A less "thinky" Voice.

"For everyone fretting about the changes sweeping the vaunted film section of the Village Voice, you can relax: Jim Hoberman is staying." So begins ST VanAirsdale's well-reported, all-known-bases-covered piece at the Reeler on just what the hell is going on at whatever it is that remains of the beacon of film culture Hoberman himself eulogized on the occasion of the alternative weekly's 50th anniversary.

Updated through 11/18.

Emphasizing Hoberman's sticking it out, come what may, the Reeler reveals why all parties involved are so insistent on emphasizing it themselves: "The interim replacement for fired section editor Dennis Lim may have lasted only two days before giving his notice, the budget may roughly amount to just a third of its size prior to last winter's merger with the New Times chain, the popular year-end critics' poll may have been cancelled, a number of respected freelance critics and feature writers may have disappeared from its pages and its de-emphasis on local independent and repertory releases may end up alienating some of its advertisers, but at least you have that one institutional continuity to bank on."

Talking to the departed and the newbies alike, ST VanAirsdale then investigates each item on this list of ailments. For anyone even remotely interested in the state of film criticism in the US, this is a must-read. For a whole slew of disparate reasons; in fact, the number of issues raised here just begging for immediate comment - complaints from other New Times papers, for example, that the section that had cultivated a relationship with its readers over half a century was "too 'thinky' and 'dense'" - I want to just briefly add a word about one: "[R]eaders have not surged to the barricades in the paper's defense. And whatever their level of distress at a system that can single-handedly wreck a film with the same negative review splashed across 17 markets, New York's industry insiders have yet to mount even a semi-organized campaign - behind the scenes or otherwise - summoning an alternative."

As someone who's been reading and deeply appreciating the Voice, all its sections, for most of my adult life, I'll nonetheless suggest that perhaps industry folk aren't complaining because no alternative needs to be summoned. Alternatives abound. From studio publicists all the way down to the loner DIY filmmaker, the challenge is no longer finding a way to get word out about this or that film; it's whittling down the almost overwhelming array of choices to some sort of coherent strategy for reaching an audience most likely to be interested.

Consider, for example, new staffer Nathan Lee's favorite film of the year so far, according to the Reeler piece, Syndromes and a Century. You don't have to think too far back to remember a time when the only way most of us industry outsiders would have even heard of such a film's existence would be, first, via a report from Cannes or Toronto in an alternative weekly or, weeks, probably months later, in a film journal. Then, in this lucky instance, since it also screened at the New York Film Festival, maybe another hundred words or so in the New York Times. Then the long and perhaps futile search for a VHS copy would begin.

I don't have to point out to anyone reading these words here how radically that game of Chinese whispers has changed all up and down the line in just a few short years. As a loyal reader over here in Berlin, I'm glad to know where I'll be able to find J Hoberman's reviews each week. But given the state of the Voice's film section at the moment, it wouldn't be terribly rattling to read them via a click on some other address.

Updates, 11/18: "If the Voice can't be thinky and dense, then who can?" asks Bilge Ebiri. "A significant part of New York film culture is an esoteric one, and a significant part of New York's film readership happens to be comprised of pointy-headed nerds who happen to like thinky, dense pieces."

In the print version of the current issue of Film Comment, Dudley Andrew reviews The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits, edited just in time by Dennis Lim: "I'm one of those who take Paris to be cinema's first city, but New York looks like a rival when 50 years of the Voice's film pages are stacked up. Like no other source, the Voice has kept up a buzz among films, filmmakers, theaters and audiences specific to the city."

In his editor's letter introducing the issue, Gavin Smith is more critical of Dennis Lim's selections, but the mere fact that he's chosen to devote his entire column to the upheaval in the weekly's film pages speaks all our concerns, as does his opening sentence: "In the annals of modern American film criticism, three periodicals have traditionally held sway as opinion builders: The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Village Voice." If that's so, we've only got one left until another one, two or more emerge - probably online.

Posted by dwhudson at November 15, 2006 2:12 PM