Critics Slam Nicholas Cage Sci Fi Movie - Knowing
Why Was This Great Film Universally Panned by Critics and Audiences?
Apr 17, 2009
What’s happened to film criticism? There was once upon a time when reviews were read because of the personality of their writer and whether or not they liked the movie was of little consequence.
A critic was read not only because they were a trusted and unique voice but because their writing offered valuable insights into their lives and psyches; their loves, their fears, their social morals, etc. The film was the starting point for the review and the rest was an exploration through intelligence, emotion and life experience.
Modern Film Criticism
These days most critics can’t seem to get past what is presented to them on the surface of a film. Critics spend far too much time getting caught up in how clever they can be and can’t be bothered to look inside a film and share their experience of what they found. They’d rather write with a sarcastic grin than with their heart and/or mind, the womb where all great art is born from.
For proof look no further than Alex Proyas’ new film Knowing, which sits at an ungodly 34 percent on Rottontomatoes.com’s Tomatometer and exists in a long line of good recent films that have been chewed up and spit out by cynical critics who couldn’t be bothered to read between the lines, giving them the time and effort that they deserve.
Films like The Happening and Terrence Malick’s The New World. Terrence Malick was once considered the great poet of the American cinema. Now, in 2006, he is no more than a pretentious windbag?
Films Comprised of Images and Ideas
Let’s be real here. These are films comprised of images and ideas, their narrative acting, not as a ride between point A and B but rather as a way to express their meaning. They ooze with beauty, intelligence and emotion and their ideas creep off the screen and follow the viewer home because the film simply is not big enough to contain them.
These are films that exemplify what Jean Renoir was talking about when he said that the songwriter is usually greater than the song. A great film may end, but its impact will linger on long beyond its running time. The film was the starting point, the viewers emotional reaction to it is the heart of the experience.
All of this comes down to something the great Sidney Lumet said in his book Making Movies. He said that critics like stylized filmmakers (Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, say *Lumet does not use these men as specific examples*)because they are decorators whose style can be easily spotted.
That’s appealing to a critic because it plays right into their hands, giving them something they feel that they can reach out and touch. That of course is not true style, but that’s not the point of this editorial.
The point is that Lumet’s thoughts on how critics relate to style seem to apply to narrative now as well. Critics like films whose meaning plays right into their hands: films that basically write their own reviews.
The Dark Knight was so loved by critics in part because it put its spectacle up front and made its ying/yang imagery relatively simple on the surface, and the critics screamed: oooh wasn’t Heath Ledger creepy; ahhh weren’t those action sequence masterful; eureka! what an in-depth meditation on good and evil. (Note- this is not to take away from The Dark Knight, which is really a complex film below the surface.)
Knowing's Dilemma
However, a film like Knowing provides an interesting dilemma. Sure, it’s spectacular, but it’s also deeply symbolic and comprised of contradictory images that run underneath the surface of the narrative from beginning to end.
What’s remarkable about Knowing is not how negative the reviews were, but how short-sighted. Most concentrated on how the film begins with a promising premise and then falls off the deep end and into the realms of the preposterous in the final act.
What the reviews fail to do is find the meaning behind the narrative and trying to unlock why the film would choose such an inexplicable path, but of course, writing it off is easier than actually dealing with it.
The truth is that the film is an unending barrage of images, both religious and scientific, that are constantly placed together in contradictory terms. The story may be preposterous but the ideas that this evokes are very real and the film is brave in the extremes it is willing to take them to make its point.
Spoilers Ahead
Look at the ending again and see that it is still dealing with the same issues raised at the beginning, which is whether or not human existence is random or predetermined by some higher being.
When those strange cloaked men appear in their real form, it is easy to assume they are aliens, but watch when they take off into space and see the faint silhouette of wings appear on their backs.
Similarly, the final image of a sole tree in the middle of a vast field as strange spaceships blast off around it is both Biblical and scientific. Is this the rebirth of humanity into the Garden of Eden or the beginnings of a new alien planet?
The Brilliance of Knowing
That’s the brilliance of Knowing: it is smart enough to raise hard questions about the nature of life and existence, but never sells itself short by pretending it has the answers. Questions offer infinite opportunity for speculation, while answers simply confine the viewer to sharing a film’s personal stance. Therefore, the audience is left with something to take with them and ponder in relation to themselves. By raising questions, this, and other films like it, force audiences to look inside themselves for the answers.
And at its very least, isn’t Knowing awesome entertainment? It’s a shame that these qualities are now looked down upon by the very people who are put in place to keep intelligent and emotional film debate alive.
More Thoughts on Criticsm Here and Here
