carroll reply to critics

Author Meets Critics: Noël Carroll’s Engaging the Moving Image •

Film Studies • Issue 8 • Summer 2006 • 161

• Noël Carroll

First, I would like to thank Carl Plantinga fororganizing this session, thereby assuring that mybook has had at least three readers. He hasalready done more for me than my publisher.Second, let me thank my engagingcommentators for their challenging remarkswhich have forced me to clarify my positions inways that will undoubtedly make me a betterperson.

I

I will begin my response by focusing on MurraySmith’s comments, since he has concentrated onthe first chapter in Engaging the Moving Image:namely, ‘Forget the Medium!’

Smith is worried that I am what he calls a‘medium eliminativist’. He further argues thatone cannot reasonably be a mediumeliminativist, since artworks must be delivered totheir audiences via some medium. Obviously,Smith does not believe in telepathy, which isunfortunate, because were there telepathy wecould have cognitive film production along withcognitive film studies.

Anyway, with respect to film, or, as I prefer tosay, ‘the moving image’, I am not a mediumeliminativist, if that means that I think that thereis no physical stuff or no instruments from whichmoving images are made. If a mediumeliminativist denies that film media exist, then Idon’t see how I could be one, since, as Smithcorrectly observes, one of my arguments againstthe notion that there is a medium of film in thesingular is that I maintain that what we call film(or the moving image) comprises multiple media,including celluloid-based film and videotape,wide angle lenses and telephoto lenses, and soforth. I do not reject the assertion that film artreaches its audience through material means. I

only deny that there is one medium here – theone and only medium of film – and that itmandates anything about what should or shouldnot be made by a filmmaker either in terms ofstyle or content.

Since Smith acknowledges that I advance themultiple-media argument, it is unclear why hewould suspect me of medium eliminativism aswell as of denying that moving images reachtheir audiences via media. Smith appears toreach these conclusions by taking note that Ideny that every artform requires a medium in thestandard sense of that term – i.e., that it is anecessary condition of an artform that it have aphysical medium in which it is embodied. Smithconcludes from my denial that every artformrequires a medium that I am committed to theview that the artform of the moving image lacksmedia. But not only does this conflict with whatI’ve explicitly claimed, the allegation would alsoappear to rest upon a logical fallacy. From ‘Notevery art form requires media’ it does not followthat ‘No artform requires media.’ For example, itdoes not follow from ‘Literature does not possessmedia’ that ‘Film does not possess media.’ I’mcertainly not guilty of this dubious inference. I’mnot sure who is.

Smith rejects my claim that literature lacks aphysical medium in any interesting sense. Irejected words as a plausible candidate because Itake it that literary authors are not generallyconcerned with words as graphic entities butwith meanings which are not physical media.Smith acknowledges that this is probably what Ihave in mind in an endnote but argues thatwords as physical entities – namely, as sounds –are pertinent to the artform of literature. But aconcern with sound, though very germane tocertain literary genres, such as lyric poetry, is notof equal relevance to every literary form. Onedoes not try to perform the music of the wordsin most large novels either aloud or in one’s

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mind’s ear nor, in most cases, is one intended todo so. That most poems and some novels have amusical dimension does not show that a sonicaspect is an essential feature of everything weare wont to classify as literature.

But don’t we have to access literature throughsome medium? Of course. Yet we need to draw adistinction between cases where it is claimed thatthe physical media associated with an artformhave an artistically significant impact on thenature of what is created in that artform, versusthe case where the media in question are merelydelivery systems. The graphic text in most largenovels is just a delivery system. Literature as suchhas no physical media – neither pens nor ink –that influence the creative output of every author.

Not only does literature in general lack aphysical medium in any interesting, non-delivery-system sense; even if words were such amedium, they would not constitute a distinctiveliterary medium, since words are shared by manyartforms. Smith gives us an intriguing case inpoint – Michael Snow’s So Is This (1982), a filmof sentences. If words are a physical medium inthe relevant sense, then doesn’t this film show usthat words are one of the media of film as wellas of literature?

