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November 11, 2006
Film cynic David Thomson hates film festivals: like banquets held to prevent world hunger
Late-career movie elitist, hater of Kubrick and Welles, and adopted resident of Baghdad-by-the-Bay David Thomson banks a few bob as he insists the popularity of film festivals is a very bad thing. "Something has to be done about film festivals - they begin to haunt us, like banquets held to prevent world hunger... 
Do not rule out the possibility that as the quality of [American] movies declined, so the habit of festivals came into being... [N]obody interested in films is falling for this mania. The best we can do is try to ignore it... [T]he culture has slipped into a surfeit of movies. In 1974 there was really no such thing as video yet, let alone the profusion of outlets that now prevail, along with the chance to see movies on the internet. Every kid is his own film festival, and so festivals begin to be antiquated events, a focus and a forum where no such needs are felt... I urge a moratorium on festivals, a Cromwellian meanness about them. It's the only way we'll rediscover the heady fun of Restoration." [The extended comments do a fine job of taking on Mr. Thomson's self-regarding pecksniffery, including from "franzbiberkopf" of a passage not quoted: "This is—seriously—about the zillionth article DT has written that lists "some good films from 1974" in place of reasoned argument."]
Posted by Ray Pride at November 11, 2006 10:15 PM
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