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The Screening Room

by Sean Howe
May/June 2007

Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

Since 2000, the New York Times film critic A.O. Scott has offered his unique perspective on more than 900 films for the paper, from Godard’s Masculin Feminin to Eddie Murphy’s Norbit. His erudition and wit were in full force during a recent conversation over coffee, where I asked him about how professionals watch movies.

If you were to isolate one quality that you look for in a film, what would that be?
In commercial movies, there’s an element of predictability week in and week out that’s very draining. I’m always looking to be surprised, and therefore challenged—to see something I hadn’t seen before, and can’t immediately come up with a clever critical take on. All-time favorites—mine include La Dolce Vita, The Godfather Part II, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and The Leopard—allow us to repeat that experience of surprise, to see something new each time we watch. For that to happen, there must be some unexpected nuance that’s put into play.

How does someone learn to watch a movie the way a critic does?
Simply watch more, watch things you think you’re not going to like. There are still prejudices about high art, low art, what’s important and what’s not. [As a critic] you have to take everything that comes, guard against your own prejudices. Thanks to DVD commentary tracks, the technical aspects of filmmaking have been demystified; you can learn from them. And repeated, analytical viewings are what we do. You don’t need prints or an archive to do it.

Any real favorites?
Certainly Visconti and Fellini are two of my favorites. A lot of Italian movies from the late ’50s and early ’60s, at the end of Neorealism, but still in the novelistic spirit of Neorealism: Rocco & His Brothers, La Dolce Vita, and I Vitelloni. A movie I’d never seen until last summer at Cannes, called L’Estate Violenta (The Violent Summer), is one to look for.

Are certain genres harder for you?
I’ve always been kind of a wimp when it comes to horror movies, and have had to train myself to appreciate when they’re good. Final Destination 2 is full of complicated set pieces that are cinematically quite tricky to pull off. It’s like watching a magician trying to work new varieties on standard old tricks.

How does the viewing affect you?
I usually get to see a film once before I review it. Usually these are at press screenings, but certain kinds of movies—Jerry Bruckheimer action movies, gross-out comedies—the studios pretty much coerce you into seeing with an audience. It’s an attempt to manipulate the critics. But then Grindhouse was much better in a multiplex—it’s the kind of movie that critics will come to with an agenda, and a sense of their own sophistication, but not all audiences will be coming at it with that specialized point of view.

You get to see the best movies from around the world. How do you learn to appreciate, say, blockbuster action films?
Take Miami Vice. At the level of the story, it’s maybe not even a good cops-and-robbers movie. But visually, it’s quite extraordinary, shot in a new and unprecedented way—the Viper [digital camera] provides an almost infinite depth of field. If you approach it as a work of visual art, rather than storytelling, it’s tremendously interesting. Good movies come from all directions and in all varieties, and it’s always worth thinking about them proportionately.