On the other hand, Smith seems to believethat Snow’s film vindicates the friends ofmedium-specificity talk, since we classify it as afilm rather than as a poem. Smith asks how wecan do this, unless we notice that the words aremounted on celluloid. But I think that Smith iswrong here. We categorize So Is This as a filmbecause we know the tradition in which Snow isworking. It fits into an ongoing conversationabout the nature of cinema. If Milton’s ParadiseLost were recorded on film – a page beingturned every thousand frames or so – and, if thatwas the only form in which it existed, we wouldnot call it a film, but a poem. The same would betrue if Ezra Pound initially ‘published’ his Cantoson film. Our classifications depend far more onhistory and what we know of the author’sintentions than upon that through whichmedium the work is delivered.

When I have urged folks to forget about themedium, I have done so in a context where what

people were being told to ignore were thetheoretical claims about medium-specificity –that is, the assertion that cinema has a uniquemedium and that the nature of that mediumdictates, in terms of style and/or content, whatshould or shouldn’t be made on film, or,alternatively, predicts what will succeed or fail onfilm. It is that proposition that my sloganencourages people to forget; that is the ambitionthat I say film theorists should abandon.

Smith points out that there are many reasonsnot to forget about the medium entirely. Artistsshould not forget about their media. It isimportant that they know about lenses in orderto attain the effects they intend. On page 241 ofEngaging the Moving Image, I observe that animage maker ought to be aware of the screenformat in which she is working, if only so thatshe can be sure that her audience will see whatshe wants them to see. Thus, I agree that artistsshould know the media that compose theirartform so that they can identify serviceable toolsfor realizing their purposes. But this hardlyamounts to an endorsement of the theory ofmedium-specificity. A carpenter is well advised toknow his hammers, but his hammers do notentail what sort of structures he should build.

Likewise, I agree that knowledge of what amedium can do might inspire image makers. It issaid that the Chicago school of TV realized thatthe capacity for immediate transmission madethe informality of early talk shows like the Todayshow with Dave Garraway a live option. Thatmay be true, but it scarcely supports theoreticalclaims like ‘All broadcast TV should exploit thephysical capacity of the medium to deliverspontaneous transmissions of events,’ nor thehypothesis that only programs that takeadvantage of TV’s potential for spontaneoustransmission will succeed .

My point is simply that theorists should giveup their obsession with medium-specificitytheses. That is what we should forget, what wetheorists should get over. And thatrecommendation is eminently compatible withthe perfectly unexceptionable truism that artistsshould be familiar with their tools and theirmaterials and the different, often non-

• Author Meets Critics: Noël Carroll’s Engaging the Moving Image

162 • Film Studies • Issue 8 • Summer 2006

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converging, opportunities that they afford.Moreover, in advocating that as theorists we

give up the idea of medium-specificity, I am notimplying that as critics we forget that so manyhave been convinced of versions of this view thatsome filmmakers have taken up their camerasexplicitly to rebel against it. Arguably that is partof what Snow is up to in So Is This. However,noting the role that beliefs about medium-specificity (whether pro or con) play in thegeneration of a work does not grant anycredibility to the notion of medium-specificity as a theoretical generalization. Understandingthe work of certain artists may involveappreciating their relationship to theosophy, butadverting to theosophy as a critic or interpreterin such a case, while doubtlessly legitimate, is, atthe same time, completely independent of thetruth or falsity of theosophy. So even if criticsmay sometimes have to refer to the concept ofmedium-specificity in order to make sense ofcertain films, that has nothing to do withsubstantiating the theory.

I should also confess that throughout Smith’sdiscussion I am not always sure that I understandhis points, since he often speaks of the filmmedium in the singular. But apart from the variousmedia, in the plural, that comprise the artform ofthe moving image, I don’t know what thatmedium is. He can’t, at this late date, be referringto film stock. So what does he have in mind? It ishard to evaluate claims on behalf of the mediumwhen one does not know what it is. The terms ofthe argument become far too abstract.

