'Audiences and critics to a lesser extent have no taste and they keep supporting awful films. They get exactly what they deserve.'
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I agree that we get the Cinema we deserve, and that film critique is currently in poor shape.
That being said, I'm myself always somewhat loath to engage people about their 'tastes'. First, because "one has the tastes one can afford, not the tastes one chooses". Second, because I think it's perfectly all right to have a taste for 'bad movies': how everyone decides to spend their precious time is their own business after all.
However, what I find more preoccupying, is moviegoers not being able to 'recognize' bad films, or not able to articulate why they are bad (or good, for that matter). In other words, audiences being less and less cineliterate, and confusing opinion or trivia with film critique.
'I mean, there are people who still think that The Dark Knight is a good movie. I don't even know how to engage with these people'.
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That's the other problem, I think. Cinephiles not being able to 'engage' with each other anymore, and discuss films rationally and argumentatively, based on a certain knowledge of film language and the history of the medium (instead of, say, systematically siding with a particular studio, or comparing box office gross). This is where confusing opinion with critique doesn't help.
As Boileau said, "whatever is well conceived is clearly said, And the words to say it flow with ease" : if you had to explain to an intelligent interlocutor demonstrating good faith, why would you say The Dark Knight is not a good film?
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