ABSTRACT
The first chapters have chronicled the early crises of criticism and critics’ responses: attempts to assert authority with discourses of promotion and distinction, and by defining the critic’s proper relationship and proximity to the industry and to audiences. Indicative of contemporary trends, most critics were writing for the trade press or for the arts pages of dailies and weeklies. In the 1930s and certainly by the end of the Second World War, however, government institutions, museums, and other arts bodies had joined the earliest film critics in recognizing the potentials of film in a variety of social activities, including communication, education, the consumption and appreciation of art, and the “democratization” of the vanquished nations. These moves initiated, on the one hand, a broader cultural legitimacy for film and its critical practitioners; on the other hand, it produced competing definitions and imperatives for the critic. At the same time, the “snobbish” film magazines that Bazin had mooted in 1943 were being founded. In turn, as these grassroots movements proliferated and government organizations increasingly funded institutions designed to produce, disseminate, interpret, censor, or evaluate moving images, a more mature film culture developed. A younger generation of critics began posing fundamental questions about the purpose of their profession and film’s role in national and international culture. A more educated and confident readership challenged the authority of critics and agitated for its own specific interests and approaches towards film.