Smith has gallantly risen to his wife’s defense,challenging anyone who would besmirch her useof the idea of ‘the cinematic’. I commend hischivalry and, in any event, I never meant to berude to his wife. Like Smith, I usually understandwhat people mean when they use the term‘cinematic’. They are usually applying it, oftenunbeknownst to themselves, in virtue of aprevious medium-specificity theory that regardedwhat Smith calls some historically validatedpractice (or what I would call a period-specificstyle) as determined by the nature of themedium. The user may not be aware of thelawlike claims that motivate calling some films

cinematic and others not. But without thathistorical background of theory, one would notbe able to make sense out of the way in whichcertain films fall into the cinematic group andothers do not. Furthermore, because thatbackground of theory is conflicted, what cancount as cinematic is often stylistically extremelydivergent. The photographic realist will count aLumière actualité as very cinematic while amontagist will not. So in order to understandwhat someone is telling you when they saysomething is cinematic, you need to figure outwhat defunct theory is governing their usage ofthe term. And to do that, you have to look at thefilm they are describing and calculate under whattheory it would qualify as cinematic. But in thatcase, the term ‘cinematic’ is not informing youabout the film, but rather about the personusing that term.

Smith has presented me with an array ofinteresting challenges. Now I have one for him. Ifhe thinks that film theorists should not forgetabout the medium, then it is up to him toarticulate some pressing theoretical questionsthat can only be addressed by discussing thegeneric nature of the film medium. The burdenbelongs to him to show why the theorist cannotforget about the medium. For if there are nogeneral questions to which reference to the filmmedium, as classically construed, is relevant, whyshouldn’t film theorists forget about it?

II

Jinhee Choi has reservations about my accountof filmic communication. I claim that anaturalistic account of filmic communication –one based upon taking notice of our inheritedperceptual dispositions – goes further towardexplaining the emergence of film (or the movies)as a major form of mass art than do competingmodels such as the linguistic and/or semioticones. Choi does not appear to think that I ammistaken with respect to these rival approaches.But she does not think that I have canvassed allthe pertinent competing theoretical approaches.She emphasizes that I have not considered socio-economic explanations.

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I suppose that what I find most perplexingabout this objection is why I would need tocountenance socio-economic factors as rivalfactors rather than complementary factors to theones I wish to highlight. In the essay ‘Art andHuman Nature’, which Choi cites, I allege thattaking account of various hard-wired perceptualand emotive dispositions of the human organismwill make a significant contribution to what weshould say about the emergence of the movingimage as a mass artform. But I do not claim thatthis kind of research will tell the whole story.

Obviously, no matter how suited to receptionby the human frame an artwork is, if it isn’tdistributed by some socio-economic network, itwill not be consumed by mass audiences. Nomass distribution, no mass consumption. That isaxiomatic. That is true, no matter which modelof communication you opt for.

On the other hand, you do need something todistribute. The product, if communicative, mustbe informationally accessible. The naturalisticapproach assumes that there is an availableaccount of distribution as a complement, as doalternative theories of filmic communication –just as theories of distribution will assume theavailability of some account of what makes theproduct being distributed effectivelycommunicative. There is a natural division oflabor with respect to different research projectshere. Thus, I do not understand why socio-economic accounts of film distribution are beingposed as rivals to a naturalistic account of filmiccommunication.

Perhaps another way to put it is this: successas a mass artwork will depend on intrinsic factorsand extrinsic factors. Primary intrinsic features ofthe mass artwork are those that contribute to itsuser-friendliness; extrinsic factors will include adistribution system that will spread the work farand wide. The naturalistic hypotheses I advanceconcerning filmic communication explain in partsome of the ways in which films are intrinsicallyuser-friendly. How then intrinsically user-friendlyproducts get to their users calls for a differentorder of explanation – extrinsic explanationsinvolving institutional, industrial, and economicfactors. These are not competing research

programs, but complementary ones. Nor do I seewhy I need to embark upon this research projectmyself. That’s one of the advantages of being apiecemeal theorist.

