Mark Kermode: Hatchet Job

Cinema connoisseur Mark Kermode is back in town to discuss his new book ‘Hatchet Job’ and explore the question – Who needs professional film critics?
Holly Cozens catches up with him to talk about the tour

How’s the tour going?

‘Yeah, it’s pretty much all sold out which is nice. Obviously I’ve done a lot of the venues before, including Duke Of York’s Picturehouse so it’s all going very well and the great thing is you never know what people are going to ask.

I talk for about 45 mins about stuff from the book. I don’t read from the book because I can’t read out loud so I just ramble incoherently about the book and then we do questions from the audience for about 45mins and that’s always the best bit for me because you never know what people are going to ask. They come up with really wonderful things which means none of the talks are ever really the same, it’s always nice to hear what people want to know about.’

The Duke of York’s is a bit of an institution in Brighton, how do you feel going back there?

‘Yeah I’ve done book tours there before and it’s a lovely venue and very good audiences. I’ve got relatives in Brighton anyway, my cousin lives here so I’ve been a couple of times and it’s just a really nice venue to do it in. Every time you do one of these tours, how good it is, is pretty much defined by how good the audience is. What interesting questions they have and what they want to talk about.

I do remember the last time I was there, the Q and A went on for a lot longer than it should have done. I have a real affection for venues that care about doing cinema the way it should be done instead of dreary boring old warehouse multiplexes with which I’m less than enamoured.’

Your third book ‘Hatchet Job’ asks the question of who needs professional film critics now everyone’s a critic. How important is it to educate yourself on the subject of film before you start commenting on it?

‘What I think is, the basic rules of film criticism whether you’re writing for the internet or print or television or whatever it is, are fundamentally unchangeable. Firstly you need to have seen a lot of films because you need to be able to contextualise what you’re seeing. A proper film review should accurately describe what the film is – who made it, where it came from etc and then paint it within the landscape of cinema – what does it refer to, is it a remake, is it connected to another movie?

Beyond that you need to assess whether the film works on certain terms – if it’s a comedy, does it make you laugh? If it’s a horror film, is it scary? and then beyond that it’s your own opinion and your own opinion is completely personal. Obviously your own opinion is totally subjective and everyone is entitled to their own views. It’s like that old saying ‘the thing about arseholes is everyone’s got one yet everyone thinks theirs is the only one that doesn’t stink’.’

What do you look for in a film review?

‘I do think the most important thing is if I’m interested in someone’s opinion I want to know, who are they and what is their basis for thinking this. If somebody said to me ‘this is the best film I’ve seen all year’ then I want to know ‘well, what else have you seen this year’.

What I want from a film critic is someone who has seen a lot of films, who can discuss the film and be informative and entertaining while delivering an opinion that I can either take or leave as long as they’re honest about it. The more you stake your reputation on your honest opinion of a film, the more integrity you will have as a critic.

I talk in the book about my relationship with Alexander Walker and our run-ins regarding director Ken Russell. We had great disagreements about his work but Alex still stood by his opinion, I may have disagreed with what he said but I was interested by what he had to say but he stood by his reviews. He believed honestly and passionately in what he was saying which is all you can ask for.’

Do you find it difficult sometimes to write a film review when you have a particular passion for that filmmaker?

‘I think it’s very difficult to not have passion towards certain filmmakers. When you’ve been watching films for 20, 30 even 40 years you are bound to become passionate. Also, people don’t get into film criticism because they don’t like movies, they do it because they do it.

If someone said to you ‘would you like to spend the rest of your life in a darkened room, eating nothing but sandwiches, watching everything that ever comes out, even if that happens to be Fred The Movie or Sex and the City 2, the only people that are gonna say yes to that proposition are people that love cinema.’

In your opinion, who do you feel film criticism is for?

‘Funnily enough, there was a chapter in a book I read before this called ‘What Are Film Critics For?’ It was particularly inspired by a YouGov poll in 2000 which discovered two very alarming things. The first was that I was the most trusted film critic in the UK, despite receiving just 3% of the vote.

Now this tells you something about film criticism. The fact that I could be the most trusted film critic in the UK is alarming enough but also that only less than 3% of the people they asked trust me shows you just how much people generally trust film criticism. The problem with that figure is that it’s asking people who they trust to tell them what to watch and what not to watch. I have always said film critics aren’t here to tell you what to watch, only you can do that.’

So what should a film critic be there to do?

‘What a film critic is there to do is discuss films in a way that is intelligent, informative and hopefully entertaining. I am not saying I am any of those things but the people that I admire are and that’s what film criticism is about. It is about discussion about the culture of cinema. The same way we discuss books, art or architecture, it is part of an ongoing discussion.

It is not there to say ‘like this film, don’t like this film’. I always said if film critics actually had any say over what films people go and see, the top ten box office chart would not look like it does. You know, if it did then show me the brilliant reviews that made Transformers 2 take all that money.

I think anyone who likes cinema is interested in having discussions about cinema and then it is up to everyone who they want to have those discussions with. For me, I would like to have discussions with someone who has devoted part of their life to watching as many films as they can and most importantly that includes the good and the bad, not someone who just watched whatever happens to be the blockbuster that week. You know, people who do the ground work.

Kim Newman writes the ‘Video Dungeon’ column for Empire magazine and he has seen a incredible back catalogue of horror films spanning from very bad to very good. He will tell you, you have to see the bad to appreciate what good looks like. I watch about 30 straight-to-DVD titles a month and I don’t regret watching any of them because you have to wade through everything to know what good is.’

Now with the internet being a much more present outlet for film reviewing as well as print, how do you see the future of film criticism?

‘I feel it’s important to say that whether you are writing for print or writing for online, the principles should stay the same. You know, my book is not only in physical form but also available to read on a download. The Observer, for instance, once that goes to print it also goes straight up on the internet. It’s important not to get bogged down with what the outlet is, just that the fundamental rules remain the same. Some blogs that I have read have been more informative than some people that work in print. The rules of the game haven’t changed, just the way we can access film reviews.’

Do you think film critics can use their status to help lesser known films get to a wider audience?

‘The way a film critic can help a film to be seen is to talk about that film. There are smaller movies that have struggled to find an audience that have benefited by being talked abut by high profile film critics. Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian will often get behind something that will then be helped by that higher level of coverage so I think that can be the case, yes.’

So on that note, what film would you like to mention, maybe the best film you have seen this year?

‘Good Vibrations. I absolutely loved it. I just thought it was brilliant. It’s the story of Terri Hooley in 1970s Belfast and the development of the Good Vibrations record label. Apart from anything I am very interested in pop music in movies. I am about to start working on my next book which is called ‘How Does It Feel?, about pop music in movies. I think ‘Good Vibrations’ was one of those films that managed to capture the sublime joy of hearing a pop record for the first time and how radical and important pop music music can be. I want more people to see it.’