Ryan McNeil
Friday morning, I found myself in an interesting discussion on Twitter. It all began with this tweet by my friend James McNally…
I wince every time I see BOYHOOD referred to as a “masterpiece,” all the while wishing Mr. Linklater every success.
— James McNally (@toscreenshots) July 18, 2014
Before anyone pro-BOYHOOD or anti-BOYHOOD gets up on their soapbox, let me say that what interests me today isn’t whether BOYHOOD is or isn’t a masterpiece. It wasn’t my interest on Friday, and it still isn’t these few days later. What does interest me is the very declaration of a masterpiece itself.
We live in an era of hyperbole. The latest is declared the greatest with increasing speed, often by people who want to take a thrill out of knowing they were the first to crown a new offering as champion. Opinions are not allowed to be any longer than one sentence – and lord help you if you want to use more than 140 characters. You cannot wait until the credits have finished rolling…cannot even wait until the lights come up. If you want to truly make your mark, you need to take your electronic gizmo out of your pocket and breathless publish to the world “________ is a Masterpiece!” and hope nobody beat you to it. You don’t know how the critical mass will receive it…don’t know how the public at large will take to it.
All you know is that it rocked your world, and before you light up a smoke you need to shout it from the open bedroom window.
In many respects, I believe this is what gets James’ goat (and a few others who joined into the conversation, lest it seems like I’m picking on James). The thought is that before we start throwing around “The M Word”, let’s see how we feel about it at year’s end. Hell, let’s see how we feel about it on Labour Day! Let us take time to let it rattle around in our brains. Let us watch every film that it reminds us of and see how it stacks up. Let us read interviews and listen to clips where the artists talk about what they were hoping to achieve, and ask ourselves if they achieved it. Let us seek out the works that influenced the film and decide whether the project stood on their shoulders or merely ripped them off.
Valid arguments all.
But what if we don’t do that?
What if we subject ourselves to a piece of art and see something we’ve never seen before. What if it leaves us uncertain of its meaning and it effect on everything else we’ve ever seen? What if it moves us deeply, delights us immensely, or inspires us in the very best ways? What then? Are we supposed to stand cheer and be content to say “that was wonderful?”…or are we as audiences and critics supposed to be able to recognize artistic genius when we are in its presence? Shouldn’t we be able to recognize merit, meaning, craft, creativity, and execution at the moment of its occurrence? There is much to be feared for giving in to fandom…should we not equally fear giving into our own skepticism?
What sort of fan would have walked away from Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire at Monterrey only to say “ask me again about it in five years”?
History is littered with critical thinkers who were unable to recognize genius in their midst. Impressionist painters like Monet were originally panned by critics who felt his work was too rustic and unfinished. When writing about The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, renowned rock critic Lester Bangs said “There is a sadness about the Stones now, because they amount to such an enormous ‘So what?'”. Or what about in 1967 when Bosley Crowther wrote a review of Bonnie and Clyde in The New York Times? On his opening weekend, when considering the seminal film he declared “a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy…ridiculous, camp tinctured travesties…with violence as pointless as it i lacking in taste”.
In Crowther’s case, his inability to recognize the artistic genius before him led to him being dropped as lead film critic after more than 30 years on the job.
Just as I believe that it’s important to hand out top marks when occasion arises, I believe it’s important to recognize the rare moments when one has been witness to something special. We live in a time where so much is so attainable – where the tools are so accessible that the playing field has never been more level. More than ever before, what audiences are bearing witness to is the product of vision, audacity, and raw. fucking. talent. I don’t know if BOYHOOD is a masterpiece – especially for a director like Linklater who likes to push the envelope of maverick-filmmaking so hard. He’s a spring chicken, relatively speaking, so he might well eclipse this effort in time. Or he might not. He might never again return to this level of ingenuity or experimentation. In that light, it could well be his masterpiece.
Even if it’s not, in the era of properties, remakes, reboots, franchises, and spin-offs, a film fan could easily be forgiven for calling BOYHOOD a masterpiece…even if it doesn’t prove to be Linklater’s masterpiece. These people are the ones who leap to their feet to begin a standing ovation, not the ones who slink up begrudgingly. They are the ones who are applauding as the pitcher gets ready to face the twenty-seventh batter, not the ones pumping their fists as strike three is called on a perfect game.
There is a place for such enthusiasm in the face of great cinema.