Choi cites an economic factor in favor ofexplaining the increasing appearance of theclose-up in recent film – the filmmaker’sawareness that her film is going to show up onTV. This is certainly part of the explanation.However, it does not preclude a naturalisticsupplement: to wit, the close-up is favored in TVbecause of the biologically endowed attention-riveting and informationally rich potential of thehuman face.

So I would like to challenge themethodological basis of Choi’s objection tonaturalism. The naturalist need not be incompetition with socio-economic accounts.Rather, he should aspire to combining the bestsocio-economic hypotheses on offer with hisown theorizing.

Another challenge that Choi proposes for thenaturalist involves the so-called Art Cinema. But Ithink that I need not rise to the bait. I have beenpretty clear that the domain of my naturalistichypotheses is, first and foremost, the movingimage as mass art, the movies, if you will. It isprimarily with regard to the movies that I haveargued that the sort of cognitive/psychologicalconjectures I have developed may make some(and I underline some) explanatory contribution.But I am not convinced that I can nor that I amobliged to proffer an account of – as Choi puts it– the survival of the Art Cinema. Again, that isone of the perks of piecemeal theory; you don’thave to explain everything nor even make believethat it is within your power to do so.

Of course, the Art Cinema shares certainfeatures (like pictorial representation) with themovies which are also keyed to our enduringperceptual dispositions. However, the Art Cinemahas other features that preclude its function asan artform for mass untutored audiences, and itis these features that are constitutive of whatcounts as an instance of Art Cinema. The ArtCinema is designed for tutored audiences –audiences informed of certain traditions,interpretive strategies, and so forth. To account



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for the way in which such an enterprise can besustained will call for different approaches thanthe one I recommend for mass market-movies. Iimagine that these approaches will involve agreat deal of cultural and historical speculation. Iwould not anticipate that the Art Cinema couldbe theorized naturalistically to the same extentthat movies can be.1 But neither do I see why it isincumbent upon me to do so.

Lastly, some quibbles: Choi suggests that Ithink that movies serve some adaptive purposes.I do not. Though I think that art as such isadaptive, what I claim specifically about movieswith regard to our evolved human nature is thatthey tap into and take advantage of certainbiologically ingrained mechanisms – such asattentiveness to movement, facial recognition,and so on – that are adaptive.

Also, Choi says that the movement to fictionfilmmaking is to be explained economically onthe grounds that fiction films are easier to planand to shoot than actualities. I am no historian,but I can’t believe that Méliès’ A Trip to theMoon (1914) was easier to make than a Lumièredocumentary of workers leaving the factory orpassengers disembarking from a train. Am Imissing something here?

III

Cynthia Freeland has concentrated on myremarks about evaluating films. The essay inwhich these occur was merely an introduction tothe problems of film evaluation. It attempts tosolve some of these problems, but puts others toone side, acknowledging that my approach tothis area of inquiry is still an unfinished project.Consequently many of Freeland’s questions arefair, since I have not yet supplied answers tothem. Perhaps I can use this occasion in order toget a bit further on this topic. But I don’t expectto finish the job herein. Far from it.

First, let me get one thing out of the way – Ihave nothing against interpretation. I enjoyinterpretation. As a critic I have spent more braincells than you can count eking outinterpretations of the sublime and the ridiculous.My only point in the book is that academics

devote most of their energy to interpretingthings and are very guarded about evaluation,whereas most people are very keen on evaluationand less concerned with the non-obviousmeanings of films.

