Jonny Neeves

Whether we, as critics, can truly make a difference in this age of the internet remains to be seen, but I feel like people still recognize that critics have a greater understanding of how films work. For that reason they’ll stay relevant – peaking and troughing in that relevance dependent on the person you’re asking. However, I think the bigger compliment is that critics remain the final bastion against the financial super-machines plaguing film. The uninformed – and I don’t mean that insultingly as anyone who doesn’t spend time analyzing something is inherently uninformed – don’t have any collective consciousness near enough to making decisions against the malpractices of Hollywood (for example).

If a film is unambiguously terrible then critics will always try their best to recognize that for the betterment of film in society. People are free to not pay attention, but it’s equivalent in my mind to a fitness instructor warning a budding athlete not to try too much too early. Ultimately, they’re and we’re in a position where we have a professional eye and as such our role is to tell people the ‘truth’. Maybe that’s an incredibly naive position to take but it’s something that we need to believe. This isn’t about validating our position but about believing that what we’re doing serves a greater purpose to society.

In terms of the ending to No Country For Old Men, I’ve always enjoyed it on several levels. On the contextual point of how it serves the film: you’re looking at a man who has come to understand the almost inevitable process of what’s to come, and in many ways he recognizes his fate more than Llewellyn, who is being chased by something of a fate incarnate.

I do especially like how it requires change in the viewer as well. It’s made more difficult by the juxtaposition of the Sheriff’s weirdly acceptant attitude and our non-acceptance at what isn’t a ‘traditional’ ending in any form. For the vast majority of people watching the film, they must change their perception of what constitutes an ending and change a somewhat innate human mentality of despairing at anything that appears difficult and nihilistic; ironically, I think there’s more hope at the end than nihilism.

He’s incredibly stylized and has a knack for etching pastiches of genres together in a way that usually feels fairly original. I think that he can fall into the trap of over-glorifying violence when perhaps he doesn’t need to, but I can’t really hate what he does too much considering the argument would be he’s doing it to make a point.

I don’t necessarily think that he deserves the accolades that the great film-makers get, but I do think he is undoubtedly important in the context of post-90s film-making. I’m still uncertain how he’ll be viewed in 20-30 years, but currently he’s at least a film-maker that you expect to make something completely different to anyone else working. That might also be the reason he remains something of an outcast – in the good sense I’d hasten to add.