstinate mind. As if to ensure that she wouldn't, she almost never saw a movie more than once. Indeed, critical changes of heart are such a rare event that when they do occur it makes news: the most famous mea culpa being Joe Morgenstern's reappraisal (right here in the pages of NEWSWEEK) about "Bonnie and Clyde," a movie he had initially panned, only to come back and proclaim it (wisely) a great movie. But that was 35 years ago. Evidently movie reviewing, like love, means never having to say you're sorry.
I bring this up because the review I wrote of Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" has been nagging at me. A qualified rave, it was written the day after I saw the movie, when my system was still humming from the visceral excitement of the director's razzle-dazzle filmmaking. Though I was disappointed in the final half hour, I wrote "it's unlikely you'll see a thriller as exciting and provocative this year."
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But where some movies grow stronger and richer in retrospect, "Minority Report" has distinctly diminished in my mind. I may have been right about the "exciting" part--the bravura opening sequence alone makes it worth the price of admission. But I now disagree with myself about the "provocative" aspect. The ambitious themes the movie purports to tackle aren't really engaged with in any satisfying or coherent way. Struck by the timely similarities between Philip K. Dick's notions of "pre-crime" prevention and our current Justice Department's cavalierly unconstitutional "round up the usual suspects" policies on terrorism, I read meanings into the film that I wished were there.
I have no such qualms about my enthusiasm for the much reviled "AI," a far more haunting and emotionally complex film. Distance only makes it seem deeper. "Minority Report" now strikes me as a triumph of technique over content. I'd still recommend it to anyone--no other Hollywood summer movie has its cinematic flair--but it seems a movie whose reach far exceeds its grasp. Like a number of other Spielberg movies ("Empire of the Sun," most conspicuously) it begins magnificently but loses its way--and its nerve--by the end.
Movie reviewing is, of course, a deeply personal and subjective occupation, but it shouldn't be merely subjective. There is, if you will, a certain Zen aspect to the job: you want to clear your mind of distractions so that you can take in the work as purely as possible, with an open mind and heart. But let's face it: sometimes the noise in your head, or the pain in your butt or sheer media overload, gets in the way. I've learned, for example, not to entirely trust my reactions to movies I first see at film festivals, when the daily intake can be as many as four films in rapid succession, and jet lag is waging a winning battle with one's powers of concentration. I was chastened many years ago when I saw Mike Leigh's "Life is Sweet" for a second time after a good night's sleep. What had seemed to me a disappointing sitcom in a tiny, uncomfortable, overheated room in Cannes looked smart and delightful several months later when viewed in a Los Angeles screening room. Luckily, I hadn't written about the movie from the festival. Since it's often a year before festival movies make it to the marketplace, second viewings often seem obligatory.
I know of one influential, and normally trustworthy, critic who savaged a brilliant but difficult movie at Cannes (it went on to win the Palme d'Or). I couldn't fathom his disdain until he told me that he'd seen it on two hours of sleep after a night of heavy partying. The hand-held camera just gave him a massive headache, and he punished it back in print. Unfortunate, but understandable to anyone whose ever seen a movie with a hangover. (No, I won't say who it was.)
Seeing a movie twice can lead to other dilemmas critics are not prone to confessing. I was very moved, many years ago, by an Ellen Burstyn drama about a faith healer, the 1980 film "Resurrection." But when I took another look just prior to the film's release, I suspected I'd fallen for ersatz, sentimental goods. Still, though I trusted my more distanced, skeptical re-viewing, it didn't feel right to deny my initial genuine emotional reaction (and most people only see a movie once). I decided, in my review, to favor the gut response, albeit with some discreet qualifications.
Reviewers, as a rule, are more suspicious of the "manipulative" powers of movies (as if all movies weren't, in some sense, manipulative), and that's perhaps as it should be. But the critic who won't allow himself a good cry is in the wrong business: that's one of the reasons we all go to the movies. I was so shattered when I first saw Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" that I literally couldn't see how nutty the movie was, how distorted its vision of Vietnam was. It was and still is an amazing piece of visceral cinema, but were I to write about it today (and in the context of Cimino's bizarre career), I would write a very different kind of review. The text of that movie was so strong, it initially blinded a lot of people to the strange, fascinating psycho-sexual-political subtexts. It's more a movie about the inside of its director's head than about Vietnam.
The amazing thing actually is how seldom a second viewing changes one's initial impression. Far more often it just reinforces, or clarifies, that first opinion. "Boogie Nights" was just as exhilarating the second time around; Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark" impressed and annoyed me just as it had before. But something else happens when you revisit a movie decades later: whether you still like or dislike it, it's rarely the same movie, for the historical context has changed, not to mention your own personal history. Today Robert Altman's terrific "The Long Goodbye" almost looks like an essay on violence against women; when it first came out, nobody even noticed this strain in the film. What struck you as a daring social drama as a kid ("The Defiant Ones") may now look embarrassing.
Then there are the movies you wish you hadn't been so quibbling about; movies whose flaws seem utterly insubstantial in retrospect. Though I wrote very positively about Albert Brooks's 1980s comedies "Modern Romance" and "Lost in America," I wish I had been less qualified in my praise. The passage of time made it clear how audaciously original these quirky comedies are; my reservations seem oddly beside the point today.
It's unfortunate, actually, that having second thoughts is viewed as a sign of critical weakness. In an era of snap judgments and thumbs-up/thumbs-down reviewing, it would be healthy if critics were allowed to revisit their own opinions, to acknowledge that tastes and perceptions are subject to the available, changing light and that our judgments are better carved in soap or sand than in stone. The movie culture would be more vital with more debate--both between ourselves and with ourselves. But that, I'm afraid, is a minority report.
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