I propose that, to a certain extent, filmevaluation can be given a rational, objectivefoundation by appreciating that evaluativejudgments are generally based on categorization.Following Kendall Walton, I claim that this apsychological fact about humans. One evaluatessomething by placing it in a certain categorywith associated standards of excellence, andthen adjudges it to be good or bad of its kind.This doesn’t get us a rational, objectiveevaluation, however, since one may slot aparticular object in an opposite category forirrational or subjective reasons. To move from thefact that we categorize to the claim that we mayevaluate objectively, we need the idea that somecategories are correct and others not and thatwe have ways of telling which is which. So in thebook I try to spell out those ways while alsoconceding that this is not the whole story of filmevaluation. At best it would supply an account ofobjective evaluation in terms of whether thingsare good or bad of their kind or kinds. But whenwe evaluate a film, we may want to know morethan whether it is good of its kind; we may wantto know how it compares with other types ofthings. As Freeland correctly points out, I haveonly gestured in the direction of answering thatquestion.

But before trying to say more about that issue,let me address some of Freeland’s reservationsabout what I have said as opposed to what Ihave left unsaid.

Freeland wonders whether I am right inpresuming that all evaluation is rooted incategorization. In a footnote I acknowledge thatthere may be exceptions to this claim. If Kant isright, evaluations that something is beautiful inhis sense of free beauty are not based oncategorizations but are response-dependentjudgments. Maybe, Freeland speculates,empirical psychology will confirm Kant’shypothesis and discover even more examples ofcategory-independent evaluations. I wouldn’t

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want to foreclose this possibility on a priorigrounds. However, that would not show that agreat many of our evaluations are not categoryrelative, and that human artifacts – such as films– are especially susceptible to category- relativeevaluation, since they are made to serve somepoint or purpose. Therefore, any account of filmevaluation will have to include a part aboutcategory-relative evaluation. And I’ve started tosupply that part. Remember, I haven’t claimed tohave proposed a complete theory of filmevaluation.

Moreover, if there is a class of response-dependent evaluations whose objectivity needsdefense, when and if psychologists identify it, wemay have to locate correctness in the responses ofthose who have been habituated perceptually byexposure to the objects reckoned to possess therelevant values in the past to the point where theirsensitivities are so attuned and cultivated that weregard them as reliable natural detectors of therelevant values. That is, with the properties inquestion, if there are such response-dependentvalue properties, we may have to go theAristotelian-Humean route that Freeland suggests.

Though Freeland appears to agree that a greatdeal of film evaluation is category relative, andeven supplies a number of examples from recentreviews to bolster the view, she points out thatnot all the categories that critics invoke are filmcategories. First, let me make a brief commentabout the examples. They show that opting for acategory is a natural first move in film evaluation;they do not show that these are the correctcategories for the films in question. That may besubject to further debate. Second, though myexamples in the book are all of categories thatbelong to the history of film (rather than beingmedium specific), I am not committed to holdingthat only categories located in film history arethe correct ones. For example, a filmmaker mayattempt to realize a culturally pre-existingcategory which no other filmmaker haspreviously essayed – a Socratic Dialogue, forexample. I see no reason why in such a case itwould be inappropriate to classify the film underthe category of Socratic Dialogue and then toevaluate it – at least in part – in terms of the

relevant criteria of excellence which are generallyconnected to the purposes of the kind inquestion. Moreover, most of the film categoriesthat I do mention in the book – such asmelodrama – are hardly film specific. So I shouldnot be construed as requiring that the relevantcritical categories be limited to those available inthe history of film.

I should acknowledge that Freeland is notconvinced that film kinds and genres havepurposes, though I think to deny this in mostcases belies the undue influence of aestheticisms.Most genres in the generative sense – like mystery– as opposed to genres that are mere criticalconstructions have purposes. A classical detectivefiction is intended to incite curiosity aboutwhodunit. I do not think that can be denied.

Freeland and I also disagree over how difficultit can be to place films in categories. I think thatit is much easier than she does. I think thatMatthew Barney’s Cremaster series – which I toogreatly admire – is a very original contribution toa well-entrenched category to which KennethAnger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome(1954) and Harry Smith’s Heaven and EarthMagic (1962) also belong and which P. AdamsSitney labeled ‘mythopoetic cinema’ thirty yearsago.

