Psycho. #5

Does objectivity exist in art criticism? Caspar, who is always right, answers.

As a film writer/critic, how do you balance your own genre prejudices when judging a film? I, for instance, know that I will enjoy a 5/10 razzle-dazzle musical more than an 8/10 western, while still recognising that the western is probably better by any objective standard.

I feel like this question isn’t, actually, just about genre prejudices, but — as surely as a river must flow to the sea — returns us once again to the far wider question of how a reviewer, with their foibles and personal tastes, can ever do justice to a presumed (There it is! Oh boy, I see it coming! It’s a big one!) objectivity. Tun-dun-DUN!!!!

This week’s questioner probably knows this already, that the idea of objectivity in the field of art is nothing but a sinkhole into which thousands of people, words, essays, films keep falling. And yet I don’t want to be so coarse as to suggest that there is no such thing as rules; that art isn’t bound by certain steadfast criteria that can be appraised with a degree of objectivity.