Criticism as conversation

Darren Hughes of Long Pauses on the tired arena of film reviews and the critic's responsibility:

What I do love, though, is to be engaged in good conversation. Conversation that values beauty and curiosity and empathy and intelligence. Conversation that is genuinely interested in the strangeness of human emotion and faith and culture and experience. And that, I think, is where criticism should find its voice. That's my goal, at least. To be in conversation with artists whose creative imaginations are large and complex and varied. And I consider it the great responsibility of the critic to be up to that challenge. Work, brother. Work.

Read his new article on the films of John Cassavetes:

"I am a moralist," Cassavetes once said, "in that I believe the greatest morality is to acknowledge the freedom of others; to be oneself and to not be in judgment." He extends that freedom to his audience as well. It is a powerful corrective to Hollywood’s superficiality.