As for Michael Moore, he has made knownthe category to which he believes Fahrenheit/911(2004) belongs. It is supposed to bedocumentary and partisan propaganda; the filmis intended, Moore says, to defeat Bush.Furthermore, films that straddle or mix thesecategories are well-precedented. Many filmsmade in the sixties and seventies of the leftpersuasion belonged to this category – call it‘agit-prop-doc’. And many of them expressed arage against, and hatred of, the powers that bethat is comparable to Moore’s. What is novelabout Fahrenheit/911 is not its category – whichis well known – but its venue. What is new aboutit is that something so vituperative has achievedsuch wide distribution and uptake. What oncewas restricted to the province of various counter-cultural enclaves has gone mainstream withFahrenehit/911. That, rather than its genre, iswhat is unprecedented. What the phenomenon



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suggests is that those of us who saw those agit-prop-docs in the sixties at SDS meetings nowwant to see them in our local cineplexes.

One might be tempted to think thatFahrenehit/911 represents a new genre becauseit appears to combine oxymoronic elements –documentary and propaganda ones. But this isnot bizarre rhetorically; one claims documentarystatus in order to be convincing. Of course, ifone’s propagandistic aims undermine theveracity of one’s assertions, that is likely togarner demerits on the documentary side of theledger – nonfiction films are beholden to thetruth. So such films are likely to call for mixedverdicts – pluses to the extent to which they winover the hearts and minds of their targetaudiences and minuses inasmuch as in order todo so they abandon faithfulness to accuracy,coherence and logic. And that is where I thinkFahrenheit/911 stands – it is very good at rallyingthe anti-Bush partisans and much less impressiveas a coherent argument.

Freeland accurately observes that I have notclaimed to have shown that every question aboutfilm evaluation can be managed by theprocedures that I outline. We may wish to knowmore about a film than whether it is good of itskind or good of its various kinds (if it inhabitsmore than one category). We may wish tocompare its value to films of different categories.Freeland wants to know whether that can bedone and, if it can be, can that sort of evaluationbe carried off objectively?

These are very complicated issues. My hunch isthat if we are prepared to evaluate certain filmsoutside the categories they inhabit or to comparethem outside the categories they share (forexample, two films might be compared in virtueof being narratives), then it is likely to be in virtueof some estimate of their importance to thelarger culture in which the evaluation is beingproffered. That is, if we think that it is notnonsensical to compare certain categoricallydivergent films, then we need some commonmeasure of their worth that is substantialenough to make a difference in terms of theirvalue as works of art. The contribution of thefilm in question or the type or genre of the film

to the culture seems to be about the onlyplausible measure in this neighborhood. And italso appears, in fact, to be the first considerationwe muster when we try to justify comparativejudgments of this sort..

If we think – as I believe we do – that, allthings considered, Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion(1937) is better than Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice(1988), since both are exquisite examples of their respective kinds and excellent in thecategories they share, it is, ex hypothesi, mostprobable that we think that the contribution toour moral and intellectual culture that the Renoirfilm makes is greater than that of the Burtonfilm. Speaking crudely and only heuristically, wemight try to represent this by saying that on ascale of minus-ten to plus-ten, both films get anine-point-nine in terms of category excellence.But on a similarly calibrated scale for culturalimportance, let us say that Grand Illusionreceives a nine-point-nine again whereasBeetlejuice only receives a six. Overall, then,Grand Illusion would merit nineteen-point-eightpoints whereas Beetlejuice would only garnerfifteen-point-nine points where the point spread,I propose, is most plausibly attributable to thedifferent cultural weight that we assign to therespective films.

Though we may be uncomfortable inadmitting it, where we feel confident in claimingof one of two films of barely commensurablecategories that the latter is superior to theformer, I conjecture that that is probably becausewe are convinced that the latter (or the categoryto which the latter belongs) is superior to theformer (and/or its category). That is whatgrounds our assessment. Indeed, it is difficult toimagine what other grounds there might be thatare serious enough to warrant the relevantjudgment. The only reason we feel nervousabout confessing this, moreover, is that many ofus are still in the grips of the ideology of theautonomy of art which dictates thatconsiderations of social importance should bebeyond the pale. And yet as members of society,we cannot but help to harken to its claims whenit comes to assessing almost everything,including art.

