The Permanent Crisis of Film Criticism: The Anxiety of Authority (Film Theory in Media History)

Film criticism is in crisis. Bemoaning the current anarchy of Internet amateurs and the lack of authoritative critics in a time of laid-off film reporters, many journalists and scholars claim that cultural commentary has become dumbed down and fragmented in the digital age. Mattias Frey, arguing against this idea, examines the history of film discourse in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He demonstrates that since its origins, film criticism has always found itself in crisis: the need to show critical authority and the anxieties over challenges to that authority have been long-standing concerns.