I came across a post on Facebook that requested people to refrain from reviewing movies critically simply because they may not have the technical know-how to review one. True. Most of us are not screenplay writers, dialogue writers, story writers, haven’t taken even a single good selfie with the phone camera let alone shoot a good video, have no idea editing a video, no idea what goes on with dubbing, clueless about direction, post processing etc etc. True to a very good extent. But is that reason enough to refrain from reviewing the work?
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. If people who know how to make a movie start reviewing movies (keeping their opinions neutral), either you’ll get extremely caustic reviews or you’ll get very average reviews. The reason is this. The moment you know how to make something, you are wired to see things that way. It is very difficult to deliberately delink your knowledge of the subject and talk about it objectively. Implies, if you are a cameraman, you’d either see brilliant camera work (because the moviemaker has followed your school of thought) or very shabby 3rd grade camera work (because he hasn’t followed your school of thought). In both cases, you’ll be able to justify your review accurately assuming you are a skilled superstar with the camera.
That’s a very good reason why movies should not be reviewed by movie makers. That leaves a vast majority of people who are not movie makers to review the work. I do agree that getting very critical of the technical details is silly – simply because we are clueless what went into the making. But we can easily see what is less than perfect. And pointing out what is not perfect is extremely constructive if the movie makers and fan bases can see the reviews objectively. Very rarely the reviewers would take sides. If you know their inclinations, you know how to read their reviews as well. Think about it.
That holds for all other creative professions. The real problem with any work of creation is that they don’t have a quantified way of measuring the content. So a piece of work is just as brilliant to some folks as it is shabby for some others. It is best to not take it personal and refrain from getting personal in the reviews as well. The artists are gifted – if you don’t trust me, just try reciting some dialogues with all the right emotions, facial expressions and stance. Not some, try one. Now repeat for all types of emotions. If you could do that, just go and sign up for acting classes. If you can’t, you now know why those who do are gifted.