What would rather be? The person calling “Masterpiece!” and striking up the band? Or the skeptic shaking your head, not allowing yourself to be convinced until well after the victory parade has passed you by and all the ticker-tape has been swept from the streets. Or worse, being that person but still saying you need to see it a few more times?
Would you rather hail that which moves you, or wait it out and fall in with consensus?
I think the title of masterpiece cannot be awarded by those witnessing the event at the time of its initial release. A masterpiece is decided years later, potentially by the next generation. Yes, we can see something personal to the effect of “That moved me” or “I’ve never seen anything like that before” but a masterpiece is something universal, one which affects more than just a single person, which I feel cannot be decided upon within one encapsulated viewing.
As for where I stand, I rate films on my own site with a score out of 10. I’ve never given something I’ve only seen once a perfect score. Many have scored 9/10, and since then I would probably elevate them up a notch, but on that one viewing they haven’t yet acquired that perfect rating that means so much to me. The lucky few who achieve such greatness have been watched multiple times, and are generally appreciated more and more with each viewing. After all, can something really be defined as a “Masterpiece” if it relies upon an ending that is only impactful upon the first viewing, and when the second one rolls around it feels limp and lackluster in comparison, but the surprise and exhilaration of that first experience buoyed it up? I think not.
Also, I’m terrified of getting in first and calling something a classic, only for it to be deemed a dud and everyone ridicule me in retrospect.
Two things:
1 – The notion that a Masterpiece cannot be declared at point of release is the very idea I’m trying to question here. What would we have said at the time to those who walked away from Schindler’s List with reservations? or Apocalypse Now? or Star Wars? I’m not suggesting that the term get thrown around willy-nilly…but I believe that as a connoisseur of art – and certainly as a critic – there should be times where you recognize that you are in the presence of greatness.
2 – Star ratings are subjective, so please don’t take this as me trying to tell you how to write. In the past I’ve had many conversations with similar writers who has misgivings about giving out top marks. I said then – as I’ll say now – that being afraid to do so feels misguided.
When I read your site now, I’ll consider your rating as a scale of 1 – 9, knowing you never give out that 10th star. Wanting to give a film time to settle before you hail it is wise, but that’s what the hours and days in between the viewing and the writing are for. If you wait longer to see how it nestles, you aren’t critiquing it…you’re cementing its status within everything else that happened afterwards – and that’s not the same thing.
Hell, critic Pauline Kael was the one who famously only ever watched a movie once!
(I should have said “Two Long Things”. Alas.)
I do understand the hesitation – of not wanting to plant your flag in something only to look back weeks or months later with regret. To that I can only say to let yourself get too carried away, and to find that sweet spot between your head and your heart.
Heck – if you wanna have some fun, take a look at some of the movies I’ve given top marks to through the years. Believe me, there are a few in here I’d probably dial down a bit now…but there are plenty of others I’d switch them out for that would be dialed up…
http://www.thematinee.ca/tag/4-stars/
Boyhood is a masterpiece. There. I said it.
The notion that I can’t recognize something truly great and special is only very narrowly justified. I don’t throw around the “m” word much either. I can’t really think of any in the past few years I would consider a masterpiece. Boyhood is.
I could go on and on here about all of the reasons why I think it is, but the simple answer is, I know one when I see one. And this film is very very special. It will be timeless and it will almost certainly have the 99.99% unanimous praise that it currently has from fans and critics.
As for “rules”, I’m inclined to say that I think a director should probably have somewhat of a library of films under his or her belt before they get a film with the masterpiece label. That said, it’s certainly possible a director could nail it on the first try and then never really get there again.
As for star ratings, I’m pretty stingy about dishing out a perfect 5/5. I give out one a year – maybe two if I’m lucky. I’m not saying I have a quota. I just only see one or two per year that really move me and in my mind are perfect enough to warrant the 5 star treatment.
But even the ones I give 5 to aren’t necessarily masterpieces.
First off, the very notion of a “masterpiece” that everyone must love and/or respect seems hopelessly out of date. I believe that film “canons” are useful as an educational framework, but I’m more and more wary of enshrining any piece of art the older I get.
Secondly, people like Crowther and Monet’s contemporaries simply prove my point. It’s impossible to judge greatness in a moment. Films that will have lasting impact need to, uh, last and have impact. Anything else is guesswork, and, I fear in our hype-soaked world, prone to abuse by marketing departments.
