Unmaking the Grade (Patreon)

In addition to watching and writing reviews for the various fall festivals (TIFF, NYFF, Crossroads), this is also the time of year when I start scouting films for my November program at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. And as I'm sure many of you know, switching between those two hats -- critic and programmer -- can be tricky even in the best of times.

But yesterday I received an email from a filmmaker whose work I deeply respect. And she wrote the following:

I have been uncomfortable, with having my films judged and graded in the "films seen section" of your website. It is one thing that you do that, but another to voluntarily subject myself to it. [...] I considered replying to you a  few weeks ago with the explicit request not to list them as seen and  graded, but that felt really awkward, and also embarrassing. 

I really appreciated this feedback, because it's honest and direct. I have heard through the grapevine over the years that other filmmakers have their problems with how I do things, but this request made me look back on a nearly 20-year practice of giving grades out of ten, and a lot has changed.

Back when I started, there were not many critics who specialized in experimental film. In fact, some folks argued that experimental film and commercial narrative cinema were completely different media, with little to no relationship between them. I wanted to challenge this notion, adopting an admittedly polemical "one world" attitude towards cinema. And part of this was awarding grades, something I didn't see anyone else doing at the time. It was a strategy to combat a tendency in avant-garde circles to avoid any negative commentary, which at the time seemed like uncritical cheerleading.

When I was questioned on the issue a few years back by programmer / filmmaker David Dinnell, I explained that the grades were a kind of evaluative shorthand, allowing me to separate my overall appreciation for a given work from my own writing about it. It was a mnemonic device to streamline my judgments, producing a record that would guide me even when I no longer remembered the specifics of the film itself.

But here's the thing. It was never meant to be objective. At best, it allowed for a "distant reading" approach, where I could get a broad overview of what the cinema had offered me and how I received it. I knew that some people may not like it, but it felt like my job demanded that I distinguish between quality and mediocrity in some lasting way. 

I'm not sure that's the case anymore. For one thing, I do more writing than I did before, and it's easier to look back at my written analyses for a more nuanced look at the films I've watched. For another, I have generally been examining various aspects of my life, seeing which parts may have been steered by my mild autism and not by rational thought. And I am wondering whether the grades out of ten were, at least partly, a way for my brain to try turning chaos into order.

I also think that experimental film has a different place in the world -- a bit easier to see, but still precarious -- than it did in 2001. It's vital that we respond to things as they really are, not just expect the larger world to conform to our own perceptions.

But really, I have grown bored with my own habits, and this has spilled over into being bored with cinema and my relationship to it. This tells me that changes are in order. And so, I have decided to stop grading films.

For the remainder of the year, I will continue grading, but those grades will only be available on a private link. (Regular readers can probably figure out how to access that page.) But on January 1, 2023, there will be no ratings for new films anywhere -- not on the Academic Hack, Letterboxd, or Twitter. (This will also permit me to view some films without any real response, which will be helpful for a number of reasons.)

And just to make it plain, this does not reflect my attitude toward other writers and critics who use their own rating systems. I am not "anti-grade," just anti-grading for me, for the future. My Films Seen page lists what I've watched without listing grades, and my Letterboxd account will do the same from here on out. I will continue compiling yearly best-of lists, and so one can reasonably intuit where a given film would fall on the old scale. But that is up to the reader, to engage or to avoid.

And maybe, just for old time's sake, if I ever encounter another 10/10, I'll say so.