"Is it curtains for critics?"

"It appears that consumers no longer feel the need to obtain their opinions from on high: the authority of the critic, derived from their paid position on a newspaper, is diminished. Opinion has been democratised." Does this clean cause-and-effect explanation for the current upheaval in criticism really hold water? The Observer's Jay Rayner talks with a wide range of UK bloggers and professional critics about how their respective roles are changing - and in a followup blog entry, he opens the discussion up to readers. And of course, they're responding.

As sidebars, the Observer asks for comments from bloggers and critics, while Hermione Hoby and William Skidelsky offer a brief - very brief - guide to "critics now and then."

Updated through 7/15.

Updates, 7/15: Leo Robson offers examples of film reviews that operate "neither as a prelude to the filmgoing act nor as a substitute for it, but as an autonomous source of pleasure and instruction. If [criticism] is dying or dead, then we have lost a vibrant vehicle for the expression of ideas, a noble variant on the essay. It deserves a more grateful send-off."

Rob Gonsalves at Hollywood Bitchslap on the online avalanche that has befallen David Denby since his review of The Dark Knight appeared in the New Yorker just yesterday: "This isn't genuine intellectual give-and-take discussing a critic's take on a film; this is bullying, and since these are fanboys, it's probably a case of the once-bullied turning into bullies." July's an odd time for the magazine to release its most controversial issue of the year.

Posted by dwhudson at July 13, 2008 1:23 PM