Very few film critics today seem to operate with the long view in mind. Instead, we drink from the firehose of new releases, and let our knee jerk responses stand. There’s just no money in revisiting or reflecting or of deeper analysis outside of the current moment, and that leads to great marketing copy but lousy criticism.
I think the idea of masterpieces is interesting in that it reflects what might be a fairly standardized measure of “greatness,” and that’s useful to compare and calibrate our opinions to, but it’s difficult if not impossible to tune out the current hysteria of the media to really examine something. I’d say you’re perfectly within your right to trumpet a certain film’s greatness, but if you want to call it a masterpiece, I’d want to see your reflections on it five, ten, twenty years later.
Enthusiasm and visceral reactions are just that. If that’s what qualifies something as a masterpiece for you, then I think we have different definitions of the word. But thanks for a great post that made me think! 🙂
If you ask me, the time is never right to use the word “masterpiece”. I hate the word so much that I’ve written one entire blogpost about it and put it as my number 3 on a top ten list of words and expressions that I don’t want to see in film reviews.
Here’s just an excerpt of what I’ve written about it. I haven’t changed view since I wrote it:
“But if you just toss on the word “masterpiece” as a label on the movie: “The Masterpiece X”, you’re making a claim of objectivity, taking for granted that there is a general consensus that this movie is outstanding. It becomes untouchable, out of reach for discussion.
The word masterpiece indicates that you’ve taken a position above everyone else’s. You’re a self appointed judge, who thanks to your superior knowledge about the film art can make verdicts and distinguish the masterpieces from the rest.”
There’s no exact criteria for what is a masterpiece. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and if someone truly thinks something is a masterpiece then they should be able to say so. If every third film that person sees is a masterpiece, you’ll probably pay less attention to them, but that’s on them.
What Jay and James said. And also Jessica, in a way.
A major point I was going to make is one James made already – the examples you have like Crowther actually prove our point. His initial gut instinct of Bonnie & Clyde was proven “wrong” by history, so how do you know your initial gut instinct that something that just came out is a masterpiece won’t also be proven wrong? I don’t know if Crowther ever changed his mind, or published a follow-up, or anything else; the fact that he published a pan of a film that would later be considered a masterpiece is a large (and possibly unfortunate) part of his legacy.
Nobody thought anything of Vertigo when it was released, and now it’s #1 on Sight and Sound list. I know the topic is declaring a masterpiece too soon, but the point is really the same – how films are perceived and received changes over time, and the week something is released (or the month, or the year, even) is simply too soon to know how that film will be seen over time, which is part of what makes a masterpiece. It can’t be a masterpiece if everyone’s forgotten about it in ten years, and there’s no way you can know that for sure immediately upon release.
Now, what you’re talking about is that visceral gut punch, which is definitely real, and I’m not denying anybody that power, or the right to talk about how profoundly a film affected them. That’s real, and that’s immediate. That’s different than being a masterpiece. And if your point is to privilege subjective experience over objective criteria (I mean, however objective we can be in the first place), then why isn’t old Bosley Crowther just as entitled to his negative experience of Bonnie & Clyde without us shaming him over it as someone might be to their positive experience of, say, Boyhood?
Ultimately, the use of the term “masterpiece” within days and weeks of release is hyperbole. It’s part of the extremism of the moment that needs everything to be “the best ever” in order to be noticed. Why isn’t it good enough for someone to say “wow, that was an amazing film and an experience I’ll treasure.” Why the need to escalate it to be a “masterpiece”? As Jessica says, it may be time to retire the word altogether. Either it’s used too much or too soon to be really meaningful, or it’s used only to refer to the most canonical of canonical, the films that have been considered masterpieces for so long and by so many that it’s pointless to call them so.
“Ultimately, the use of the term “masterpiece” within days and weeks of release is hyperbole”
I don’t totally agree. Just because it may take some time for a movie to be “officially” recognized as a masterpiece, doesn’t mean it isn’t one right now.
I agree, there’s a knee-jerk reaction by a lot of people. But speaking for myself, I know when I’ve just seen something I will always consider a masterpiece. I’ve seen Boyhood twice now (months apart) and it might have gotten better on second watch.
I also think the movie will be just as great in 10 or 15 years – but for maybe totally different reasons. This is one sign of a masterpiece.
And for the first time in a long time (maybe ever), I feel that I would probably take real personal issue with anyone who dislikes Boyhood. I don’t ask that you love it, but if someone told me that aggressively dislike (or hate) Boyhood, I would really really not think much of them as a person. Weird.