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Undoubtedly these hasty suggestions open ahornet’s nest of problems. Here are some hardquestions and some tentative answers:

(1) Does it make sense to compare every filmin this way? Probably not. But where we want tomake the comparison, this seems the only way togo. That is, where the comparison does not seemsilly, this appears to be the only reasonableoption for assessing comparatively films ofextremely divergent categories.

(2) Will this approach always yield adeterminate answer? No. It will not where we arenot satisfied that we can attribute determinatevariable weights to the cultural contributions ofthe respective films. Nevertheless, agreeing thatconclusive results may often be elusive isconsistent with saying that such results can besecured sometimes. Moreover, I think that we willbe increasingly reassured in issuing judgments ofcultural importance as films undergo the test oftime. Furthermore, such judgments will be easierto reach where there is a wide value gap betweenthe films in question – as there is between CitizenKane (1941) and Flash Gordon Conquers theUniverse (1940). But where the value gap is small,say between two masterpieces, things becomeprogressively inconclusive and perhaps even silly.

(3) How likely is it that agreement can bereached in disputes over the value of films byappealing to cultural importance, since disputantsare apt to weight differently the criteria they useto estimate cultural importance? Obviously, manydisputes may remain unresolved. However, thereis no reason to think that some will not besettled. We should not expect to resolve everydispute in film evaluation. We have not done thatin any other field of inquiry.

(4) If people weight the criteria differently thatthey use to assign cultural importance, won’tthere always be some lingeringrelativity/subjectivity at this level of filmevaluation? Won’t it be more difficult toestablish objectivity at this level of film evaluationthan at the level of judgments in virtue ofcategories? Yes. But again there are no a priorigrounds to suppose that in some cases, throughdiscussion and reflection, the appropriate weightof the pertinent criteria cannot be ascertained

(especially over time), and the verdict berendered objective.

Freeland points out that in order to assesscultural importance, questions of morality willmost often need to come into play. For somereason, she thinks that I might object to this. ButI have always defended a role for moraljudgment in artistic evaluation. Perhaps Freelandfears that questions of morality will make theprocess subjective. In contrast, I think that to thedegree to which morality has an objective basis,morality will, to the extent it figures in filmevaluation, lend its objectivity to film criticism.Likewise, where moral assessments reach thelimits of objectivity, so too will film evaluationsthat are motivated by them.

In sum, there may be – I think that it is likelythat there are – some film evaluations that canbe made outside the context of categories. Thoseevaluations, I conjecture, will depend uponadding into our all-things-considered assessmentof the films in question both their value (ordisvalue) as instances of the kind or kinds theyinhabit plus the value (or disvalue) of theircultural contribution – which may includemultiple factors involving the ways in which theyinfluence the modes of feeling and thinking ofthe relevant culture. I speculate that in somecases we will be able to arrive at theseevaluations determinately, rationally, andobjectively. In other cases, it may be (i) silly to askfor more than a categorical evaluation, (ii) theremay be no determinate evaluation reachable,and (iii) it may not be possible to weight thecriteria necessary for fixing cultural importance ina way that avoids relativizing the overalljudgments to the interests of different parties. Allthese obstacles must be acknowledged. But thatdoes not preclude the possibility that in somecases – through deliberation and conversation –we cannot reach rational and objectiveconclusions. How will we know which cases? Bycontinuing engagement with and discussion ofthe canon of film history.

Smith concluded by asking whether I thoughtthat there was a special role for film studies. Thismay be it.



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Note

1 Choi’s remarks about Baldwinism in this regard arequite provocative, but I wonder whether she canpursue this particular line of inquiry withoutcolliding head-on with the socio-economic case thatshe earlier propounded against my naturalism.

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